As rewarding as it is to be body confident, we know that it's not possible to love our bodies every day — and that's okay. Having an off day doesn't mean that you aren't body positive, nor does it mean that body positivity isn't a worthy endeavor. It's an ongoing process, rather than a one-time revelation.
But should you find yourself feeling less-than-confident on any given day, blogger Leah Stanley has some pretty great advice — to remember that it's all in your head.
Stanley posted two side-by-side photos of herself on Instagram on Wednesday, revealing that after seeing them, she realized she had been subconsciously feeling self-conscious.
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"These photos are literally taken minutes apart, by my best friend since second grade," she wrote, explaining that the photo on the left shows what she looks like when she's sucking her stomach in and smiling.
"When I suck in my tummy it alwayssss creates that cute under boob roll," she wrote. "Where as on the photo on the right there is no cute little roll and I'm relaxed to the max."
"What's even crazier here? I'm fucking SMILING in the photo where I'm sucking it in," she continued, joking that she hoped she was smiling because her photographer was telling a joke, not because she was enjoying trying to pose her body a certain way.
The point being, she said, none of us are perfect, but facing up to our insecurities and acknowledging them can actually be helpful. No matter who we are and how confident we are, she wrote, confidence can come and go — just as insecurities can also come and fade away.
"I can leave the house in the cutest outfit ever, feeling like a pile of poop and two hours later feel like a queen," she wrote. "Why? Because it's all in my damn head, I'm beautiful all the time."
The key, she said, is to face those insecurities head-on.
"It's important to acknowledge these little insecurities and be aware that they exist, don't run from them but face them," she wrote. Stanley raises a good point — we all have things that we're insecure about, but once we acknowledge them and say them out loud, they might seem less important in the grand scheme of things.
So the next time you're feeling down about your body, say it out loud, or even write a letter to the body part you hate — because as Stanley said, insecurities come and go, but we're "beautiful all the time."