You may never look as sexy, young or beautiful as you do today

My body has changed a lot over the years. I've been bigger than I am now, and I've been smaller. Through all the sizes, I never felt I was allowed to like my body because I had a stomach, which my mom told me time and time again.

I didn't understand why she was so angry about it. I liked it. I still like it; I just learned to keep that quiet.

I moved back to live with my parents at the ripe old age of 36. Illness led me to need help living and recovering. Id had a flu virus and ended up with chronic fatigue. I was bedridden for months. I slept up to 20 hours a day. When I was awake, I was too weak to hold my own head up or eat solid food. Moving home was not an easy decision, but it was necessary.

As my health improved and I could move around more, I needed clothes to fit my new, larger body. I had been a size 8 and did Crossfit five days a week for 3 years. Now I was more of a 14/16, and walking to the toilet felt like climbing Everest.

My mom worked in a charity shop and brought me home a shirt to try on. It was not to my taste, but it might just do.

I tried it on and walked out to look in the full-length mirror.

"Oh my gosh, my boobs look so good in this.  I will definitely keep it."

My mom walked over to have a look, and as she looked into my smiling face, she said

"But don't you see the rest?" She wasn't smiling.

What she meant was, "Don't you see past the good boobs to the fat tummy, the expanding hips. the enlarging and yet flattening bum.

This is the woman who raised me. Hell, this is the woman who made me. She is the woman who shaped my relationship with bodies.

I loved the feel of my body, or at least liked it even at its “biggest”.

When I looked in the mirror or saw it in photos, I saw it through her eyes, and I assumed many other people would be thinking what she did.

For once, I took a stand. I said, "What do you want me to do? Look at it, ignore the good I see, and focus on the long list of things I could judge as imperfect?"

She apologized and tried to explain that It was because if she looked in the mirror at her body, her mind would not let her see any beauty or goodness.

Back before chronic fatigue, when all the gyming was making me feel so damn strong and fit, I shared this picture with my sister and my mother.

Can you guess what I got back from my mother? (and no it wasn’t about the mess :)

"You still have that triangle of a tummy."

I felt so hurt, so embarrassed.

I had felt so good looking in the mirror when I took the picture. I wanted to mark my peak fitness (to date) and celebrate what focusing on strength had done for my aesthetics. Aesthetics was no longer my reason for exercising, and when I let it go, I loved the gym.

This video shows my body today, and out of respect for it and as someone who wants to change her relationship with the aesthetics of the physical form, I am sharing all of my shape in this reel.

It's not an easy thing to do because I grew up in a world where a body like this was unacceptable, undesirable, and something that should be hidden.

I have spent so many years trying to hide my perceived physical imperfections. I look back on pictures I didn't share because I thought my stomach looked too big, and I envy that body now. I feel sad that I couldn't see it for how healthy, strong, and beautiful it was.

As someone who lives with illness and has a father who has lost both legs, I want to show gratitude and celebrate what my body can still do for me, like facilitate my walk in the forest and taking a cold dip in the river, even if i did nearly get washed away in the current.

I have been changing my relationship with the aesthetics of the human body and owning the love I have for my body. What I feel in my body is mostly gorgeous. What I see when I look at pictures and think of someone else seeing them is shame and repulsion, quite imperfect through that lens of my assumed judgment from others.

When it comes to who I am on the inside, I do not give time or energy to shame. I feel it and then rebel so as to disempower it.

It's time I did the same about the shame I feel for the aesthetics of my body.

I have been following @swimawaythepain for years and she has helped me realise that all shapes and sizes are beautiful, and each deserves to be celebrated and adored.

The stark truth is that no man has ever made me feel bad about my body; it has been the females in my life that led me to believe my body should look a particular way to be seen as gorgeous, because that's what they believe to be true for them.

You may never look as young, as beautiful, or as sexy as you do now. Remind yourself of this each and every day and own, feel and enjoy your gorgeousness.

P.S yes i go dipping in my undies.

How has your relation been with your body aesthetics? How do you feel about your body at the moment? Would you or have you shared a video or picture showing your body in a way that makes you feel vulnerable?