Self Acceptance… Being ok with yourself when others are not.
Requested by many.
For me this blog will hit close to my heart as it has been a closeted life struggle. In no way do I want this to be a pity party nor for people to think that this is a cry for help… My wishes with this post are to help other people to know that they are not alone and it is absolutely normal to have problems, large or small. Every angle of self acceptance in this love for life is big there so there are no small problems. Every occurrence in your life makes a difference in how you see yourself, and and how you view your journey, so please do not feel inadequate with your “small thoughts.” All. Are. Equal.
Disclaimer – This is how my story goes; it is not an implication to say that this is how everyone’s story is.
At this time and place just imagine me typing this in a small hotel room, uncomfortably getting up and sitting down frequently and constantly deleting statements (out of fear of letting people down) and having to deal with personal struggles that are incomprehensible for any teenager… Struggles that I hide from the public population… Struggles that I hide from even my closest friends and most of my family… Struggles that only my mom and possibly 3 other people in the world are aware of. This blog post will not hi-light my internal demons as I am still not ready to deal with them myself… But it will give my readers a window of into the mind of this model. This is not fun, but maybe long overdue?
By the way, fun musical side note for you to picture… Lord Huron’s “The Night We Met,” is playing in the background. If you play it now you may understand my mood a bit more.
For quite a little while now, I’ve had a developing anxiety that you most likely wouldn’t know was there if you knew me but it’s always there in the back of my mind… Dealing with this means I have very silent periods of time where, when it occurs, I have nothing to say. I am just “still” while noises outside my head are amplified in my mind and it feels as if the world is just crumbling around me like a bad video game. To be living in this adult world has been challenging mentally but I have felt that I had to keep it together, (there is a reason why most markets require models to be over 18) and this anxiety, on the surface of seeing my counterparts, didn’t seem to happen to many other people since it hasn’t been a vocalized problem until recent stands in society. Not to mention that there are times that I have had a 100% language barrier here in Asia (Google translate is useless in a few countries i have been to). So at this point I felt both alone and ashamed… I have an incredible support system but sometimes internal wars are the hardest to fend off.
These past eight months of traveling have forced me to deal with these demons of anxiety…
And I believe it has been a crucial part of life that I am thankful for as it has helped me to understand how to be vocal about this. I find that the more I normalize it and adjust myself with being comfortable with these problems the more it slows down.
To be more specific…
I have always been a free spirited heart and have felt things on a deeper level than most and I have always internalized those feelings. This was identified when I was still in diapers. I hardly cried, even when hungry or needing to be changed. I got along easily with both boys and girls but never gravitated towards the drama that can be female driven. Needless to say, I was proposed to multiple times in kindergarten because of this. I didn’t enjoy the craziness of recess or lunch periods. My parents had agreed, at a young age, to allow me to homeschool so I could start to dedicate more time to study ballet and music together (I had been playing multiple instruments since I was 4) but still get in the social aspect of life which could never fit in to the time table of a regular school day. Home schooling also alleviated the stress I felt from living in an “on going, every day school party” which was emotionally exhausting to me. I actually learned more in a quiet atmosphere and growing up smart has been more important to me than growing up popular (no offense to my cheerleading and drill team friends… You guys rock for all you handle in your daily lives). This is in no way meaning your being popular or being constantly in a school atmosphere has an affect on your intelligence, I just couldn’t personally learn in that routine nor keep a well balanced personality.
Anyway, anxiety has always been a part of my personality deep down but I’ve only just found out how bad it can be, recently within these past few months. In the US, I had dance as a way to let off steam and express myself. I was in some form of movement to the tune of 25-30 hours/week. Now my days are filled with castings, shoots, travel, and small daily work outs. I love what I do but being away for this long has forced me to look at myself and pay attention to what my mind needs to feel relaxed when it can’t blow off steam physically.
This post is about to take a slightly negative turn but I need to tell my readers that it is a raw moment of what I felt when I was still getting my feet wet with modeling. It is not every model‘s experience and it is not even my experience as this is being posted. I took my time with this blog as I needed to make sure that it still made sense to me when my emotions had slowed from the point I am about to discuss..
From the second one starts modeling most everyone will go through it… I just didn’t realize that everyone was going through it. No one talked about it openly. You are forced to look at yourself again and again and be willing to try and change your body if this is what your agent and potential clients want/need. Small details, like creases to your body, are all of a sudden under a magnifying glass all the way down to bone alignment and things you cannot change. Don’t get me started on how I have had to battle to keep my eyebrows. As if being a growing teenager with hormones, adjusting to the thought of becoming an adult and all the questions of “what is life” and “who am I” wasn’t enough, why not add all these worries too? (Cue the sarcasm).
Keep in mind what being a model is… You are selling an image. Plain and simple, right? Glamorous, right? Have you ever taken into consideration the effort it takes to get that image? Think it couldn’t possibly affect you? Glance through a catalogue, ever? Browse the internet, ever? Glance at a billboard or commercial, ever? There is a team working on you… Sometimes all at the same time. Two people on hair (spraying, ripping, tugging, pinning), one on make up (but sometimes two)… Think lipstick is just for lips? Nail polish just for tips and toes? Nope… Both have gone onto eyes and it is up to model to get it off afterwards, then there is a designer trying to style you around make up and hair team… Photographer and crew impatiently waiting in the background. All at the same time. Forget modesty… That’s out the window when time is money. I have had people come at me with scissors and razors because the person holding them thought it would make their job easier if they could change my look.
The following is a post I wrote, but then chose to delete, because I was worried about what everyone would think of me.
Another musical side note… Spotify has now moved on to Billy Ellish, “I Don’t Wanna Be You No More…” No kidding. I highly suggest you pull it up for a window into a model’s soul. Now the post…
To having nightmares of numbers on a measuring tape and the weight on a scale… To waking up, working out, and having dry salad for breakfast. To showering and picking out an outfit to give off the look that you are just that way. To putting on makeup to make you look like you are just that way. To obsessively trying to lose weight to let clients know that you are just that way. To smiling 24/7 to let people know you are just that way. To editing bodies to let the audience know that you are just that way. To placing your hands over your hips or waist to give the illusion that you are just that small… To make society think that this is just the way you are supposed to be and that there is something wrong with those who are not just that way. We forget that it is not just that way. We are losing sight of art. We are losing sight of individuality. There is a constant bipolar fight between being perfect and being perfectly imperfect. “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Fear of not being perfect is what drives many of our souls to edit, diet, smile, stay silent without realizing that the person next to us does the same and is feeling the same insecurities. We are stronger than this. We do not have to be a 00 to be happy and healthy. We do not have to be a society that allows such bullying that one can no longer embrace who they were born to be… So much so that sweet McKenzie Adams, a 9 year old girl from AL, chose to hang herself in order to escape her classmates views of her imperfections and skin color. And in the end, it is fear that will bring me to delete, not post, this at all in order to hide it from those I truly want to see it. This may be as simple as a rant but within these words there is a passion and dedication and realization of where I may have gotten off the path and confused many people by this or you maybe have gotten at least some meaning… Art, fear, perfection… Some of which control us or yearn to be louder than its dying scream.
If you follow my instagram then you know you have not read that post. I wasn’t even sure I would be brave enough to bring it over to this blog. But then I had the greatest conversation with a group of models at a casting. So many were going through what I was experiencing. So many. It made me feel human.
Musical end to this journey post – Spotify is now playing Jose Gonzalez‘s “Stay Alive,” from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty… Final words to this song read, “… Leaves you empty with nothin but dreams, in a world gone shallow, in a world gone lean. But there is a truth and it‘s on our side, dawn is coming open your eyes, Look into the sun as a new days rise.“ Maybe ”Musical Fate“ is trying to keep us uplifted on possibilities of tomorrow? Spotify never ceases to understand my soul.
My conclusion… Through these past months I started to grasp the thought of “who cares” and I began understanding that we are gifted with such a great honor of living this Life. Yes, it’s already messed up in so many ways but when you pay attention then there’s so many wonderful ways to live it. Why not let how you live it be your choice and let the option of yourself mean the most to you. If that doesn’t work out, so what? Everything happens for a reason, and why spend the time in your life dodging what affects you when you can accept it and live. For me? Yes I have anxiety, but this should not affect the way I live my life or the way I view it. I no longer care if I am too scrawny, too wide, too short, too young, or “too” much of anything. This is me and it works for me. Every time someone has found me to be “too” anything then something better has been around the corner. Those corners may be 5 minutes, 5 months, or even 5 years… I guess it just depends on the lessons fate thinks you need at that time… But lets save that for a future blog. I have also learned how to take a stand when too much is going on around me, to me, at me, etc.
Everyone has their own process that they have to go through… Mine involved lots of late night thoughts, tears, silent freak outs and all happening behind hidden doors… Because I believed so many people relied on me to show up with a smile on my face. But that’s not the real me. I now still smile but it is more real than ever and I do not care if my laugh is too loud. I do not care. It turns out that that attitude has been embraced by those around me. No one really wants you to be miserable or uncomfortable. People are more than happy to help when they know how they can.
So if you are reading this blog and have ever had self doubt, it doesn’t matter if you are my best friend or an “enemy” of some kind… (You know who you are)… I hope this has helped you in any small way to know whatever disability you have, or whatever imperfection or flaw you carry, that you matter as much as anyone else and it’s okay to feel whatever you feel but then you take that in the end and learn from it and grow more as a person. I know keeping this in my mind has helped me through dark times which have now made my days much brighter. Just keep turning those tears into lemonade and even though you can only conquer one day at a time stay focussed on that bright future ahead. Till next time.
