What’s wrong with…

What’s wrong with…

wanting to be the best version of you and presenting your best self to the world?

Why am I asking this question?

For some reason there has become a social media influx of “body positivity” posters creating a sense of battle between those that create posts which contain poses that accentuate their positives and the poses by the “body positivity” posters that reveal their bodies posing in “natural state” and then poses that reveal their very best self. Basically creating a battle between images that present their very best and accentuate one’s best traits versus those that are showing the opposite- poses in positions that accentuate their cellulite, stomach rolls, stretch marks, etc under the “pretense” to help girls and women understand that everyone is human and no one is perfect. We all have stretch marks, cellulite, and skin rolls when we are in certain posed positions. We can also all pose a certain positions to accentuate our assets and diminish our flaws.

Who is to say what is a flaw and what is not a flaw? And who gets to say that stretch marks and cellulite don’t equate to perfection?

These “Body Positive” posts are a recent trend under the “pretense” of “making women feel better about their own bodies” that in essence is an attack of sorts or knock against those who create posts that present their very best images, pose to accentuate their best traits, and maybe even diminish their stretch marks, etc. because in their opinion these images harm women by lowering the self esteem of others who compare themselves to these images which in their opinion creates unrealistic expectations. Their mission is to help girls and women understand that everyone is human and posing the right way can make anyone look better.

This mission has raised a question for me! If posing the right way can make anyone look better than why not just teach how to pose to look more like ones favorite aesthetic role model?

I would personally love help on my posing because I personally suck at posing.

Helping both men and women improve their self esteem is an important mission, a mission that I strongly support, if I thought for one moment that these “body positivity” posters were truly authentic in their “why” behind their post and they could achieve the mission without judging others in the process. Here is the thing… there may be some authenticity behind their mission and I think there may also be an even bigger mission.

You see, I get the sense that just like those putting their best posed photos forward, those putting their slumped posture poses and positions that accentuate their cellulite photos forward have very similar underlying goals.

What goal am I referring to? The goal of gaining followers, getting likes, saves, and shares to create a stream of income from social media popularity.

Social media has changed how businesses, personalities, models, professionals including medical professionals market themselves and/ or services including me.

At this point in the game what I question is…

Is there really a human being that doesn’t understand that people pose to show their best self?

Is there really a human being at this point that doesn’t understand professional photos, selfies, and even video can be edited to remove or diminish flaws?

Is there really a human being at this point that doesn’t understand there are a lot of cosmetics procedures utilized as well to create, and/ or maintain appearance?

Don’t get me wrong- I saw Social Dilemma and if social media never existed, I would not be complaining. I understand fully the impact it has had on our lives for the positive and for the negative. Reality is, we are all grown ass adults and we are solely responsible for how much time we give and how much control we allow social media to take in our lives!

I have chosen to look at the positives! I follow people who motivate me to be better today than I was yesterday. I would not have been introduced to some of the top relationship and sexual health experts if it were not for social media. I learn from and network with other fitness professionals so that I am the very best for my clients.

What if we stopped blaming social media and started looking in the mirror on our use of social media and the impact the amount of time we spend on social media is having on our well being including how it is impacting our relationships.

If we really look deep in the mirror, the origin of people disconnecting from each other started with smart phones not social media. It’s not smart phones or social media that is to blame- it is our behavior and lack of discipline or lack of maturity to monitor ourselves, our behaviors, and honor our loved ones at all times! That includes social media behavior by choosing who we are follow, who we allow to follow us, private chatting, and what that DM chatting includes.

Okay, so I got a little side tracked! Side tracked because I am so fucking sick of people blaming everything and everyone else versus accepting responsibility for their own actions, choices, and behavior.

Reality is this all ties in together!

All the posts and talk about “body positivity” got me thinking what and/ or who really impacts one’s self esteem and body image? And then why!

Is it really someone feels great about themselves and then all of the sudden seeing certain images on social media made them feel bad about themselves?

I don’t think so.

What if one’s self esteem or lack thereof relates back to early childhood? And words their parents said to them? How they interpreted the words their parents said to them? What if their parent’s own self esteem issues impacted their own? Maybe one or both parents were never happy with themselves and they projected their unhappiness openly; therefore, the child picked themselves apart well before comparing themselves to others.

What if we were actually born with an ideal of what we find attractive? Did you know there is a study completed with toddlers that reflects that each of us are born with preferences of what beauty means to us and what we see as ideal attractiveness.

There are so many factors that could have impact on one’s self esteem and one’s body image.

The study behind self esteem and body image is extensive and quite fascinating. Self esteem has many different categories; and yes, some categories fall into mental illness.

Mental illness aside. Ultimately one’s self esteem is just that- how they feel about themselves. What if those with low self esteem seek validation for the way they feel by seeking out what appears in their opinion to be perfect or better bodies to stay in that space versus taking action to be their best and better themselves?

After all, don’t we choose who we follow? If someone is making us feel bad about ourselves don’t we have a choice to not follow them?

What we need to fully understand is that these people who are crying foul and harm because there are images being posted that they feel they can never compete with are also walking down the beach complaining about other people looking better in bathing suits then they do or picking other people apart to make themselves feel better. Their lack of self esteem is following them everywhere because it has everything to do with what is happening with them internally and absolutely nothing to do with outside sources.

What if, just what if, one’s low self esteem or body image is a direct result of them knowing they are not taking care of their health and fitness. A result of poor nutrition. Gosh it is so much easier to blame others or age etc than it is to look in the mirror and dig deep as to why we feel the way we do and take action to improve ourselves.

We are our own competition.

If we each removed excuse and reasons why we “can’t” and took action to truly being healthy and fit… I bet there would be a lot more people supporting each other versus judging what others post, how they posed, if they edited their photos and videos or not so they looked their very best, etc.

Who the fuck cares!

Let’s stop playing the blame game and start taking responsibility for ourselves, our health, our fitness, and be true to who you are. If it makes you feel better to do a little editing or even a lot of editing- be you.

If you are feeling bad about yourself, what actions are you taking to improve how you feel about yourself?

My personal goal is to be me and for people to know who I am should they see me in the mall. I don’t want to look different on social media than I look in person.

Forget about what you see on social media posted by others! What is your goal for your health and fitness? What action could you take today to improve how you feel about you?

Release the negative. Take responsibility for your self esteem by taking care of you, loving you, and exiting negative from your life.

You have the power- stop giving it away!

I am here to help!

Unapologetically Me, Alexis