Influence Yourself

Social media has become more and more popular, and “Influencers” play a big part in our decision making and how we feel about ourselves.

I have my favorite Influencers as well, and they do play a big part in how I feel about myself.

Recently, one of my favorite influencers had gained some weight, but she remained beautiful and humble.

I have watched her videos for years and she, like myself, struggles with her weight. She always looks gorgeous, no matter her weight, but I really enjoy watching her spreading confidence.

I struggle with my own insecurities with my body image, but seeing her still make videos even after gaining weight gave me hope that I could be as beautiful as her and feel good about my body.

I haven’t been keeping up with her latest videos, but today I ran across one of her videos, and she has lost quite a bit of weight.

I immediately tuned in to see how she lost all that weight in less than a year.

She was advertising the products she used to lose her weight, and of course my interest peaked, I had to click on the website to see these products.

I quickly noticed that I cannot afford these products, because they are very expensive. My husband and I make enough to pay the bills, but not for too many unneeded costs.

Even after knowing that I cannot afford these products, I continued to watch her “live” to see if maybe there was more to the story of how she lost the weight. After reading some of the comments some people were stating that “she had liposuction to lose the weight”. I don’t know if there is any truth in that statement, but the overall feeling throughout the comments was this was a very unaffordable weight loss option, that she was advertising.

I love this influencer, and she is a very sweet woman. I would never degrade her because, I know that she is just doing her job. She works hard to influence her followers and believe me it is a lot of work. So, I’m sure she does make more money than me to be able to afford these products. .

I decided to stop reading the comments and watch the influencer, the influencer that shows how to be a confident woman of God.

Then, as I noticed her slipping on some jeans, and admiring how big they were on her now, I felt a rush of sadness consume me. A sadness about my own weight, Because those jeans were the same size jeans that I wear now.

Do I think she wanted to make me feel bad about my weight ? My answer is No, she is a great person. I don’t think she would ever want me to feel sadness because of her video.

But, it really did hurt my feelings.

I began feeling angry. First, she makes a video advertising weight loss products that I cannot afford, then she brags about how “big” my size jeans are.

Is it really influencers job to make us feel good about ourselves?

I felt sadness because of my lack of self confidence, and because of my body image insecurities. But it goes deeper than just my outer appearance.

I have stopped loving myself and I always focus on what’s wrong with me, instead I need to learn to embrace all my flaws and see my true worth.

Today, I have decided I’m going to start my journey to truly loving myself inside and out. It’s not influencers job to make us love ourselves, they are there to encourage us and to help us, but to truly love ourselves we have to do the work.

Who wants to go on this journey with me? I’m going to be starting a new series for Perfectly Imperfect plus life, my journey to realizing my self worth, and truly loving everything about myself. I am so excited and can’t wait to start this journey with all my followers.

Please remember you are worth so much more in this life and influencers cannot make you feel bad about yourself if you truly love yourself. If you don’t I encourage you to go on this journey with me, we can do this together!