I hope everyone had a fabulous New Years Eve weekend; it is so hard to believe that we are now in the year 2017.  Time to make this year the best year and for you and your look!  We have reached the fifth, and final reason why your style may not be fully expressing who you are; and reason number five is not fully embracing your body image.  I know it can be hard to feel confident in your look when you don’t feel great about your body. I have always struggled with keeping those last 10 pounds off my body. I know when I shed the weight my look is so much more polished and I love it.  I also feel so much lighter and full of energy.  I also have struggled with my height; I always believed that I needed to be taller. I am barely 5’2″ and feel like certain outfits don’t look good on me because I don’t have the height to make it work.  I used to live by all these restrictions. After the consistent annoyance of feeling uncomfortable in my own body, I started to root down where these standards and limitations were coming from I  soon began to realize that they were coming from media and our culture.

The truth is there are no restrictions; there are no rules to beauty. There are no standards set that say you have to be a certain height, weight, bone structure or have a particular look to be beautiful. I had confused the qualifications of being a model with the standards of beauty. I recognized that magazines and media were teaching me what the definition of beauty was and because I wasn’t those things, I felt that I was not enough. Because of these beliefs when my seasons of weight gain came on, I would wear my clothes in shame. I used clothing to hide those extra pounds and felt less than because of it. My look suffered because my confidence plummeted.  Other times I would love an outfit and want to purchase it, but when I tried it on and looked in the mirror, I thought I am not tall enough for this look.  I put it back and didn’t purchase it. Regardless of the fact that it looked great on me, I had an image in my mind on how it was supposed to look and so I didn’t see it and walked away feeling like I wasn’t enough.

The one good thing that came of this ugly part of my journey is that it drew the realization that no one defines my beauty but myself. I was holding back my true beauty because I didn’t understand from where it truly came.  I was looking outwards for a standard when the standard for my beauty was always right there under my nose; it was inside of me. Women, we define our beauty.  Beauty is not perfection; it is imperfections.  Beauty is not some inches in height; Beauty is your unique laugh. Beauty is not some pounds in weight; Beauty is that little crinkle in your nose when you smile. Beauty is not an image you see on a magazine; Beauty is freedom to be fully who you were created to be.  Embrace your body, spirit, and mind, for they are all the elements that make you beautiful.

Love in Abundance,

Jamie