Social Media Awareness: Being Happy.

‘Body Confidence doesn’t come from trying to achieve the ‘perfect body’. It comes from embracing the one you’ve already got’.

Hey everyone,

Today I thought that I’d share with you a post that is close to my heart and that everyone needs to be talking about more.

Some of you who follow my Instagram will know that I posted a while ago touching on the topic of social media and its potential to have negative impacts on body confidence. You can see my post here  [link].

While we all don’t want to admit it, many of us have an extremely complicated relationship with our bodies. Beyond all the photos on social media like 90% of people, I tend not to show my flaws or insecurities.  I pose, I wear makeup, I filter my images and try to show the best parts, but beyond the wall we may put up, we all have insecurities- we all have parts of our bodies that we may not like so much.

I’m no expert, but I feel like social media has a huge impact on people respecting and loving themselves for who they are. These are only my personal thoughts and feelings towards the subject, but I believe more people should be talking about these issues so we can support one another and help lift the pressures that social media can put on us..

I see so many beautiful, incredible, talented and unique men and women around me comparing themselves to others and not feeling happy, healthy or beautiful in themselves because of these societal pressures.

I’m not here to say that platforms, like Instagram are bad – because they aren’t.

It actually happens to be one of the tools that has helped me massively over the last few months to overcome a lot of negative feelings that I’ve had towards myself, my health and the way I feel about my body.

I was choosing to follow people that I ended up comparing myself to daily and who were making me feel less confident, uninspired and that my body wasn’t ‘good enough’. This was in no way anything to do with them, it was just how I would feel when coming across certain images. I decided to unfollow some of these people, to see if it would stop me from constantly putting myself down about certain areas of my body. It has helped, and allowed me to realise that Social media does have a huge effect on us all. I mean a lot of us are on it between 2-6 hours a day, which is a crazy amount of photos/accounts that you could be looking through, which could be causing you to feel less confident.

Social media has the ability to cause people to feel insecure and unsure of themselves as result of our needs to compare and ‘live up’ to what we see online. Every day we see the best moments of people lives through Instagram. We have to remember there’s much more that goes on in peoples lives behind the screens, so whilst you’re scrolling through those holiday body and underwear selfies remember, Instagram doesn’t always reflect real life.

We shouldn’t be sucked into the comparison trap or obsessing over other peoples images. It has a huge impact on how you feel and view yourself, and how you feel on the inside.

The one thing I wish I’d learnt a while ago (which may seem like the obvious), is that no matter how I eat or exercise I will always have a unique body and it will never mirror anyone else’s exactly.

It really is about how you feel on the inside and your outlook on things that has the most positive impact though.

Being happy is about balance. Accepting that we all have our own insecurities and that we all have good days and bad days – but life is short and accepting parts of yourself along the way helps.

What’s important to emphasise is that we are all different – we all live different lives, have unique, beautiful bodies that come in different shapes sizes; we lead different lifestyles and have individual ways of expressing ourselves.

It’s good to tune in to your mind and body and its perfectly OK to ask for support or to talk to someone about how you may be feeling.

Embrace yourself. Embrace your bodies. Our bums, boobs, arms, stomachs, lumps, bumps, scars, spots and hair, are all natural, normal and beautiful. All those things that are made out to be ‘judged’ or ‘frowned upon’ when THEY ARE NOT, they are normal and natural.

Focus on what makes you happy and what makes you feel good. If you feel insecure or alone, remember there will be someone who loves and cares about you and it’s okay to reach out and ask for help. We need to spend less time worrying and more time focusing on all the lovely things we’ve got. I’m still learning and I know it takes time but its important to focus on how you FEEL, not just on how you LOOK. Confidence comes from learning what works for your body and balance.

Don’t feel bad if you still wish your body looked different or you don’t love everything about yourself. It’s all a journey, of learning about yourself. Appreciate yourself. I know I’m still learning a lot.

Everybody should be accepted without the judgement of others, just always be YOU.

Love, India Moon.