How much time have you spent looking in the mirror being unhappy with what you see?

How normal is to to watch our friends, Sisters, Mothers and Grandmothers look in the mirror and judge themselves? Berate themselves? Depress themselves?

There are entire industries dependant on women looking into mirrors and feeling unhappy. And quite frankly, I’ve had enough.

Let’s learn how to love your body.

^^^ She isn’t looking for anything positive. She’s seeing the worst of herself. And she is almost every woman reading this.

This might be quite a difficult image for a lot of people. This is a true representation however of what it looks like when you stand in front of the mirror and look for things you don’t like.

It wasn’t hard for me to find this image either, a quick search for “woman, mirror” brought this up. The normality of this negative correlation is disturbing to me.

But it is everywhere.

Anytime you see an advert with a woman looking in a mirror she’s either

a) unhappy

b) happy because she’s just lost some weight and now loves her body

There isn’t another option.

Or is there…?

Mirror Mirror on the wall…

^^^ This baby knows whats up

When you introduce mirrors to babies and young children they’re fascinated by it. They’ll look at themselves for as long as you let them.

They’ll smile and laugh. They’ll touch the mirror. How many of us have a baby picture of us kissing our mirror self?

Why, as adults, is that now unacceptable?

There is a belief that women who can love their bodies are somehow vain.

That girls are supposed to be modest and quietly beautiful, waiting for compliments from other people but never drawing attention to their own beauty. Playing it down, always.

“You’re so vain, you probably think this post is about you”

^^^ this post is about you though.

The idea that only vain women take selfies or check themselves out in the mirror is bullshit.

Strong women respect their bodies and are accepting of what they see.
Happy women can look at themselves and appreciate how they look.
Confident women become confident because they do love their body

and why is loving yourself bad?

When you stop and look at that sentence it seems ridiculous to suggest that this act of self love is bad or even pitiful.

How to love your body

You might be reading this thinking that you’re not ready to check yourself out in the mirror because you still see things that you don’t like.

And thats ok.

You don’t have to be 100% happy with every aspect of your physical being but you do yourself a disservice when you only highlight the parts you aren’t too pleased with.

People may assume that if you’re happy with what you see that you’re somehow “giving up”, that you’re not going to “try” to improve yourself anymore, that you’re just “accepting” how you look – as if its a resignation of failure.

NO.

Accepting how you look is about finding the areas of your body that you like, maybe even love, and letting those be your focus.  While making the personal choice to improve upon areas that you personally would like to see improved.

We are all focused on how other people will feel when they see us.

Will they think I’m fat?
What if I have no make up on?
What if my hair is a mess?
Will I be the fattest one there?

Always “What will other people think”. As if the opinions of other people are more important than our inner voice.

Here’s the thing…

No-one else gets to live in your body.

And no-one else’s opinion matters.

Flex and Smile

^^^ My flex and smile!

This is why I’m making this post. This picture right here. This is a picture that I would never have taken before because this is how I would have seen it go… comments like

“how cocky is she by posting that”
“she’s really showing off”
“she pure loves herself”

And you know what? I do love my arms and I am showing off cos damn! I’ve never had upper body strength before. I’ve never had definition there.

And I do love myself.

And my positive attitude towards my body is nothing to do with how anyone else looks.

Girls with less muscle are still as beautiful and as worthy of love.
Girls with more muscle don’t make my muscle any less important.

I am choosing to focus on the areas that I love and I choose to improve upon the areas that I would like to see improved.

Taking this approach has changed my entire perspective of how my body looks, how it should look and why it matters.

So today, find a mirror and check out the body that you have.

And know that whatever you’ve put it through it’s here. It’s looking after you. It’s keeping you alive. It’s the only place you have to live and you are the only person that matters when it comes to how you look.

Every time you pass a mirror – Flex and smile.

Ainzlie xx

P.s – do you want to find your strength and build upon the beauty that you already have? Get in touch and let’s start today – I have one spot left for the next month. Now’s the time.