After being away from Social media for a good 4 years I recently returned to my facebook account. I traditionally only have a select few people on my facebook and usually, they are people who are far away, that I would otherwise not have any contact with. I have lived in lots of places and I have collected people in my heart from all over the world. I truly love Facebook for how it keeps people connected.
On my return to Facebook, I realised that I was not so much trying to make my life look perfect, but definitely make it look as positive as possible. I was still in the mindset of taking pictures at certain angles and not having myself in pictures for fear of who knows what? I realised with every moment I spent making these decisions to not show the real me, I was being unkind to myself. Why would I tell myself continuously I looked bad, or that I was not good enough for people to see? This I realised, is definitely not self-love!
This morning I woke up with a strong sense of self-love I don’t recall ever having! I swear if we could see with our eyes the spiritual growth that happens within us sometimes, it would be like watching a blooming flower. This is not a new analogy I know, but it really does perfectly fit how I feel, oh and the name of the blog. 🌸 I did not recognise my personal evolution consciously, but I felt something coming to a head over a few days. I slowly developed an uncontrollable urge to purge myself and announce my true self to the world. I started with my facebook friends. My driving feeling was almost rebellious as if in some way they had made me feel as though I was not good enough. This of course is not true at all. My fears were all self made and based only on my insecurities.
My greatest insecurity came from the fact that when people knew me before, I was a young energetic, big drinking, smoking fun loving girl who loved to travel and was always the life of the party. Now I am a proud Mumsy Mum, non-drinking, non-smoking middle-aged, overweight hippie vegan, who has regular early nights. I always wanted to do the big entrance with me looking the picture of health in a highly successful life. This was not the reality. The reality was, I have struggled with my mental and physical well-being for many years and the person I was showing now, was still very much broken, but the best I had been in over a decade.
My revelation all started with a facebook clip I watched. It was about a little girl crying and telling her Mum she no longer wants to eats any animals. She was so sad for the animals as she had made the connection. She was crying, I was crying and I was so proud of this little girl and myself for understanding her. I went to post it on my facebook as I felt it was a very powerful message about choice, and stopped myself because I thought people are maybe going to unfriend me for being Vegan. Haha! What a crazy notion that someone would do that, and what an even crazier notion that even if they did, I would miss them. This triggered off a sort of slowly brewing defiance that I took out on my facebook friends. I realised at that moment, Yes, I am a vegan. I am that for compassion reasons first and health second. I should not be afraid or ashamed of that, I should be proud that my heart is so filled with love for all living things, that I never want to cause harm or any suffering to them. Whats not to shout about there? I am proud of myself for being that person.
I realised me being vegan does not question anyone else’s choices. It is simply who I am! On knowing I am vegan, others may or may not reflect on their own choices, but that has nothing to do with me. How people decide to respond to that is beyond my control. I need not compromise who I am on the basis of the way others may or may not respond to me. (This is for another blog post on another day)
I have to say, I only collect the hearts of lovely people, so I need not have worried too much. Some people went a bit quiet, but I put this down to them being indifferent.
Anyway, I started my breakthrough with coming out as a vegan, that went ok I think. I then decided to show full body shots of myself, which I had not done for many years even before leaving facebook. I posted 4 pictures all including my biggest insecurities. The first picture honestly showed my weight and shape. I have always had an unhealthy view of my body even when I was slim and very fit. Being vegan often makes me more self-conscious because, if I tell people I am vegan they look at my round and cuddly figure and I can see they are thinking…….erm…..you sure? lol.
The second picture showed my double chin. We only tend to see our double chin in pictures because we don’t walk around all day long looking in the mirror. Weight and chins are often linked, but when we are editing our lives and posing for pictures, they are separate considerations. I wanted to address this so I could stop trying to pretend because let’s face it, I have to look down a lot! I thought how odd that my day to day people see it all, but the people I love enough to be a select few I keep with me, only see the polished version. It did not make sense. What would happen if I was lucky enough to see them again. That would be awkward explaining how I put 10lb on since this mornings kale smoothie. 😂
All the pictures I posted to out myself show my greying hair, which is something I love, but I continuously question if I should colour it on the grounds of being too young at 46 to be grey. I worry if my children feel I look older than their friend’s Mums and the may get embarrassed. I have asked my children and they are in no way at all bothered by it. I am just Mum to them and they love me, how beautiful is that!? Are they just saying that though??? Haha!
The last insecurity I proudly showed was my teeth. Now, I always had unsightly teeth as a result of childhood problems, and my whole life I have wanted beautiful perfect teeth. The time finally came where I was lucky enough to have my top teeth done. With pure excitement, when I was asked the shade of white I wanted, I chose the whitest I could get. I did not quite realise how white they were going to be. I was so shocked when I first saw them. I almost cried. I felt they looked silly because I was still a mess. This of course wasme being unkind to myself again. At first, I used to hide them, but now I am glaring into everyone eyes proudly shining my teeth at them. My teeth of course, had not been explained to my friends on facebook, so I felt compelled to clear this matter up too.
I know what you are thinking, wow that’s a lot to put ‘Out There’. Well, that’s not all. I then went back for one last purge and basically confessed that I am completely a sweary person. Yes, I told everyone I swear, I like swearing, and in the right context, I find swearing funny! Now, this fact I am sure they must have remembered about me, but just in case, I threw it in there.
I have to say, this marked a very important point in my personal journey to loving myself. I would say to loving myself again, but I am not sure I ever did for any noticeable amount of time before now.
This then gave me the courage to go to the Uk Fruitfest @fruitfest.co.uk. This was the next amazing step and one I will soon write about.
After years of not posting on here, I really felt it was time to just be me and write it all down as I had intended on doing when I started it. I have had a block as mostly I don’t know what people want to hear. That is going about it the wrong way. I realised it is about what I want to write that should be the main focus. So following on from my new found self-confidence, I am no longer worried about that people liking it or not. I will write and if you like it I am happy. If not I am glad you did not get this far to hear me say ok, no problem, Jog On! lololol. Love Gilli Bloom. X 🌸 X
Cool! 😂