Its been a while!

Has it ever!! For a few reasons.

Work, ( my day job; I own a hair salon) has been HECTIC, its THAT time of year with my teaching job, preparing for our end of year concert, which means SEWING!! But if I'm completely honest the lack of blog posts is more to do with a little stumble personally, a dip in confidence if you will. Really I just questioned wether all of this was worth it?

The hours and hours of admin I put in updating Instagram and Facebook pages and then finding something to say in my Blog that is worth reading. Making sure I am on top of deleting all the trashy images and videos posted on my wall daily, so that my followers don't have to see things that I'm not about. Reading comments and messages from countless people trying to pull me, and what I stand for down.

It gets tiring.

The other day I noticed a post from a friend of mine (who I thought was a friend anyway!) that was body shaming people for wearing outfits that he believed they did not have the body for. Without malice, without attitude and without anger, I simply posted the words 'Every body is a beautiful body' to which I received a barrage of private messages. At first they started out friendly as he tried to justify his words by serving me backhanded compliments along the lines of;

'you're quite large...BUT, you rock every inch of it...so this wasn't directed at you, sorry if you were offended'

to which I politely replied that I wasn't just commenting as an offended fat person, I was expressing my belief that EVERYONE should be able to express themselves through fashion, in any way they see fit, regardless of their size.

This was a concept this person obviously didn't understand, and further justified his comments to me by explaining that the people he was talking about were in a different social culture to me and that he wasn't referring to 'people like me'....so in his mind, it was OK.

I continued to remain calm, and polite and re-affirmed my stance that I didn't believe there was any difference between the community he was talking about to myself, and that I was just a person, standing up for other people, to which he got really quite angry and proceeded to unload what seemed to be a long time distaste in me and my opinions. Claiming that 'I always think people are having a go at me' and 'I shouldn't comment on things I know nothing about'

I finished the conversation as politely as I had begun it, and then I thought about it...for a LONG time.

I thought about the claims he had made. I thought about the amount of truth within them. I thought about the fact that others may feel the same way about me and my opinions, as he does. I thought about all of that.

Am I just a loud mouthed, over opinionated fatty? Do I just stick my un-warranted nose in to matters I have no idea about? Do I come across as someone who thinks the world is against me?

Probably!! To a lot of people, that is probably EXACTLY what I am!

And then I thought about what that means to me, and how it effects my life.

The truth is....IT DOESN"T

I don't fight fire with fire. I don't get on the offensive at any opportunity I get. I don't feel the need to get into arguments with people who's opinions differ to mine.

I DO practice self love. I DO believe that all bodies are beautiful. I DO encourage others to find confidence and peace within themselves. I DO encourage everyone to STOP judging others.

If this offends you, ask yourself WHY? If this encourages you to question your own belief's and judgement GREAT!!! Questions lead to change, change leads to growth, and lets face it, if we don't grow then we are dead!

So back to the initial question...Is it worth it??

ABSOLUTELY!

No doubt, the constant negativity is tiring. Absolutely, the amount of people that disagree with me is huge. But the amount of people that AGREE with me is growing, and that is so important.

So, I will continue to be me, and believe what I believe, and yes I will voice opinions and challenge beliefs and even ruffle a few feathers from time to time.

I will continue to do that because I owe it to myself, I am WORTH IT. And so are you xx