New Year, New Me... Or Not

"Don't breathe... hold it in". It was 11 p.m. and my husband was already asleep when the blue hue of my phone began to irritate a headache that I had already had for four hours prior. "Tighten your core. Now don't breathe... hold it in". Those were the words now plastered onto my eyes as I watched an influencer's post play over and over again trying to take notes. She had posted a video on how influencers pose for photos while visiting different locations, such as the beach, in order to get the perfect shot. She was laying on the sand in a tan bikini with her flawlessly tan skin and perfect beach-wave blonde hair blowing in the wind like she was on a 'Beachbody' commercial. She had a toned body and not a single sight of cellulite or fat on her. She didn't have saddle bags weighing on her hips and she had the perfect sized chest. She, in my perspective, had the perfect female body.

For years I had told myself that one day that was going to be me. I have a pretty average body for a woman. I am 5'4" and have curves that make jean shopping absolute hell on Earth. I also have muffin tops that were in the oven for just the perfect amount of time that even with high waisted pants, they still peek out to say "Hello" to the world from time to time. I would wear shirts a size too big for years and I always made sure they were baggy and not tight so that when I sat down to eat you couldn't see my food baby trying to pop out. Don’t get me wrong, I would work out. I knew that if I wanted to change how I looked I needed to work out and actually try to lose the weight. Did it work? Well… yes and no.

See in order to achieve realistic goals we need our actions to be for the right reason. What was my reason? Vanity, revenge, self-worth, or was it something with actual good intention? All of the above to be honest with you. Every New Year’s I would make the same ridiculous resolution to be the bad a** babe with the perfect body. I have thought for years that being that skinny model I saw on my Instagram was my ideal goal and who I wanted to be. However, I needed to find out why I wanted this so badly before I used all of my time, energy, and love to be this “New Me”.

My body has always bothered me. In sixth grade I had trained myself to breathe lighter and longer so that I could keep a small waist and a stiff posture. I would always think in my head, “Don’t breathe… hold it in”. My entire life I have imagined myself as unacceptable. I would constantly compare myself to Every. Single. Girl. I ever saw. I would look in the mirror and grab at my skin as if it would turn to clay and I could just mold myself into my ideal self. I hated how I looked and would begin to infiltrate my life with lies, negativity, false acceptance, boys, and low self-esteem. I was completely boy berserk. I thought that whatever the male species thought of me was what I should define myself as. If it was a bad reaction, I would do everything I could to change that opinion. I was never happy with just being myself and I had a hard time not giving a single care about what others thought. Why did I care so much? They had absolutely NO part in my design. Not then and not now.

So, what helped change my mentality? Well, in order to ask this question, I first have to ask this. Did my mentality change? Absolutely not. Sure, it’s not as bad as it used to be, but I am only human. I can’t just stop comparing myself. Influencers don’t even do that! If they could influence themselves and others as well as they portray in their posts, we wouldn’t have body positivity propaganda plastered on our social timelines anymore. Is it even possible to accept ourselves completely and to stop comparing ourselves to others? Not entirely, but we can at least do our best to cancel out some of the negativity in our lives. We can stop viewing influencers posts like we do to damage our self-esteem and instead start to actually fill our feeds with positivity and real-life body goals that are obtainable to our specific wants and needs. We shouldn’t want to change our appearance for vanity or a feeling of self-worth. We should be trying to reach body goals based on health and happiness. Instead of picking apart our bodies because we simply don’t look like this model, we should be pointing out things we want to work on because of the positive impact it can have on our health and our mind.

I want to stop beating myself up for somehow always going up a jean size every time I wake up. I want to be able to push myself into getting rid of the excess fat I have on my hips because I know they are something that causes actual pain when I sit down or lay down for too long. When I go to bed it is hard to let my husband wrap his arms around me because I am ashamed of my stomach. I need to be okay with my body. My stomach adds that extra cushion for my husband’s hands when he squeezes me tight; and my thighs add those curves he loves when he sees me in a dress maybe a tad too tight. If we are honest to ourselves, we know that our friends and families love us for who we are but the biggest enemy of our self-worth and confidence is ourselves. I will not be comfortable in my own skin until I am ready to accept who I am and am ready to get out and make the difference I want to see for myself. We all need to do this in order to achieve any goals we set for ourselves.

We need to throw out the “New Year, New Me” culture because let’s be honest life throws us a lot of setbacks and obstacles. For those of us who had this mentality for the year of 2020 certainly were not expecting Covid-19 and the yearlong quarantine we have all endured. We all need to instead create the “New Me” culture. Let our “New Me” goal reach for better health and body positivity that radiates through us and impacts the generations around us. Let’s learn to be okay with our imperfections and to instead work on achieving a healthier version of ourselves. Our bodies were meant to look different. If we all looked the same, we would never have the uniqueness and individuality we all bring to the world. If we all had the same body type, we wouldn’t have influencers or even models. We would all just be the same. Obtaining our goals such as healthier eating habits, weight loss, weight gain, or even better mental health will not be easy.

Oh yeah! Before our wrap this all up I want to take us back to the beginning when I mentioned that post I was watching. While I became so consumed but her video showing how influencers posed for their photos and how in order to be like them I needed to 'suck it in, and not breathe'. I glanced down at her caption and was taken back when her post changed the way I looked at the video a second time. She wrote, "Online IS NOT real." This changed my perspective so fast! I had studied that video and imagined myself as the girl pictured on the beach and then continued to critique how I looked compared to her. I needed to stop!

I read her caption again. She explained what she did in order to get that perfect pose. She obtained it in nine simple steps. She arched her back, rested her body on her arm, tightened her core, held her breath, and slightly lifted her front leg so her bottom wouldn't look smooshed. She then pointed her toes, lifted her arm to look taller, and tried to look relaxed. She ended her tutorial by stating it was uncomfortable. It wasn't at all real. We see influencers suck it in to seem like they have the perfect body. Truth is, if we were to really lay on the beach for a photo we would have our curves giving us away with our cellulite and our stomachs relaxed and mushy on the warm sand. Our hair would be a mess with sand and seaweed in it and our skin would be slowly burning with either a tan peeking through or a lobster tail growing on some of us. No matter if we are the model or ourselves. Both are at a beach and both are beautiful. I am not at all knocking down influencers. They never intend to body shame anyone. We do that to ourselves.

In today’s society image is held on a high pedestal, the idea of being perfect in everyone’s eyes is considered a holy grail. It can seem at times as unobtainable and only for those with flawless beauty and/or money to help achieve it. We all keep chasing the same ghost. Perfection simply doesn’t exist. Look at anyone in the world. Yet we are all beautiful in our own way. Society’s beauty standard should not be something we consume our daily life in. We should not change who we are to fit in a tiny glass box for the world to judge and pick apart. We would should only change who we are to be a better and healthier version of ourselves. At our own pace. In our own way. We are the new us. I am my “New Me”.