And no, I'm not talking about the death and replacement of my cells within the past few months, *ba dum tss* which, by the time you finish reading this sentence, 50 million of your cells will have died and been replaced by others.
Maybe you've noticed, maybe you've haven't..but I recently got sucked into the world of fashion and dressing up and it changed me quite a lot. I've always been self conscious about my body and the way I look and I got so used to always being doubtful of the way I look that I didn't know that this place where I am right now even exists. Where I am right now is just the most wonderful place. I've stopped being self conscious about myself and I now LOVE myself exactly the way I am.
It's actually really funny and maybe even contradictory because back when I was super self conscious, I didn't dress up all that well even though I wanted to. I would always blame myself, tell myself that I don't look good in anything because my arms are too flabby or my thighs are too big. Now, I look forward to dolling up and dressing up every single day which is the funny part. If I had truly accepted myself, why am I putting on more make up than before? Why do I feel the need to dress up every single day? It may seem funny to you, but I'm doing those things because I LIKE it. It doesn't mean that I do not accept my bare face or whatever. I'm dressing up and dolling up because I like it and I like treating myself to pretty clothes. I deserve to feel pretty. Everyone deserves at least that.
I was called out a lot during my high school years for being 'fat'. Funny thing is even though I do not have pictures of myself during my pre-teen years, I'm pretty sure I wasn't fat, only chubby at most. All the name calling and relatives' comments (an Asian thing, sigh) about my weight and the shape of my face made me believe I really was fat. In hindsight, I was never really fat, I was just a chubby but happy and healthy kid before society started making me feel bad for having *gasps* fats! This obsession that everyone has with trying to be skinny needs to stop. I'm not bashing anyone who has naturally high metabolism rate and is naturally skinny, I'm just saying that our society needs to stop expecting every girl to look like that !
It's kinda also an Asian thing. Us Asians have such pressure to remain petite and skinny. It's disgusting how strangers or 'aunties' and 'uncles' that you've just met will comment on your weight. It can be especially hurtful if it's people that are close to you that are commenting on your weight.
I'm not saying that loving yourself exactly the way you are means that you're not allowed to indulge in self-improvements because ' if you love yourself the way you are why are you even on a diet/putting on so much make up ? ' is bullshit.
What I'm saying is you NEED to love yourself. And if you want to shed some pounds, do it with the right mindset. If you starve yourself because you hate yourself for being fat, etc, you will never quite be happy. At least, that's what I think. Over the years, I have gone on some diets and lost some weight and at one point I even starved myself and got skinny but I was never REALLY and TRULY happy. Of course, the weight shot back up after I started eating normally again. I just thought that if I just lost the weight and get skinny for real I would finally be happy. How horribly and disgustingly wrong I was!
Right now, my self confidence is in a very happy place. I still want to shed some pounds but I'm doing it slowly and with the right mindset this time. I'm improving myself because I love myself and I want the best for myself.
As to how I got here, I can't tell you exactly how I got here because I don't really know, but I think fashion kinda save my (self-confidence) life. Indulging in fashion and searching for my personal style really brought me out of my rut and it's all thanks to Jenn Im (!) , a fashion vlogger in Youtube. She introduced me to the wonders of dressing up and personal style and somehow, that saved me from the hell hole of self loathing that I was in. I have so much love for her and she won't even ever know I exist but that's okay.
So since this post has been a wall of texts so far (boring!), here are some of my favourite pictures of myself in the past few months.
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