No, I Don’t Appreciate It.

I feel like as a girl, catcalling comes to be something you just accept and deal with and honestly when I think about it it really irritates me.

I can’t count the amount of times I’ve experienced some sort of street objectification: from being beeped at as a car drives past me to having “compliments” at me on the street.  Last week, a guy went as far as to walk closer to me as I stood at the bus stop and whisper “Yeah you look good today” as he walked past.  Nowadays I’m so used to it that I just brush it off and carry on with my life, but why has cat-calling been normalised to the point where it’s something girls just come to expect?  

I shouldn’t have to be worried about wearing a skirt or shorts in boiling hot weather, because of what random strangers that walk/drive past me might think.  I’m a young girl who has been warned all her life about rape and kidnapping so beeping at me and yelling slurs as I’m standing alone on a street is not going to make me want you at all, it’s gonna make me do the complete opposite.

I just don’t understand the intent behind it… if you’re driving past me, beeping at me in your car do you expect me to run after you and confess my love for you?  I can’t speak for all women, but I don’t see it as a compliment, I see it as you making me uncomfortable, and at the end of the day it’s a form of harassment and it’s not okay.  Do you think you’re flattering me?  You’re not.  Stop it.  Seriously.

Next time you feel like yelling at a girl or showing your interest as your drive past, keep it to yourself.  If you truly think that this complete stranger walking past you may be the love of your life, write her a love letter, pine after her from afar, preach to your friends about her intense beauty… but don’t cat-call, it’s tacky and I guarantee you it won’t work in your favour.

What are your thoughts on catcalling?  Got any reasons as to why people do it, or want to share your own personal experience?  I would love to hear it in the comments!

Lots of love,

Jas xx

 

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My Food Mentality | Accepting My Body…

Recently I’ve been feeling a lot better about the way I look.

Have I been dieting? Nope. Lost weight? Not considerably. Finally sorted out my hair? Maybe one day…

Honestly, nothing about my appearance has really changed at all, and yet I’m able to look in the mirror and feel 10 times better about myself than I did this time last month (Or anytime in the last few years to be honest).  I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about it, and it pretty much all stems down to acceptance.  

Since my post about my insecurities, I’ve been trying a lot harder to feel more comfortable in the skin that I’m in.  I know that I’m not the skinniest or the tallest, or have the best hair or cutest smile, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t still be attractive.  I see people of all shapes and sizes who are all equally beautiful, and I’ve realised over time that a lot of that beauty stems from their confidence.  I’m a strong believer of the phrase fake it til you make it, because I believe that it genuinely works… I started by pretending that I liked the way that I looked and eventually I actually started to.  Don’t get me wrong, I still have days where I feel like a potato, everyone does… But those days are decreasing and that’s what matters.

It’s so easy to preach at people “embrace your flaws!” “Everything about you is beautiful!”, but the truth of the matter is none of that is going to mean anything if you don’t want to listen, and up until recently, I’ve never wanted to listen to it because I never thought I deserved to.  However, we all deserve to feel good about ourselves, and you’re the only one that can get yourself to that point.  

I have a history of issues with body-confidence and how I view myself, but this is the first time in a lot of years where I’ve felt like I’m steadily growing from them.  The journey to accepting yourself can be long and difficult, but I guarantee that eventually you’ll start improving.  Different things work for different people, and honestly there’s nothing wrong finding the method that works for you; for some it’s therapy, for others it’s (healthy!) weight loss, for me it was apparently gaining a little confidence and accepting who I am.  Find what works for you!

Thanks for reading, and remember that you are all beautiful, whether you choose to listen or not!

Lots of love,

Jas xx

 

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“But You Don’t Have My Problems!”

“You just don’t understand!”

“You don’t get what it’s like being me!”

“You don’t have the problems that I do!”

Though all of these statements can be true in their own respects, they can be some of the most annoying statements to hear.  

Yes, we’re all unique, and although we’ve been taught from a young age that you should “walk a mile in somebody else’s shoes”, we know that in life this isn’t always possible, and you’re never going to understand exactly what somebody else is going through.  However, that being said I have a real issue with people lashing out at others because “they don’t know what they’re going through”.

Somehow, we’ve come to live in a world where sharing your thoughts and feelings is considered “weird” and “overemotional”, so finding someone you can open up to with your problems is hard enough as it is.  The great thing about friendship is that you can bounce off of each other; you’re able to tell them your issues, and they’re able to do the same.  However, the problem arises when someone lashes out and you’re hit with a “but you don’t have my problems!”

You see, the issue here is that, though you may feel that you are dealing with something of more importance than your friends or family, there is absolutely no reason to belittle and demean somebody else’s issues at the expense of your own.  I understand that when looking at “the bigger picture” your issues could be on a much larger scale than your friends, (for instance, you could be dealing with a loss in your family and they could be stressing over a job they got rejected from) but that still doesn’t give you the right to act like their problems don’t matter.  

You see, everyone deals with their emotions differently.  Nowadays we know more about mental health and we should know that people process different “levels” of problems in different ways.  Your friend probably even understands that their issue is not on the same scale as yours, but at the end of the day, they still have an issue and they have trusted YOU enough to talk to about it.  Do.  Not.  Take.  That.  For.  Granted.

To imply that your problem/problems are of greater importance than theirs is essentially your way of telling them that their problems, and consequently themselves, don’t matter as much as you and your issues, and that’s an awfully horrible feeling to push upon your friends.  People don’t even realise they’re doing it most of the time, I mean, I’ve probably (most definitely) done it multiple times before, but it’s something that needs to stop ASAP.  We all go through roller-coasters of emotions and it’s hard enough building up the courage to talk to people about your problems but throwing around phrases like the ones above only have negative impacts on those who receive them.  You have the possibility of making those who thought they could trust you to comfort them see themselves as burdens through your eyes, and before you know it they’re back to feeling like they have to keep all their feelings bottled up.  (Which, by the way, nobody should do.  Ever.  It’s super unhealthy.)

I guess, what this rant was trying to say is that everybody’s problems matter, regardless of the size or severity of them, so be careful next time you go to snub someone else’s problem because you see yours as superior.  It’s hard enough not feeling like a burden when you go to someone else for support… don’t add to the problem.

Hope this was insightful, please share your thoughts with me in the comments!

Lots of love,

Jas xx

Insecurity.

Why is it so easy to spot our own flaws?  I mean, I’ve always had things I didn’t like about my body… I haven’t liked my stomach since I was 6, and I never liked the ways my thighs jiggled, but over time things that I never thought would bug me… things that aren’t even that wrong with me have become more of an issue.

I think I mentioned in my post on The Colour Problem with Makeup that I got into wearing makeup really late.  I mean, you weren’t allowed it at secondary school, and my skin’s always been pretty clear so I saw no need in purchasing foundations and concealers, but by the time I got to sixth form that started to change.  Suddenly makeup was allowed and girls came in with porcelain skin, an absence of eye bags, perfectly drawn on eyebrows and long curly eyelashes.  The girls who were already pretty took their prettiness to a whole other level and I began to notice a whole lot more wrong with myself.  The non-spotty skin that I once prided myself on was no longer good enough, I noticed the slight discoloration in certain areas and the eye bags and the lack of perfection.  Yeah, my eyebrows were shaped, and yeah they’re naturally quite full but they weren’t as perfect as those who used product.  With time, everything became a bigger deal – my arms were to flabby and my nose was too flat and yeah my eyelashes are quite naturally curly but they didn’t stand out enough.

Yes, I could sit here and preach about how you should never compare yourself to other people, but the truth is it’s so easy to do,   and often we get lost in everybody else’s pro’s that we can only notice our cons.  I’ve gotten way better at self-confidence since January, and I know that I’m more than just my flaws, and people come in all shapes and sizes but sometimes that can be hard to remember when you’re surrounded by people you deem to be “better than you”.  I wrote in my Project 2017 Feb Update that I’ve spent quite a bit of February feeling quite insecure, and that it true, but I’ve also gotten a lot better at handling how I deal with these insecurities.

I’m never gonna be perfect.  None of us are ever gonna be perfect.  But one day, I’m gonna look back at the body and face and hair that I have now and wish that I looked like that again, the same way I look at pictures of 15 year old me, at the peak of her insecurity and realise that she wasn’t half as fat as she thought that she was.  The truth of the matter is, as much as we might look at other people and wish we had what they had, we all only get one body, and it would be a shame to spend our whole lives hating it.  

No, confidence doesn’t come overnight.  I mean, I’ve spent 2 months working on my confidence and I still have a loooooong way to go, but everybody’s gotta start somewhere right?  My motto for most things in life is if you don’t like it, change it… But when it comes to me (and a lot of other people) that’s not the best motto when it comes to things to do with wait and body insecurity.  So, I recommend you focus on changing the external things: be more adventurous with makeup, cut or dye your hair, change your eyebrow style, buy some new clothes or underwear that you feel good in… It all makes more of a difference than you’d think.

The most important thing to remember with insecurities (something I’m still working on) is that your “flaws” aren’t the problem, your attitude to them is.  Yeah, my skin may not be 100% even, but at least it’s smooth, and no I’m not happy with the way my thighs jiggle but I have a pretty great butt… Everyone has something to be proud of, start noticing your own pro’s!

You’re all amazing, feel free to leave something you like about yourself in the comments, or your thoughts on insecurity,

Lots of love,

Jas xx

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“It’s Because You’re Smart”…

I have never found school easy.  I worked hard and I got good grades, but I have never found school easy.

After GCSE’s, when I came out with good(ish, I mean they weren’t insanely impressive but they were towards the higher end) grades, I was pegged as a “smart person”… a common misconception when it comes to me.  Because of this, when I was stressing before a test or asking for extra help, or saying I couldn’t go out because I needed to study I usually got met with the same response: “Yeah, but you’ll be fine because you’re smart“.

What I’ve tried to explain (Granted, pretty poorly because I’m not as good communicating in person) is that getting good grades is not always directly linked to being “smart”.  I think I’ve always had an interest in learning, but I’ve always been pretty slow at it.  I don’t have a learning disability or anything, but it takes me quite a while to process things and actually understand what’s going on.  What people don’t seem to realise is that when I sit in a classroom, or more recently a lecture theatre, I rarely understand what’s going on the first time round.  I have to go home, look back on my notes, google things and research more in order to actually understand what I’m being taught.

I feel like the phrase “but you’re smart” comes with the underlying connotations of “naturally gifted”, “doesn’t have to try as hard”, and “definitely going to do well” but none of that is the case with me.  I have to work ridiculously hard to get the grades that I get… and it’s not like I need people to give me a well done for all the extra work I put in, I do that because I have to.  It can just be a little disheartening when the results of your hard work get brushed off and dis-valued because everyone expected it “because you’re smart”.

I think what I’m trying to say is that you never know the background work that goes into something, yet we’re so quick to dismiss someone’s effort because we see them as “naturally gifted”.  The majority of people have put a massive amount of effort behind everything that they do, only to have people dismiss it or see it as something frivolous or something that comes naturally.  People don’t do it on purpose but we all need to be a little more careful with how we talk to people and what we say, me included.  Call me smart, tell me you are proud of how I did, but don’t make your compliment sound like an excuse for why I did as well as I did.

This was slightly ranty… Sorry haha just something that goes through my mind a lot,

Lots of love,

Jas xx

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The Little Things

I’ve always been very bad with self-confidence… being “my own worst enemy” and all.  I never believed anyone sincerely thought good things about me and saw compliments as something that people only really gave out because they had to as friends or family.  However, recently I’ve been working on having a lot more confidence in myself, and believing people has become a lot easier.  In this time I’ve realised how good compliments can actually make you feel, and that it’s the very little things that can make you feel the happiest sometimes.

Since I’ve started this blog I’ve really come into myself a lot more and it’s apparently been noticeable.  I’ve had multiple people I haven’t spoken to in forever messaging me to tell me that they like what I’m doing and honestly it’s been amazing.  I have amazing friends and family that I know will always love me and support me but sometimes it’s nice to be reminded that what you’re doing is appreciated.  

I was talking to my friend the other day and out of the blue in the conversation they said “I really appreciate the fact you’re always there for me”.  We’re friends, I obviously knew that they kept me around for a reason, but sometimes it’s just nice to hear it… to reconfirm what you already know.  Everybody gets insecure sometimes, and everybody you love could benefit from a compliment.  It takes less than a minute to open your mouth or open a text message and say “I love you” or “I appreciate the fact you’re there for me”, and the tiny gesture can have a massive impact on someones day.  It’s like throwing a pebble into a river, it will always create a bigger ripple than the pebble itself.

Take a tiny moment every once in a while to improve someones day: remind them that you love them, or give a sad looking person a smile.  It could make a world of difference.

Hope you’re enjoying the little things in life!

Lots of love,

Jas xx

 

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