Of being comfortable in your skin: Guest Post by Agasha Denise

Hiya!

I hope the second half of the year is faring well for you. Super-duper hopeful to see what 2021 still has in store for us as the remaining months unfold. This collaboration with Danny has honestly been cooking on these streets since the wake of the pandemic and I’m so glad that we’ve finally gotten round to doing it.

During this pandemic especially with lockdown, I’m sure a couple of us are chubbier because well, we are at home for the most part and while most work out and have all these fitness challenges going around, most just let the peace of mind and Netflix take over.

Have you ever been asked if you’re pregnant simply because of the increase in your arm size or tummy or legs? When it honestly is just your skin? Or have you ever been asked whether you eat or not and why you look malnourished?

This applies to ladies more than it does for the gents because well, when a man adds weight then society hails him and presumes it is because he has some money and is living well, but when a woman adds weight, then the opposite of hailing definitely trickles in.

When Danny and I decided to write on this topic, it was at the time when there were a lot of comments going about people’s weight gain or loss immediately after the easement of the lockdown and now even with the current lockdown.  Most of the people I was in conversation with, kept asking why it is that people loosely throw comments around without thinking about the impact that the words would have to the recipient.

I’ve definitely been in the space where I’ve gained the weight and been questioned about it and also where I’ve lost the weight and been questioned about it as well.  At the end of the day, society will always have opinions of what size you have to be, but what matters is if you are comfortable with who you are.       

What is body image to you? 

How comfortable and in love one is with their body or in their skin. I believe that body image is being content with your body in its current state even as you evolve. You know, our bodies are constantly changing because it is part of growth. So being able to love what you see when you look at yourself in the mirror, being secure even with your insecurities, having a loving mindset or perception of your body and not being too hard on yourself even as you evolve.

For the most part of your life, what body size has been attributed to you by society mostly? 

Huh…for a greater part of my life, I have been very small. Apparently I was a chubby child but I wonder where those genes went, lol. But yeah, I have always been so skinny and I liked it until I grew older. I started to become more cautious of people’s opinions about what I looked like. I remember, someone once told me “wakula bubi” loosely translated to mean you grew up badly, in terms of body structure. And for the longest time, I let that define me so much that I was cautious of what I wore.

How did that make you feel or affect how you looked at yourself?

It messed with my self-esteem greatly and made me prone to people’s comments about my body. For the compliments, I’d struggle taking them in because I wasn’t sure if they were genuine. Plus, it’s not something I was accustomed to as I’d mostly focus on the things I didn’t like about my body and ignored the beauty.

For the negative ones, yoooo…. those took a toll on me. At some point I wouldn’t wear tight jeans much because I felt like they would fully portray my tiny hip bones and I hated that. Also, I took a while to wear off shoulder tops because I felt like I was a bit muscular, lol, the lies we feed ourselves.

How best have you grown to be comfortable in your skin? 

Honestly, it’s still a journey but I can confidently say that I am in a much better place. I had to get to a stage where I sat down with my insecurities to address them. In so doing, I realized I was banking on people’s opinions who didn’t even create me.

So, I challenged myself to dig in to God’s word to know the truth for myself. Because listen, God created me with so much intentionality and I believe He made the very best version of me.

Once during my self-check evaluation, I remember thinking about the creation story and how after God created, He’d exclaim that it was good. And yet, here I was rejecting His idea of good, what authority did I have. Like who does that, haha…but its only because I know better now. I constantly catch myself shutting out the negative voices when the insecurities show up. This helps me focus on the truth and continually affirm myself through it. Like I said, it’s a journey of learning, unlearning and relearning the truth of who I am and walking in it.

Have you ever questioned your skin or wanted to be in different skin?

Umh, this one not really. I love my melanin [beams] But for a different body, oh my gosh yes. I’d countlessly find myself day dreaming about what my life would look like if I were in maybe a curvier body or if I had a bit more flesh to my bones [chuckles]. However, not anymore because I realized that what you hate about yourself maybe envied by someone else and vice versa. So the comparison games are really just a thief of joy and they deny you the privilege of genuinely thriving in who you are. It’s safe to say that I’m on an intentional journey of acceptance of every aspect of who I am.

What would you want someone who relates to your struggles, to know today?

You are beautiful just the way you are. And as cliché as that sounds, I want you to believe that God made the very best version of you and there’s no one like you. Embrace your beauty even with the flaws and just work on maybe improving them but not to completely change who you are.

Celebrate those parts of you that you wish you didn’t have or were different, because, it’s those little details that make you the awesome distinct human that you are. And that’s a gift… You are special. Don’t tread that for living a counterfeit version of yourself. Bask in all the uniqueness you embody, see yourself as God does because when He made you, it was love at first sight. So own who you are in every sense of the word. You are a work of art!

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Thank you for allowing to be this vulnerable with my audience Dee. Your responses are profound and encouraging.

Dee blogs at https://pearlygash.wordpress.com/ be sure to follow her as well on her socials.

Twitter: @DeeGash143

Instagram: Pearly Gash

Cheers!