My journey with body acceptance and the meaning behind my art

Last night I was scrolling through old photos on my phone *often a mistake!* and I came across this one. ⠀
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I took this snap around three years ago on my way to my corporate job in the morning. ⠀
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It took my breath away at first to see it. I was a fair bit slimmer than I am now. Not the thinnest I’ve ever been, but definitely at one of my smaller stages. ⠀
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My brain went, “let’s get back to that!”⠀
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Then I felt really sad. Because I remember I still wanted to lose weight then. ⠀
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It made me feel a little defeated. When does it ever end?⠀
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I’m not sure there’s ever been a time where I haven’t wanted to change something about my body. ⠀
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I remember back then I was getting up at 4.30am to go to the gym. I would walk my dog for an hour or two each night after work. While I felt in a pretty good place, it wasn’t sustainable. I wasn’t really happy at work. I was still getting over a breakup with my cheating fiancee from the year before. I felt like if I stopped moving forward, things would fall apart. I just had to keep busy. ⠀
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Yet I still feel jealous of this Heidi. Isn’t that bad? After everything I’ve achieved and where I’m at now, I want the body from that time. ⠀
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These days, I do feel pretty happy and confident. I’d like to feel fitter and stronger (iso isn’t really helping there!). But I feel comfortable in my skin and most days, I don’t worry about what other people think. ⠀
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I’m not sure my journey to body acceptance will ever be ‘complete’. It’s a constant work in progress to love my body. ⠀
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But I do want to do this on my own terms. I’m letting go of what I ‘should be’, in terms of my body but also life in general. ⠀
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And that’s what ‘Freely’ is about. The prints in my collection are about embracing the feminine, learning to accept ourselves for who we are, owning our mistakes and getting back to who we were before the world told us who we should be. ⠀
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That’s the place this collection was born from. And that’s what I hope women take away from it. ⠀
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Shop the Freely collection here. My Freely prints are limited and will only be available until October 23.