Heyy !! Back at it again with a new post, been so MIA lately due to the move into university and I’ve really missed my blog so I  forced myself to put this post out which had been on my mind for soo long to do so, did I mention I was the queen of procrastination ?

Anyways, so I stumbled across the beautiful piece of art above on the gram, you know just scrolling through your feed as you do, and it made me stop in utter amazement and wonder. The image drawn by @rokz_art shows a woman in her natural form with African beads around her waist, which if your from Africa you could relate to.

But what really hit my attention were these beautifully vibrant stretch marks all over her stomach and her thighs, now normally on a black girl you wouldn’t see white stretch marks on the body, but I think the purpose behind this was to capture the audiences attention and really try to capture the beauty of stretch marks on a woman’s body, symbolizing the changes of structure and growth that we females go through

This is why I named this post “the HI’s and LO’s of social media” simply because yes, social media is a great platform for engaging in pictures with your friends, laughing at hilarious posts and catching up with the latest celebrity gossip, however it can get really frantic when celebrity bodies and figures start appearing everywhere and the desire to emulate their appearances becomes almost impossible to avoid.

One of my main goals this year was to be happy in my skin and to accept the way I was made by God. This has honestly been a challenge for me surprisingly and I didn’t really think it was a goal that I needed to work hard for, not knowing that subconsciously I was always checking myself in the mirror, checking to see if I have cellulite or if my body is even in all the different places, yes its crazy right ?

I had to snap out of this and actually realise that I had a habit of doing so and it was slowly affecting me. Me being of 18 years and only realising this now, imagine younger teens in secondary school, where they hit the stages of puberty and the competition for the best body or best skin is on the rise, how would they actually feel and cope? I had a deep thought to myself and upon praying over the issue, I prayed over girls who were younger than me, experiencing the  battle with body image and self confidence. Even though I may not know someone personally going through this, I pondered over all the girls who are open to pages such as Instagram where bodies of women are plastered all over their explore page and wondered what they must be going through.

What moved me was the caption below the picture. ” Ladies please embrace your stretch marks… It’s a mark of strength , you are beautiful , you are gorgeous regardless, don’t think because of these certain stripes that you can’t do certain things” this message basically states that yes although we may gain these marks either through growth spurts or after pregnancy, we should, use these marks not as a reminder of a flaw that society perceives to be, but a reminder of our beauty and our growth as females and even as males too.

I urge anyone who reads this to be in love with their inner self, and to accept themselves regardless of any outer flaw that may be visible to the world, make it your mark that you are unique because of your appearance and although body acceptance may take time to full achieve, it is a beautiful journey whilst achieving it.

“you are imperfect, permanently, and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful” – Amy Bloom