Hitting the Wall and Touching Myself

This project has started in such a wonderful way for me. I've had so many people wanting to follow it, be involved, that have expressed their joy at me doing this for myself. I've felt very inspired by the many books, research, videos I've watched and confident women that I've been introduced to. I have started a confidence diary and confidence graph which are allowing me to map my journey. So I have been feeling super organised and inspired since day one. This week that all changed.

If you read my last post you'll know that I have been trying to look at photographs of myself in a more positive way. It's been going really well. I went on very lovely holiday with my boyfriend and we only did a retake on photos if the light was awful and we literally were shadows in the picture. Other than that, the first time photographs were kept. He put up all photos on his Facebook without me looking at them first and reviewing which was were ok, needed to be cropped or burned in a firey chasm never to be seen again. This was a big step for me and as I looked through them after he put them up I was surprised. I was surprised because I liked them. Granted my hair wasn't perfect and there was not an inch of make-up on my face. But I liked them. I looked happy and I guess, like the me that I feel I am inside. This whole looking like myself is easy peasy I thought.

Then this week I was out for dinner with a bunch of friends and we asked the very lovely waiter to take our picture. My friend, who has been a glorious supporter of the whole project, very lovingly asked me to say out loud what I liked about myself in the picture. I instantly had a look, overjoyed that she was taking such an active part in my project. And then it all went tits up. Could I find a single thing I liked? No. All I could see was my big fat arm, the belly bulges and a massive bald patch from where I've lost a lot of hair this year. I just welled up and ran to the bathroom. Now usually bad photos of myself do make me cry (well pretty much anything makes me cry!) but this time I was crying because I felt like I was back at square one. Everything I thought was working wasn't. Plus I felt bad because now my friend felt bad and I felt I had scared her away from ever getting involved in the project again. A nightmare basically.

So I stood up, looked in the mirror, repeated my mantra three times and made myself choose something that I liked about myself (my eyes) and went back out to the party. I was fine for the rest of the night even though I did put my jumper back on to cover up the fat arm.

The next day didn't help. I had to look through a million photos of myself due to a project I am working on with a photographer friend (more about that later). There were a few I liked mainly because in those ones I looked skinnier. But I don't want to like photos because I look skinnier or closer to the idea of what the world is telling me I “should” look like. I want to like photos of me because I look like me in them. Belly bulges included.

I didn't want this blog to feel like therapy and hopefully it doesn't but I felt dishonest if I didn't share the low points as well as the good.

I've been reading a lot today and trying to change my thinking in order to move forward out of this photo hole of doom and one of the things suggested is to develop a tactile relationship with your own body. This allows you to feel more connected to yourself and you don't feel such a distance form the version of you presented in photographs. We all know how good a hug from a friend feels or a foot massage so the idea is that you can give yourself that same feeling and not in the way you think you filth mongers. I don't use body lotions or creams anymore because when I've used them in the past I've been disgusted by the amount of skin I have to cover and how flabby it felt....well fuck that. My body needs nourishing. It needs to be looked after. So I'm going to start rubbing myself all over (again get your minds out of the gutter), giving myself foot rubs, and just generally touching myself (last warning!) in the hopes of re-building that connection and starting to love myself bulges and all.