We were never made to live our lives the way other people live their lives. It becomes super easy to allow other people or other concepts to dictate the way our life is supposed to be. As a natural born athlete, I have constantly been told growing up “muscle weighs more than fat,” or my personal favorite “I don’t care what anyone says I like women with more cushion on them.”
I would be lying if I didn’t say a lot of those comments shaped my own thoughts about my body. Growing up competing in pageants against mostly very thin, very white, very tall women should have given me tons of body image issues. Now there is nothing wrong with any of those women, however… let’s be honest I was never meant to look like them nor did I want to look like them. But when you are invested in something you love like performing on stage, and you’ve set a goal to become Miss North Carolina before you age out of the pageant system… you begin to not only listen to the hype but believe the hype.
But why… did I become Miss North Carolina? Absolutely! Did I lose an obscene amount of weight and subsist on orange juice and tuna fish for a couple months, yes! Was it worth it… well it wouldn’t have been if I didn’t have the “non-hype crew” behind me. My mom is one of the most honest people you will ever meet. She told me the honest truth about my body, but she also told me the honest truth about me.
The hype is fleeting, but the reality of the choices you make in your life impacting who you are and what purpose you were meant to live is forever. We weren’t meant to live a life that is fake or based on society’s image of “real life.” Newsflash… it is not real! I have lived in that “modelesque” world, and I can tell you there is so much danger that goes into trying to believe and live in the hype then living in your own reality.
Stop letting the image of a perfect life overtake the reality of your amazingly great life. You may be struggling right now, but you are the only person that will be able to tell your story of survival past that struggle. Your story will be able to impact someone else’s life because you helped them see beyond the hype and drive towards their true purpose. Whatever hype you are listening to, I encourage you to replace it with your own positive self-talk. Trust me, when this life is over and your legacy is all that remains, no one and I mean no one in this life is going to say “oh if they had only lost some weight they would have lived their best life.” What they are going to say is, “they taught me how to be real with myself and for that reason I was finally able to live my best life.”
