Learning to love yourself.

I used to be incredibly insecure. I still am, but it’s manageable now. Most of the time, at least.

I’ve never been concerned about my face. That’s an odd sentence — but my face has never bothered me. I thank my mum for that — she hardly ever wears make-up, and it wasn’t a natural part of my growing up that wearing it was a necessity.

That’s not to say that I have an issue with it. My make-up collection could rival any beauty blogger’s, but for me the notion of using it as a barrier against other people’s ill thoughts was alien. If I wasn’t liked because of the way I looked without a coat of foundation or a wave of a mascara wand, that wasn’t my problem. That was theirs.

When I first found out that there were women who refused to leave the house without their ‘face on’, I felt superior. Forgive me for this, I was around 15 at the time and was blissfully unaware of conditions such as anxiety, or the ideals of feminism — even the simple notion that it was okay to do things that made you feel good about yourself — or as I like to call it now, loving yourself.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I do it all the time , and I am more at peace with the person that I am at this very moment than I ever have been before in my life.

The only thing that still brings me down every now and then is my body. There are stretch marks,thick black hairs under my chin (which I occasionally forget to remove and stress about people seeing), my thighs are a little too wobbly, my stomach a tad too round. This was what 16 year old me hated about myself. I taught myself the tricks and tips of Photoshop, learning how to smooth out my double chin, and crop the softness of my tummy. I dressed to hide my body, not embrace it for what it was.

21 year old me is different. I’ll still have bouts of convincing myself that tomorrow will be the day I start my journey towards being a size 10 — but it never happens. I’ve given up on paying for gym memberships that I know full well I’ll never use. On good days I’ll wear crop tops and short shorts and I won’t give a shit what anyone thinks. (The only thing I give a shit about is the annoying, grating sensation of my thighs rubbing together). The bad days are increasingly few and far between, but when they do appear (like the hairs on my chin) I choose to love myself, not wallow in self-pity and hatred.

I’ll give myself a full face of make up, and take as many selfies as I can. I’ll get all the right angles, the best lighting, all the while telling myself that I am just perfect as I am. I don’t need to change my body shape, or size to be a happier person — I’ve just got to embrace it, and embrace me.

If you’re one of those people, who like I did, spends time analysing every inch of your body, scrutinising every wobble and blemish, wishing you could crawl out of your skin and into another mould, let me tell you there’s light at the end of the tunnel. It won’t be easy, it won’t happen overnight, but it can happen.

Don’t apologise for doing things that benefit you. Don’t apologise for wearing things that make you feel good, even if there’s a voice in the back of your head telling you that people will laugh. Don’t apologise for taking time for yourself, whether that’s an evening with Netflix, an afternoon in a coffee shop, or even treating yourself to that lipstick you’ve been lusting over for weeks. Loving yourself is hard,and a process that will continue throughout your entire life. Some days you’ll love yourself at a rate of 100% and other days it’ll be 5.

But it’s worth it. So, so worth it. And I know you’ve got it in you.