Defeat Anxiety and Insecurities

I recently heard on the radio a report about how women are more likely to suffer from anxiety than men, to be honest I think that's absolute rubbish. I think we all suffer from forms of anxiety and insecurities, perhaps it's most likely that women aren't as afraid to discuss them. Probably due to social pressures and gender conformity, but I firmly believe we are all susceptible.

In the same week I heard that report, I had one of those mornings, everything was normal when I woke up but by the time it came to getting dressed, the negative chatter in my head had started to turn up the volume.

​I've been much better in recent years about how I look at my body, but that morning I started to get more and more upset with the way I looked and I found it hard to find something I wanted to wear. Which probably sounds ridiculous, but it's true, my chest started to tighten, and I felt uneasy in myself. This went on for about 15 minutes or so, until somehow I realised what I was doing to myself. I was mentally hurting myself and it felt awful.

I used to behave like this a lot, (thankfully it stopped a few years ago), most days I found it difficult to get dressed, mainly because of my personal demons about my body. I've been over weight, under weight and of a normal weight, but my 'image' always looked bad in my eyes.

I feel so lucky that I finally realised what I was doing to myself, the main change was that I had two baby girls and I realised I was showing them how to treat themselves. I never wanted them to look at themselves the way I had, so I started to change the words I said to myself and also started to do something about my physique. I started eating a lot healthier and doing a lot more exercise, in all of this I realised the most important thing was to take control of my thoughts when it came to how I looked and gradually my attitude towards myself has improved.

Obviously as I mentioned I haven't completely changed and I am prone to be hard on myself about image every now and again, but I'm much more happier about myself and how I look.

I forced myself to stop speaking inwardly and outwardly about how bad I thought I looked and over time the thoughts dulled down and I'd almost forgotten how bad I used to be.

If you have anxiety about your body image, or any thing else that makes you feel bad about yourself, I hope you realise from this that change is possible and I wish you luck on your journey to happiness.

I found it very difficult to write this but wanted to do it to help and inspire others, I'm a strong and confident woman, I effectively deal with a great deal of pressure and stress on a daily basis, most people who know me would never imagine I had issues like this, especially with my image, that's why I felt it was most important to share this story. We all have our own insecurities and over time they can all be defeated, I'm great proof of that!
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Peace and love to you and yours.