JTS Week 1: My Body Image Journey

Hello All!

I know it's been a minute, but I am back with another post and my first post for Journey to Self September. As you seen in the last post, week 1 is all about self/body image and in today's post I will be opening up to you guys and keeping it real about my self image journey. So with that being said...let's get in to today's post!

My self-image journey has been an annoying one at times, one that has broken me at a certain point, but a triumphant one in the end. I've been told everything from my feet are ugly, my eyebrows were bushy, my lips are huge, I needed to gain weight, I need to get breast implants, I need butt implants, my friend looked better, ETC., you name it...I've probably heard it.

Once upon a time in high school my lil boo told me that my feet were ugly because my toes were skinny (and they are...at that point I'd had them for about 17 years so I like...I know this) and y'all know what I did? For a whole year I wore closed toe shoes, EVEN IN THE SUMMER, and summer in Oklahoma is HOT, okay. Thankfully I eventually thought to myself this is so stupid, I'm going to wear my sandals and whoever doesn't like it, doesn't like it, you're about to get whatever toes you I give you.

Fast forward to a few years later, I remember I found myself lowkey checkin' for this guy in college, we chopped it up from time to time, and so one day we were talking and I'm not sure how the conversation started, but he said something to the effect of "you're not thick enough." I'm like uhhh...okay. So we're just going to throw out my actual QUALITIES and focus on the shortcomings of my physical attributes? Got it. Needless to say, I stopped checkin' for him because what I'm not going to do is try to change myself for someone that thinks that shallow. This wasn't the first time I'd heard that and it certainly was not the last time . When people look at me they're like why would you complain about or feel a way about your physique? Though the compliments and the gassing me up with fake jealousy that my waist is small and my butt looks "big" because of my frame made me smile, you get tired of hearing the same thing over and over from people you call yourself checkin' for and they're like NAH sis, gain weight.

I've actually always been up and down in my weight and struggled with maintaining one size, with several factors at the core of it. My metabolism being super fast is one of them and also when I'm going through a super stressful time, I start to lose weight, not intentionally of course, but my eating habits tend to be T-RASH. I'll eat here and there because I'm focused on getting something done, kind of like now, I am SUPER hungry because I have to get this post done chile.

Just like it was then...thick is the thing to be now whether it's naturally or cosmetically enhanced, and I look and see that folks are suffering and some are actually dying from these hip and butt injections/implants they are getting or have gotten, and to me....it's just not worth it. I appreciate people like K. Michelle coming out and sharing her story about how her body alterations started to heavily affect her life drastically  and LaLa for producing the Killer Curves documentary. So many women are and I think the risks should be brought to the light so that it is taken into consideration before making such a change to your body. Also, it's so important that if you do decide to undergo surgery to do whatever you feel is necessary to make yourself feel good, do it for YOURSELF, no one else.

Another part of my body-image journey is feeling a certain way about my skin color. Not wishing that I was white, because I've never seen being Black as an affliction, I consider it an advantage. At times, I wished that I was fully black and had darker skin because in my mind and really the way society is set up, my blackness and worth to get certain things would be a lot harder to question.

Colorism is REAL from all standpoints, no point or feeling is invalid, and I have multiple feelings about it.

One of those feelings is that I hate feeling like the token negro that was hired or chosen for the role because folks NEEDED someone black, but not someone who's body produced too much melanin. On the other hand, I also hate that some people question the opportunities I've been given because I am fair-skinned, as if I wasn't good enough to get the chance based off of my own merit.

Also, there is a notion of a certain skin tone, especially among women, being the equivalent to beauty and that's just not right. I'm a realist and I'm one of those people who KNOWS that just because you have fair-skin that it doesn't automatically make you cute, trust me I know. There are plenty of women with darker skin that look a hell of a lot better than I do and leave me in AWE of their beauty and there light skin women that I know have been gassed up because they are light skin.

There have been times that I've haven't felt good enough nor pretty enough compared to those around me, but then I had to realize that by comparing myself I was robbing myself of my own uniqueness. As I've gotten older and gotten to a place of acceptance in my body/self-image journey, I've learned to work through those feelings of inadequacy as far as my physical appearance and begin to focus on what's really important. I had to get out of the habit of basing my worth or self-confidence off of what other people have to say about me or what society deems as beautiful or perfect.

MY Creator deemed me worthy and made me FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY and I know that beauty is FLEETING.

So instead of focusing on superficial things that God does not care about, I am focused on becoming the best me that I can be. I am working on my soul and embracing my SLIM frame, small boobs, skinny toes, big lips, fast metabolism, and my skin that annoyingly tans and burns in splotches. I know that my purpose is bigger than my physical appearance and I'm hoping that through this post, I am able to reach someone that may be struggling with heir own self-image journey.

Just know that you are WORTHY, you are enough, and you are exactly who God created and intended you to be. You are LIT, sis.

-xoxo

Angie