Beauty Unleashed!

Body shaming hurts ten times worse when it's YOU who is doing the shaming! I'm being transparent and sharing a personal journey of mine while bringing new meaning to the phrase "love the skin you're in!" I took the picture you see last month and it was an unexpected moment of breakthrough for me! See, I typically would only take pics from the chest up or just a simple selfie. I had not felt confident about taking full body pictures of myself since high school, which was many years ago. I was out with friends wearing the dress you see in the picture. It was new and I felt like showing it off a little so I decided to wear it not knowing that day would be a life changing moment to remember! Everything was fine until one of my friends asked me to take a picture in my new dress. I immediately shook my head and told him I didn't want any full body pics and he didn't understand why I was feeling the way I did. He and the rest of my friends kept telling me how beautiful I looked in my dress and how I should really have a picture taken.

Well, I eventually couldn't keep resisting them so I agreed and one of my friends took the picture with my phone. You may not be able to tell but I was so nervous about how the pictures would come out because I was expecting to not like what I see. But then the breakthrough happened. My friend took the pics and he started saying how good they came out as he handed me my phone. I thought he was just being nice but then I looked at my pictures and I was blown away! They actually did come out great and I was able to look at the pictures and smile. For the first time in a long time, I saw my beauty! I was finally able to see the beauty that many had been seeing for a long time. I hugged and thanked my friend for pushing me out of my box and place of hiding by encouraging me to take these pictures. I posted this picture and the other ones that he took on my Facebook page that same day and I did it with confidence! I felt good about myself again and it was a feeling that is hard to fully express in words.

Within minutes of posting the pics, people began to flood my post with likes and comments saying how beautiful I looked and how much they loved the photos! A couple of days later I made a post similar to the story I'm sharing with you here and the response I received blew my mind!!! Women left and right were thanking me for my transparency and for sharing my journey! Some of them sent me private messages and shared details about the way my post helped them feel empowered and better about who they were as beautiful full-figured women! I was shocked because I had no idea that there a lot of women right within my circle who were facing the same opposition of embracing their beauty and not measuring their appearance to the world's standards. I wanted women to see that our hips and our curves were a force to be reckoned with and we have NOTHING to be ashamed of!

It's crazy how a person's dysfunction can numb them to the point that they forget it's there, even though they are carrying the weight of it on a regular basis! THIS WAS ME! I was so ashamed of my own body and had convinced myself not to take any full body pictures of myself until I could lose weight and be a certain size, but that's not true. While I am working to be an healthier me, I know that not every woman (me being one of them) is not meant to be a size two or size three. Full-figured women are beautiful people too who deserve to be loved, respected and appreciated by others. Beauty does not start and stop with a size five or six. Body shaming would cease if more people embraced this concept and it is sad that we live in a world that measures beauty to very shallow, demeaning and unrealistic standards. But I've come to understand that I can't control the words, thoughts and behavior of other people. I can't fix another person's choice to be ignorant of the truth.

I can only control myself and change really does start within. Changing my mind about how I see myself and walking in that change with all confidence is what makes my truth what it is! The voice of my truth, the words of affirmation that I speak over myself are much louder than the words of negative people who are attempting to uplift themselves by tearing me down. Years of body shaming myself and questioning my beauty as a result of past experiences in my life, BROKE INSTANTLY after seeing myself in those photos!!! Those pics were truly worth a thousand words and they were a mirror to the beauty that had been there all along! The mark of my past has been erased and the chains are BROKEN! This is what my exodus season looks like! I am paying it forward by sharing my journey with women around the world and living my best life with no intent of returning to the place of defeat! I am BOLD, BRILLIANT, & BEAUTIFUL!