Hi everyone, I hope that you are all okay, today my post is going to be a little bit different from what I have wrote about before. I just watched the new TV series that Gok Wan is doing, Gok’s Teens: The Naked Truth. This was the 1st episode in the series and it was about body confidence. I will be the first one to admit I am a massive fan of Gok Wan and I think that he is amazing, so when I saw that he was doing a show with teenagers I was very excited to watch it. For me I think that the show was outstanding in the way that it was made, I won’t tell you everything about it in case you haven’t seen it and want to watch it. But he is helping teenagers who want to change the way that they look because they have either little or no self-esteem, and some of the issues that he covered could have potentially been very (for want of a better word) ‘touchy’ for some people, however I think that Gok is so great in the way that he faces these sort of issues that he only educates and makes sense of things for people. So I suggest that if you haven’t yet watched the 1st episode go over to 4OD and watch it.
However this is not completely the reason that I have decided to write this blog post. Watching this got me thinking about myself. I have never been the most confident girl in the world or the one that always fits in, and I still don’t think I am now. I am so adverse to compliments it worries me sometimes and I spend so much time on my makeup, hair and clothes that it occasionally borders on obsession. I haven’t always been like this though. As I was growing up I was quite a tomboy so I really didn’t care about what anybody thought about me and would be happy in a football kit or some trackies and battered old trainers playing football in my garden.
 |
| Me my Brother & Cousin Siobhan |
As I grew a bit older I still didn’t really care, I don’t think I did until I went to high school, which to be honest I think is pretty normal. I still loved my sports and that kind of thing but something changed. Granted I did go to an all-girls high school and I don’t really think that helped me or anybody else in my friendship group for that matter. Im not saying that all girls schools are bad in the slightest. Because I think that I probably did learn more, but I do think that it does put quite a lot of pressure on girls to look a particular way. No I haven’t been to a mixed school so I can’t completely compare it but I am just speaking from my opinion. For a lot of my time in high school I was bullied for looking different and being different. I was always really small and wore glasses. (which I still do) and I also used to be one of only a handful of girls that did cheerleading from my school. So they were the things that I mainly got bullied for. I went through patches in my school life where I felt that nobody liked me and that I was just too different (or weird as I used to get called a lot) I did get a pass from the school so that I could go home for my lunch as I didn’t live far from schools that I wouldn’t have to be in school at lunchtimes. However this didn’t really help matters because the few friends that I had close to me differed off with other people and then when I came back into school after lunch I would be on my own, so I do now believe that running away from things does not help. I think it was only when I got intas o my final year or 2 of high school where I found my ‘group’. If that makes sense, I was always one of those people who flitted back and forward to different groups and trying to fit in with whichever group I was with. I suppose I owe a little bit of credit to my twin brother here for a bit of help with this.
 |
| Me & My Twin James |
You may not know this about me but I have a twin brother, and in our town there was the all-girls school and an all-boys school. So we were in the same year and the kids from each year kind of crossed over in friendship groups and would meet in the mornings and after school and stuff like that. Well my brother was in quite a big group and after a while he kind of helped me to integrate into this group by just going with him to parties or just going and sitting on the park after school (like you did when you were 15) but from this group I managed to find a few girls that I got quite close to and still am today, about 5 or 6 years later. I loved the fact that they were all different to each other in ways but so similar in others and everyone seemed to gel together. When I was with them I felt like I belonged and I wasn’t an outsider, and I don’t really think I have ever felt like that since.
 |
| Me and Some of my friends :) |
However even though I had and still have a great group of friends, It never changed the way I thought about myself. I still in myself feel like the ‘runt’ which I know is a horrible way to say it but I can’t think of anything better, I look at my friends when we go out and they all look so beautiful and I just don’t feel like I look good enough, still at nearly 20 what people think about the way I look bothers me, I have found my own style a bit more now I must admit, and I don’t try and dress like other people, or in fashionable stuff that I don’t really like, but I still struggle to find clothes that suit me and that I feel really comfortable and confident in. I think part of it is down to me not knowing my actual body shape and things like that, but I make the most of what I can do.
 |
| Me (A picture I actually like) |
I am currently on a mission to raise my self-confidence and make myself happy in my own skin. I had a chat with one of my good friends Alex who is making a portfolio to become a model. And she suggested that we go and do a photo-shoot together over my birthday to see how I like it and how I find being in front of the camera. I am very scared about doing this I must admit, but I do think that if I can get over my nerves it will be a good thing for me to do, to see what I can make of myself and see if I would like to get some pictures together. (I think that’s a long way off) the reason Alex suggested this to me is that she said that before she started having these pictures done she was very self-conscious and that it has boosted her self-esteem a lot. (you wouldn’t think she was self-conscious from the pictures) So I am going to give it a go, no matter how scared I am, sometimes you just have to jump in at the deep end.
 |
| One of my goregeous friend Alex's Modelling pictures (By S J Walton Photography) |
So I will be keeping you updated on how this goes I think, I have quite enjoyed writing down my experiences, I think it helped a bit. I am very looking forward to the rest of the Gok Wan series and I shall see if it makes me think any more about myself.
Lots of Love
KayleighJane xxx
No comments:
Post a Comment