We're trying to buy a house.
I promise, this will tie back into the defeating thought patterns we can fall into.
Buying a house means that we need to get our townhouse ready to list and sell. I'm sitting typing this as the oven is "self cleaning"... which I think really just means filling the house with toxic smoke, in some old pint-covered shorts and a tank that has a big hole on the side. I'm sitting on the couch right now with Luna next to me, while Dan is at the gym.
The gym is a place I haven't been to in months, because (if you read my little intro on my boudoir page) I have been feeling defeated at the gym since I can't do what I "should" be able to do... so I make the choice not to go at all. So, again, here I am sitting on the couch in raggedy clothes, in a smoke filled room, while Dan's working out.
Now just that alone is fine, we do not need to go to the gym together, and I can totally hang out on the couch and type my first blog post ever while inhaling fumes if I want to. But, I am also sitting here thinking "my legs look so lumpy and have lost all their muscle definition, I should put leggings on before he gets back here!".
This is how my brain works, I think this is the case for a lot of us. Why? Because we are bombarded by needing to fix our imperfections. I feel crappy about myself, and companies can make money off my self depreciating ideas. Okay, we know all this. I have spent countless dollars on things over the years that I thought would help me not age (just an odd concept), give me energy like when I was a teenager, or help get rid of cellulite. Guess what? None of them worked, and I didn't stick to any of them, and now I can't even find my curling iron behind a bunch of different creams and plastic cupping torture devices.
To this day, the best I have ever felt about myself was at my own boudoir session almost a year post car accident. I felt indescribably confident, I walked out of there like I could walk into any place and immediately people would think "Damn, that girl is radiating confidence". I would say it lasted to that degree about a week... and it was glorious. The crazy part is NOTHING changed. My cellulite existed, my acne was there, my awkwardness, short legs and both toenails that grow out of my left pinky toe were all present and accounted for. So how did I feel so good? I did something for myself, to feel beautiful and sexy with zero expectations or standards. I was comparing myself to myself... and everything about that sessions made me feel as though I wasn't as "imperfect" as I had thought I was walking in the door. My imperfections are all in my head anyway, just ask my anxiety.
A few years later, I'm still able to find that source of confidence by throwing my camera on a tripod and taking some boudoir selfies. 100% of the time I look better in the pictures than I think I actually look. This is the power of boudoir, the fact that we can see ourselves through a different lens. This doesn't fix everything, and I'm still sitting here on the couch staring at the giant dimple's on the side of my leg... and those dimples are still in the selfies - they're just not the only thing I fixate on.
I have not typed anything since a college thesis and clinical notes... and I am pretty sure all things need to end with this statement: So, in conclusion, find a way to see your whole self. All of you, it is magical.
What are the things you do to build yourself up, and do you think about taking action on them or take action?