What does a quick fix look like
Verses a long term change
I'm going to boldly say that I will never again feel conflicted about the hair on my body. I'm six years into a steady journey of letting my body grow of its own accord and not limit or twist it's appearance in any way. I'm six years into unravelling my mind of thoughts that persistently spoke the language of self hate. Six years of making peace with the fact not everyone will be accepting of my appearance. And six years of recognising the hideous amount of money (millions upon millions) we spend collectively on changing our appearance.
Along the way I learnt to respect how not everyone wants the same thing as me - they don’t all want to grow their pubic hair. And so for the longest time I have waved the flag for everyone to have a choice. ‘You Do You’ is the statement I have lived by, knowing first hand how hard it is to drown out the noise of internal self critique echoed by every single portrayal of humans across the planet in ads, films and circles of glamour that we all get sucked into the fantasy of. It's never going to be easy to fight against that volume of sound but the magic in finding your own pocket of silence, within yourself, is a MIRACULOUS place to be. It honestly feels like witnessing a miracle - the mighty transformation of mindset and how it can change your whole life. By refusing to tune into the toxic airwaves, I have created a soundtrack of peace and I will spend my life encouraging YOU to do the same.
Which is why I’m starting to have a change of heart. I don’t want to live by the sentiment that ‘you do you’ when what you are doing is injecting yourself with mounjaro, starving yourself or vomiting up food, splitting your jaw open and chiselling your bones, pumping yourself with steroids or pumping up your lips. I don’t want you to hate your stomach and criticise your breasts, scratch lines into your thighs or be abusing your face by plucking out the hairs. I don’t want you to do ANY of it. I just want you to be you.
I fully understand how difficult that is, especially when our precious lives become entangled with conflicting thoughts and messages from the age of dot to: be yourself, but don't be too much. Love your body but don't show it to the world. Speak up but not too loud or we'll take away your freedom of speech. We are pushed into patterns of conditioning and we're fighting an uphill battle trying to fit in and thrive whilst managing messages that make us feel insecure and uncertain.
But if I could take that thread of self critique out of the minds of all of us and replace it with a seed of sovereign protection for our bodies to be loved by ourselves, it would change the planet. We would see the fall of cosmetic companies, beauty surgeons, and pharmaceutical operations. Entire magazines would change their content from hyper fixating on appearance and instead, valuing a diversity of realistic beauty that includes everyone. Let me dream a little more and imagine that instead of a sea of women out there injecting themselves with medication to stunt their appetite they were spending their time hyping up the fellow women around them and knowing that when they get in and out of their clothes they feel only love and gratitude for their bodies. If only women were brave enough to understand that the breasts that roll like droplets down their torso are worthy of being loved, touched, seen and respected rather than pushed, filled, pumped and molded.
The intention behind our choices and our decisions regarding our bodies is something I want to inspect closer. I want to conjure up the remedy to get us out of this cycle of self-abuse. I don’t want to respect and be compassionate to each decision anymore - I want to vocally, loudly, passionately an advocate for making the more courageous choice to simply, freely be yourself. Without changing ANYTHING.
I remember hearing mothers tell their teenage daughters not to wear “those shorts because they make your thighs look like tree trunks”. Just one example of the hideous things people say to youngsters that destroys any love and acceptance for their own body. So I wonder:
If the words you tell yourself about your appearance and body were directed to a young teenager, how would it make you feel?
What’s something you invest in to “fix” your appearance?
When was the last time your critiqued someone else’s appearance in a negative way?
With sassy love, as always
Bx
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Hooray for all this! So amazing to properly meet you in person yesterday.
Something I struggle with in “you do you babe“, is that we don’t all have the same financial access to treatments even if we wanted them. Every woman with the financial means for Botox for example, who has it, risks making a woman who wants it but cannot afford it feel inferior about herself. Or worse, go into debt in order to have it.
The more those with financial means build their “conventional pretty privilege“, the more disadvantaged people are who cannot afford to tweak, slice and modelled their appearance into the requirement to gain such privilege.
I used to have Botox (when I was a stripper and model). I now haven’t had it for many years, but part of me still yearns for it and I expend far too much brain power on the debate of “would I have it again? Would I not have it again?”.
What you are advocating is actually the one thing that absolutely anybody can do… Drop it all and simply be themselves!
Thank you for being such an inspiration.
Ah Ruth it was a pleasure to meet you and an extra pleasure to read your words 💝 love the way you write these thoughts, thank you for sharing.
I appreciated what you highlighted here - the financial privilege and the risk of financial debt to secure x,y,z.
I also see this tying into a conversation of what happens when we do start earning more money - because if we can start affording to change our appearance (paying for products and procedures) we may feel more pressure to maintain those standards of appearance in order to continue earning more. It potentially can perpetuate a cycle of changing ourselves in order to be more financially "successful".