It’s been 10 days into June already! Today we are diving into living without the constant bullet of not feeling enough despite the world’s absurd expectations. Shall we?

If your body was to speak up about how you react to societal opinions, what would it say?

We walk around with shame filled opinions of being too dark, too fat, too thin, too tall, too short, too old, too fair,stretch marked, not handsome enough, not pretty enough, not talented enough, or not successful enough. Name that insecurity you walk around with !

Our society has already set an overwhelming tsunami of standards of what we should look like, or who we should be to feel enough. It has normalized all sorts of negativity and judgements thrown at us. We have to bear with the jokes and criticisms landing severe blows on our authenticity. This culture is defining a big part of who we are from childhood to adulthood.

We give more weight to our flaws, mistakes, and short comings than our achievements. We end up criticizing ourselves based on societal opinions. We keep degrading us into a shame spiral. We treat ourselves in a way that is not close to how we treat our friends. We are our worst critics!

What if you never attain those absurd benchmarks? What if your body never changes? Is it worth trading your authenticity only to conform? Will you let your facets and assets go down the drain?Will you let a bunch of opinions define who you are?

What if nothing changes? Our bodies, personalities, success, relationship status, or possessions. Would you still like you? Would you still be okay?

Let today be the day you stop living within the shells of how others define you! Stop owning other people’s criticisms and opinions! Instead own you story! Speak your truth to bullshit! You rock! Hold your head up high and be proud of yourself! Change your perspective about yourself! Get comfortable with your body! Get comfortable with who you are! Our creator is a master artist who made an original version of us! Hang that version for all to see! Right this second as it is, you are enough and not when or if!

Mirror mirror on the wall ? I am the original version of myself!

Redefining ourselves means embracing ,accepting, and above all loving who we are. It is recognizing our strengths, achievements, weaknesses, fears, short comings, and uniqueness. It can be difficult, scary ,or even take a long time but it’s not impossible. Until and unless we accept ourselves for who we are, it’s going to be difficult to improve the not so good sides . The better we are at accepting ourselves the more compassionate we become.

Accepting ourselves is a weapon that splashes your color over the black ink thrown by society, or family, colleagues, or even friends!

At times we tend to tell ourselves that we would embrace ourselves when we have that job, or shed off those kilos, or date that good guy, or finish that degree, or start earning amongst others. Those personal standards are total bullshit! Like I said we speak truth to bullshit, and the truth is there is no requirement to loving ourselves. You heard me right! No requirement!

Love yourself enough to love your mistakes, your flaws, every season life brings, celebrate your achievements, learn from failure, improve yourself, and finally forgive yourself!
It’s not your job to conform to opinions, but it is your job to love you!

Embrace your stretch marks! Embrace your loud laugh! Embrace your personality! Embrace your kitambi! Embrace your forehead! Embrace your brown teeth! Embrace your curves! Embrace your melanin! Embrace your mistakes! Embrace your quietness! Embrace your height! Embrace those little hairy legs! Embrace your insecurities! Above all embrace all of yourself all of the time!

Lastly, let us treat each other the way we would want to be treated. Let’s not use social media platforms for shaming others! Ladies, stop making the boy child feel like they will never date because of their height! Am guilty of this and it is high time I change and you too!