Beauty is subjective...

So, I have recently been getting quite fed up with the world and the pressure to look a certain way.

I have started to notice that there are specific tick boxes that you need to be able to 'tick' to be classed as 'beautiful'.  

I am guilty of scrolling through social media and comparing myself to lots of different woman and body shapes that are supposedly what you SHOULD look like. 

I am 25 now and still find myself feeling down and immediately going to the mirror and thinking 'you definitely 100% need to lose some weight'. 

I am just glad that I am not ten years younger and as easily influenced. There is so much pressure on young girls today. They are constantly been told what beautiful is and that to be beautiful they must look a certain way. 

Now I have definitely put weight on since I was a teenager and gone up a couple of dress sizes even over the last couple of years. Recently I have been having a battle with myself and thinking I really need to get back down to the size I was before. 

I look at pictures and I am even comparing myself to myself. I look back at when I was my smallest and question whether thats I should look now. After all social media says so right? 

I might of actually been really slim back then and felt like I could wear anything I wanted. I was good enough to be classed as 'beautiful' by social media. But I know deep down at the time I wasn't happy at all. I had the worst anxiety I had ever had. I wasn't eating properly and that is the reason I was the size I was. I didn't even notice what size I was because my mind wasn't focused on by body, it was trapped by constant panic attacks and feeling so sick I couldn't eat. 

So if I really think about it when I am comparing myself to the 'old' version of me. Do I really want to be how I looked then? I might have a bit more junk in my trunk, but now I love food and don't feel like I am forcing myself to eat. My anxiety is manageable and doesn't control my life right now. 

I believe that your mental health is so important and if you are perfectly happy in your own skin then don't feel like you have to change to be classed as beautiful by the rest of society. I have read somewhere recently that happiness isn't a size and we spend so much time believing that it is. I am trying to embrace how I look now because I know I am so much happier. I am also reading Fearne Cotton's book 'Happy' at the moment and she talks a lot about there not being a clean cut definition of beautiful. She says that beauty is subjective, so one persons view on what an ideal body shape is, is totally different to another persons.  

Please remember, you are beautiful, no matter what shape you are. Stop comparing yourself to Instagram.