Hi darling! Welcome to the my journal, my journey about my real life, my heart and my travels photographing beautiful souls! Sit back, have cup of tea and stay for a while and be sure to say hello!
I can’t remember a time I didn’t feel fat.
Sure, I’d have moments of feeling like I looked great. The right outfit, good hair, those moments happened once a year, but as long I remember, I felt so undesirable in my body. Fat. Huge. Too curvy, too short.
I remember a moment, standing in my hallway at 11 years old and dreaming out loud to my best friend, “One day, maybe someone will think I’m pretty.” I remember tearing up while talking thinking that will never happen. No one will ever look at me from across the room and think I was pretty. I for sure didn’t. Maybe it was because the girls around me were so tall and lean. Maybe it would because the girls who were swooned over by the guys in our life where olive skinned, brown eyed exotic girls. Me? I was 4 foot nothing with no tan. I was the comic, the goofy sidekick, the secondary character supporting the super gorgeous lead. I was the girl cute boys would talk to about my skinny friends.
I went through an entire faze of hiding my body under super baggy, xl adult-sized T-shirt’s. I realized that faze spilled over into adulthood via a ton of questionable style choices made to hide my curves, all of them.
The body struggles for me are so many layers deep. Deep to my core and heart. So deep I didn’t want anyone to know I hated my stomach, my hips, my boob size, and the armpit boob. Plus all of that was supported by my “super skinny white legs that need tanner” as they have been called.
I had moments where other woman picked apart my body thinking they were helping me try and fix my huge flaws.
“You shouldn’t have fat on your hips like that.”
“You’ve gained so much weight.”
“If your hips were smaller you’d feel prettier.”
“If you just eat protein you can loose weight.”
“You hair is so stringy. Don’t have it long.”
“You can’t wear that dress you love. It makes you look so big.”
“That part of your body, (points to my underarm skin armpit boos) that looks terrible. Let’s throw this photo of you away.)
5’2. 120 pounds. Size 5. Fat.
All of those comments? They were made to me as a tween by another woman. Right at the moments when my body was shifting into womanhood, it was already being shamed for looking like a woman.
It’s no wonder looking back I’ve struggled so much to see myself as pretty, as desirable, or see my curves as sexy. They were hated by a thousand voices around me trying to “help me” not be so fat.
Gosh, it sucked. It sucked because as an adult I’ve had to unravel the pain of feeling ashamed of my curves. Years. 2 very specific years. These past two. The ones where I was photographed every month for almost 2 years and the unraveling began.
Before these two years, there were many other hard ones that continued to send shock waves of pain to me as a woman.
I went through a season of being in a relationship where I was told what I could and couldn’t wear. I wore turtlenecks under strapless dresses and high neck shirts under shirts to hide my collar bones. I couldn’t show any of my body in public that was deemed inappropriate by someone else or I would get scolded, as an adult.
Whenever I went through a hard time emotionally the first thing I did? Started restricting food so I could be skinnier.
When I got divorced, I was 23 and I began to believed that no man would ever want me, or think I was sexy unless I was a size 0. I began eating practically nothing and working out almost daily twice a day. 1/2 cup of oatmeal, one head of broccoli, and some cauliflower. That’s it. I got down to 113 pounds and still felt fat. Huge. Gross because I had a woman’s body.
Daily I struggled with a thousand lies “You have to be skinny to be worthy of love. No man will want you. You don’t have abs. Men want skinny girls. You curves? They are scandalous. Cover them up. How can you love God and have big boobs or wear yoga pants? You can’t show your body. Your curves are too much. Look at your huge hips. That’s gross. You have stretched out skin from being pregnant. That’s ugly. You have a baby pooch still, that’s not what men want. You aren’t worthy to be shown because you aren’t skinny.”
I was also confronted by religious expectations. “You can’t wear yoga pants” circled around the community for a while. I was told that it was my job to not be sexy, to dress completely modest by impossible standards because men couldn’t control their thoughts. lt was my job to help them keep men’s thoughts pure so I couldn’t wear things that “might” make them sin. That meant I had to choose my clothes based on what a random person might think is too attractive and I constantly had to be aware of how my curvy too-much-of-a-babe-body was impacting someone else’s thoughts. Even though I didn’t feel like I was attractive I had to make myself even less attractive just to be safe.
Are you kidding me? What does that even mean? I needed to dress a certain way so men wouldn’t look at me and desire me which means I had to know the personal preferences of strangers and what was too much for them to handle in terms of my clothing choices. For years.
It wasn’t a Christain man’s job to keep guard of their mind? Nope. It was mine, and if he looked at me and lusted, it wasn’t his fault, it was my body’s fault. My fault for showing up with legs and boobs. My terrible fat woman curves cause someone to sin against God just for being apart of my body. I should feel terrible and I did.
So, that’s not God’s heart for us as a woman. He didn’t make us babes to hate our babeness. That is a religious twist of the truth imposed upon me.
I contemplated getting a boob reduction, from a size D to an A because I felt like at least I could wear cuter tops and not make anyone else sin because I had boobs.
Did you catch that? I considered physically altering my body to fit a religious standard and expectation that my boobs were too big and I couldn’t find clothes that covered them enough and kept men protected from my outrageous woman’s body.
Good news, I didn’t.
Instead, I started doing something so scandalous, something so rebellious to the standard imposed upon me by others and religion it literally made people lose their minds.
I started showing up in my body and being photographed to capture it’s magnificence. *gasps* My full-on, curvy, “too fat” body. I showed up by photographed with my curves as is, for 20 months and counting. Yes. Every single month, standing in front of the camera and owning it, 20+ times.
Over and over again. Month after month. No more hiding.
My sister, a boss babe leader is a photographer who empowers woman and helps them heal through images, started a mission with a group with her best friends in hopes that we would all show up and be set free to be us. She named it the Brave Babes.
It took BRAVERY I assure you.
So we did it. We all did it. We started showing up for photoshoots, being as extra and curvy as we wanted. We went big. Big hair, big crowns, big lashes, BIG CURVES or small ones. All of it. And after, when the images were ready, we would sit in living rooms and cry as we shared our stories of struggle and of pain, of triumph and victory. We would sit looking away from our images as they were revealed to the group before we saw them. YES, that’s right, we had to let the whole group see us in our photos before we would.
Why? Because all of us have done it. We’ve looked at images of ourselves and gone right to the insecurity and hated. The legs, the hair, the arms, the stomach. We’ve all hated parts of ourselves and we are all used to looking at the one sore spot and hating it on us. No one else sees it or notices but we do and so we target to hate on that ONE spot.
But this way? The way we did it, this allowed the group to see before us and gasp at each other’s beauty without any hate showing up
And for me, something happened. I began the group to support my sister’s dream and vision, to give to the other babes, to help them, because I’m good at that- helping other and inoring myself… but something happened.
Month by month I started getting freedom.
Month my month I started to see my body differently.
1.) I stopped trying to lose 5 pounds to feel worthy of being photographed. Being monthly meant I didn’t have time to try and loose anything. I just showed up, current weight and just rocked it.
1st session
1.) I started feeling comfortable showing up online without makeup. Never had I ever done a story or instagram picture without makeup and then, I just did. I finally was gaining confidence to just be.
2nd Session
3.) I stopped hiding my body. I have boobs, hips and a booty. It’s a thing. I’m a woman, classy but still a woman and I have cleavage. It’s also a thing. If it offends someone or if it’s too much, I expect them to look away instead of wearing 2 shirts to cover myself.
4.) I stopped being ashamed of my story. Every single month I sat and looked at the other babes before me, and each time I shared a little more of my journey. It’s because of that, I can write this all out now. This is my story and in it there is healing for other babes too.
5.) I stopped hating my curves
At each session, my sister would work to pose me. Each time I got a little more comfortable rocking my curves. I still have moments where I feel a tinge if pain because curve love is a new mindset but I’m so much further in the journey than when I started.
6.) I stopped comparing myself to other women.
Each session I would really try and push. Self out of my comfort zone and I found that instead of feeling less than the other girls, I found myself being inspired by their greatness. As the months went on and I had these photos documenting my story to self-love, I noticed I wasn’t trying to be someone else because I was focused on just loving me, as is.
7.) I stopped playing small
I couldn’t hide anymore behind excuses and it inspired me to be more of myself than I have ever been in my life. It challenged me to connect to myself and find me again.
8.) I stopped being embarrassed about being beautiful.
I realized that it was super hard for me to accept anyone giving me a compliment because I just didn’t believe them. After years of self-hate, the idea of someone actually seeing my beauty was embarrassing to me because it felt like pity compliments. Every month that has gone by, it’s gotten easier and easier to accept someone celebrating my beauty because I am celebrating my own beauty. I am gorgeous and I love the way I look.
9.) I stopped looking for others for validation.
These images gave me the gift of seeing myself. No longer was I trying to look a certain way for someone or put on clothes to please someone else. I showed up as me for me and the result was me feeling confident in my own skin.
10.) I stopped feeling fat.
After 31 years of feeling ashamed of my body, hating my curves, I no longer stand in front of the camera thinking about my fat. I stand there like a boss babe goddess of light and love. I stand they’re empowered to be myself and rock what I’ve got. I spent so many years hating my body and finally, I can say, I really do love my body, even my armpit boob.
This journey would not have been possible without the brave babes and my sister Lecia. If this story has impacted you, there are more stories just like this of other babes who are being healded through images. Go check them out on her Instagram here and her website here.
And now, for your enjoyment, the other photos.
Red Dress available to rent through wandering_wardrobe_tampa
I promise you, these two women are completely different. One feels insecure and the other? Well, the other one showed up today for you. She showed up unmasked and real. She told the whole story in hopes you love yourself a little harder knowing lies will always be lies and the truth will set you free… Freedom will always birth more freedom even in the middle of a scary true story…
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