A New Era

After months of planning, designing, agonising over content and wondering whether I could actually pull it off, I have finally done it - I've made my own website.

All this year's blog content has been imported into it, and all future content will be posted primarily there, leaving this as a still-functioning but essentially old blog full of back-catalogue pieces. But, on the plus side, there's lots of new content to explore and an easier, more interactive set-up on amberinred.com.

There is a comment function for all the blog posts, and there are also creative pages, my model portfolio, and a contact page so you can email me directly.

Thank you to all of you who have read, commented, encouraged, interrogated, and generally interacted here - please, come to the new site and continue!  I look forward to seeing you over there.

amberinred.com

Night Thoughts

It's true for me that the night is when I struggle the most to quiet my mind, and the little inner voices that want to remind me of my failings. Some of them are actual; others are imagined, or circumstances beyond my control which, tinged with blame my rational mind knows I shouldn't accept, I find myself reliving as I fight to get to sleep. It's all very well knowing you shouldn't worry about something, but it's quite another hushing those night thoughts and finding peace of mind when so many things are vying to steal it from you. 

It is often in the night that I do my soul-searching, my tackling of unspoken fears and unrealised desires. In the small hours when the world is dark and relatively quiet, while some memory or pressing thought has hauled me out of slumber, I tread through fog in search of clarity. Sometimes it's just because I want to go back to sleep; other times it's more vital than that, and I need an answer I will still remember in the morning. 

A lot of these thoughts centre on a deeply-rooted fear that I am not enough in some way. Not clever enough; not accomplished enough; not savvy enough; not attractive enough in many senses of the word; just, not enough to succeed. And what idea of success am I holding anyway? Because I've given up trying to impress those who likes me best for my academics - to them, I've done nothing impressive since I left University. I've given up trying to impress those who only ever expressed admiration for my body, because it's either too big for some or too small for others, too pale, too tall, if only I just changed X it would be perfect - there's no need for me to try and appease them. And this year I've let go of trying to have the best answer to the 'and what do you do' question at weddings/parties, because frankly I don't like the idea that people are reduced to their job status or that their value primarily sits in the activities they undertake. 

I'm far more interested in how and why people do, not so much what. I prefer to be more focused on how I feel in my body and loving it as it is than worrying about what it looks like to others. I believe academic ability is just a tool, and success in exams alone doesn't necessarily determine success in life. 

Success is a broader concept. For me, it's fulfilling the deep-seated passions I've had since childhood; creating what only I can create, and being satisfied in it; it's living a life that has a valuable impact on those I care about and the wider world, even if it doesn't look spectacular. It's overcoming obstacles with patience and determination; encouraging others; finding the purity and honesty that is possible in humanity. 

Too often I forget my perspective on success in favour of someone else's. Too often I find myself weakened by doubt, held back by anxiety, uncertain of success and therefore unwilling to try. However, I am working on finding confidence in the right places. I am grateful for friends who can pick me up, and slap me out of it if need be! I remember that I will not be the only one struggling, and therefore it would be good for me to be more outward-focused. 

I hope anyone who has read through this and connects with it will know that it's not a unique struggle, and we can be there to support one another. It's exhausting battling people's assumptions whatever state you're in, and to finally find some freedom from specific fears or pressures only to have others try and put you back in your box is a sad and demoralising experience, yet a common one. It makes me very aware of how vital it is that as I learn not to define myself by my perceived failings or weaknesses; also to unlearn any default  negative view of others, even if it's one they have encouraged. It is my sincere desire that humanity can function more on the basis of building one another up rather than pulling each other down, and that confidence is attainable and not confused with arrogance or vanity. 

The F Word

It gets used a lot. We've all said it. Some of us sparingly, some with carefree ease. It gets shouted across streets, across rooms, casually thrown into conversation to make a point, sometimes in jest and sometimes out of spite. Other times it's just a plain old description.

Fat.

There, I said it. Shocked? Probably not. It's not a swear word; it's not even technically a descriptor for something inherently bad. Why then (and please pardon the pun) does it carry so much weight?

Lately I posted something on my Instagram about being a 'fat girl running'. It was just a comedic tag line to go with a comedic photo, and it was an accurate description - I am fat, and I was going running. One person immediately responded: 'you're not fat!'. Oh really? Tell that to my BMI. They then went on to list all the 'nice' things I was, presumably as a counter-measure to the F-word I had deployed. I assured them I considered it possible to be all those things as well as fat; the two states (niceness and fatness) were not mutually exclusive. They seemed to get my point and the whole exchange was really very amicable, but it highlighted something to me that I had been increasingly aware of for a while - the very obvious fact that for most people, 'fat' is a dirty word, and means a hell of a lot more than just what the dictionary will tell you.

This won't be news to anyone reading this, so I won't patronise you with definitions from said dictionary, but I'm starting at what we know: that words are capable of taking on meaning and emphasis way beyond their original purpose. Moral weight is applied; social norms are considered; much can be implied in the context of use. When I was in primary school I learned that fat was a storage method for extra energy, used by our bodies to help keep us warm, and often accumulated just before a growth spurt and puberty. I might have learnt that it wasn't healthy to have too much fat, but I can't remember that part being emphasised, to be honest. I never worried about whether I was or would become fat, I just knew what fat was. It was only when I heard others discussing fat as a thing to get rid of, to be ashamed of, and began to compare myself to the girls and women around me, that any kind of moral meaning appeared for fat. Older sisters of friends would pinch at their bellies in apparent disgust, swap diet tips, describe food as 'naughty', and call other girls fat in a tone that implied fat meant all sorts of other, worse things. Even as a pre-teen I was starting to learn the F-word and why I should so obviously fear it.

There are other, older blog posts I've published about my own body image struggles - weight loss, weight gain, self acceptance, all those sorts of things - so I don't want to go into that as much here. What I'm really interested in right now is the anatomy of fat as a term - why it has this power, whether it should, and how people are addressing it. So right off the bat, here are all the meanings I've seen ascribed to the term 'fat', and what they imply by extension.

Fat means...

Lazy (you can't be bothered to lose weight to be thin, thin equalling normalcy).
Dirty (if you can't be bothered to lose weight you're not looking after your body, therefore you can't be bothered to wash and you probably sweat more because you're fat).
Stupid (clever people would know that being fat was bad).
Slutty (you're not conventionally attractive so obviously you'd say yes to anyone).
Poor (you can't afford healthy food or a gym and you don't get good jobs when you're fat).
Unattractive (because only thin is attractive, to all people everywhere).
Unhealthy (fat people are only fat because they clearly don't exercise).

These are just the ones I've observed personally enough times to convince me it's a widespread mode of thought and not just a few people using the F-word this way. I think it's fair to say that of this bunch, the only one which a lot of people would argue was justifiable is the health argument; we live in a health-conscious society and the responsibility to maintain our health for the good of our families and society, so we don't become a burden on the health services, has been a strong feature in public discussion for some decades. I would argue this is a wider issue than fat, although fat plays a part, and that unless someone is medically qualified and familiar with a person's medical state, they probably shouldn't be making that call. Often concern for health seems a thinly-veiled excuse to call someone out on the unacceptability of their fatness, regardless of the degree of fat, whether it's under that person's control, or the fact that plenty of health problems are not fat-related and occur in non-fat people, or cannot be externally diagnosed. Fat is a factor in health: that's a fact. But it's not the only one.

When you've got all these assumptions to contend with, no wonder fat has become a dirty word. Why would anyone want to be fat, or identify as fat, when that's what people take it to mean?

Something that has interested me along this vein lately is the terminology used by body-positive activists, the plus-size clothing and model industry, and others involved in the broader discussion of bodies in the media. The vast majority of these are women, not because the issue doesn't apply to men or because they are excluded, but simply because women's bodies are so much more politicised in society than men's are; women are told so much more what they should or shouldn't look like. The ideal is always before us, and the ideal in the Western world is not fat. Interestingly, those groups and industries which are involved in promoting body acceptance regardless of size, or providing clothing for fat people, are often still shying away from the word 'fat'. The most popular alternative term is 'curvy'; it's innocuous, it can be applied to any woman, any human for that matter, but 'curvy' has become a loaded term as well. For some, it sums up the epitome of hourglass, full-figured yet still attractive womanhood, a code for 'acceptable fat', implying that some kinds of fat are ok, but others aren't. For others, it embraces all degrees of the female body, but shies away from the negative connotations of fat. Recently the hashtag 'curvy' was removed by Instagram due to a vast number of pornographic images which had been uploaded using the term, but was re-instated after widespread outcry that this was an example of punishing women for the appropriation of their word by others who had sexualised it. It wasn't just the loss of a word that was the issue - it was the fact that this word represented an entire community, a mindset, a collective attitude toward the female body that thousands of people felt was positive and necessary. 'Fat' has probably never had that kind of power.

And yet, it is just a word. It is just the state of having stored energy attached to your body, possibly in larger amounts than biologically necessary. It isn't a descriptor for all that a person is; it doesn't have to mean more than exactly what it is. And it doesn't have to be taboo. To take back the F-word and strip it of its negative power is simply the work of deconstructing the myths around it, challenging the assumptions, and not being afraid to call a spade a spade. To question meaning and social constructs is a healthy part of our personal development but also, in my view, a crucial action in a society which is still image-obsessed and fraught with emotional and physical dangers for those growing up into it.

I am fat, in that I have fat on me, approximately two stone more than a BMI chart tells me I should. I am fat, and I carry this fat with me, and it contributes to a shape I have learned to love and will continue to love whether it loses fat or gains it, because this is my body and I will live in it for the rest of my life, whatever size it happens to be. I am fat, and I do exercise and eat healthily most of the time, even if my physical appearance doesn't indicate it in the expected and accepted way. I am fat, and I do not believe that this makes me, or anyone else, less valuable as a person.

An Impossible Perfect

I feel like I have to present this with an explanatory note: this post is about body image. I'm well aware that some people will consider it irrelevant to them, and/or I may be seen to have harped on about this a lot lately. I also know from experience that a lot of men think this is an exclusively female subject. If you are one of the lovely people who take the time to read my blog, and you consider that you fall into one of these categories/views I've just mentioned, can I appeal to you to please be open-minded and carry on reading anyway? I know I can only write from my own perspective and experience, but this is a subject transcendent, I believe, of gender and political views. I really hope it can spark some discussion amongst those who may not have actively considered it before.

Nobody warns you how completely impossible physical perfection is. The idea of perfection you learn, through observation/osmosis, is just a complete misunderstanding of reality - there is no one 'perfect'. It doesn't exist.

You may get 'lucky' genetically, and avoid predisposition to stretch marks, cellulite, acne, 'excessive' body hair (whatever that means), weight retention, whatever else may be in our genetic code that is considered below the impossible standard. You may work incredibly hard as an athlete, dancer, something else that physically alters your body. You might not bruise or scar easily. You might not frown so much that it lines your face. You might have the perfect collagen balance in your skin. You might discipline your eating habits to improve your health. You might do or have all or none of the above.

Still nothing prepares you - well, prepared me - for waking some days, looking down at your body and wondering how the hell it ended up the way it did. Why no one ever tells you that you don't have to carry a baby to have stretch marks; that your adolescent growth spurts and then weight gain in your twenties will do that for you. That you'll have them in places that you're not strictly 'fat' - the backs of your knees, your breasts. That men get them too.

Nothing prepares you for the afternoon as a teenager that you cut your leg climbing a fence, and the nurse while she steri-strips it jokes that your modelling career will be scuppered by the scar. You're not planning on a modelling career, but it's tantamount to telling you that this mark will make you less beautiful, less desirable in the eyes of others. And because you've learned that beauty and desirability are the standard, you're ashamed of it. Some days you put make up on it to make it less obvious.

Nothing prepares you for the first out-of-place hair you find on your body, somewhere that hair apparently isn't meant to grow.

The bingo wings that won't completely disappear however many toning exercises you do.

The blue shadows under your eyes that one sleepless night bring out in the morning, however well hydrated you are, whatever creams you use.

The way your stomach folds softly when you sit, even when you're at your thinnest and fittest, in spite of all your sit-ups.

There are many things we can change about ourselves, if we want to. But there are so many we can't. And our physical selves perplex and frustrate us, because they won't conform to the perfection standard, even if we are 'lucky' or we work our hardest. I can lie in bed and try to count my marks and flaws and wonder how my skin has done this to me, but where does that leave me? Afraid? Ashamed? Insecure? And for what - for something I can't control, for a standard I can't achieve. Moreover, a standard that fails to allow for the natural differences of humanity, or the beauty of the mind and spirit.

Here's a radical idea. It's not new and it's certainly not original. And by radical I mean affecting the fundamental nature of something - I don't mean scary, off the wall and unsustainable. Let's love our bodies. Let's be grateful for them - all the things they can do; all the things they are; the living that our scars and marks represent; the fights we have won; the ones we are still fighting. Let's accept and celebrate their uniqueness, their diversity, their strength and their softness. Let's remember they are vessels for our life and not our life itself. And let's not hold onto an impossible perfect anymore.

Indomitable

It was turning into Budleigh Salterton all over again.

My mother took me for a weekend when I was twelve. It rained the entire time; the sea was rough; the wind buffeted and forced us to squint as we struggled along the coastal path. I couldn't get near the water. It was supposed to be special, but I only remember the distance between the experience and the ideal.

Now here I was on a Sunday afternoon on the north Devon coast, eyes straining against an unforgiving gale, hair in my face defiant of a dozen hairpins, alone and trying not to fall over. Inappropriately dressed in skirt and heeled boots, laughing grimly at my absurd romantic notion that a day at the seaside would reinvigorate me somehow.

I feel small by the sea. It has always brought me a calm and grounding sense of place - not insignificance, but something like reverence. In the salt air and drowned out by the constant grumbling roar of Atlantic waves, I am centred, as if it knows me and I know it and the roles we play.

But not today. Today it isn't loud enough; today I cannot lose my petty unease, my navel-gazing. I hunker down in view of sand and sea and pebbles, soft grey boulders reaching into the mist and ringed in white, and I am miserable somehow. My own vitality is not replenished by the life around me, not as I expected and hoped.

 

Then of course I realise that my problem is bigger than the sea, to me - it's a problem of perspective. The ocean is no sticking plaster to the troubled soul. It demands nothing of me and therefore I do not give. I am used to feeling put-upon, in some way like I have to yield and that is how I reach a remedy. Without the demand for me to give myself up, I remain passive.

I now know what it is that I am here for - I want to be obliterated. To fight is to tire, but to surrender is to rest. I have come to the sea to surrender, but she won't accept my terms; I have no choice but to keep fighting, and I'm tired.

The cold, steel-blue waves; the soft green land; the milky pebbles and the unrelentingly grey skies, so vast and yet my spirit is indomitable. And do I want to be indomitable? Today, it seems I do not have a choice. And as I fight my way up the harsh incline of the pebble ridge I remember - what do I remember?

I remember that when I fight, I conquer and I laugh.

BIG

BIG

I am the big one.
The big sister.
The tallest.
The towerer-over, still insisting on wearing heels.
The one you tell to sit down
So you don't feel intimidated.

I am the big one.
Big hips.
Jeans-filling.
Swaying, walking, dancing.
The one you can't lend your dress
Because I'll stretch it.

I am the big one.
Big thighs.
Long legs.
Can't fold elegantly into the back of the car,
The one that makes you budge up on the sofa.

I am the big one.
Big ideas.
Talking, laughing, singing.
Asking questions, wanting to know.
The one you think might be more chat than substance.

I am the big one.
Big dreams.
Ambitious.
Up at night writing.
The one who may be better at the theory than the practice.

Big.
I always have been.
I don't mind it.
I don't mind taking up space,
Physical, mental, philosophical.
I don't want to diminish.
I don't want to cower.
I have no plans to apologise.
I have no plans to stop.
This is what I was made to be -
Big.

All the Things I Thought I Would Have Done

A couple of months ago I made a list of 25 things I wanted to achieve before I turned 27. Perhaps unsurprisingly, considering I am definitely a bite-off-more-than-you-can-chew kind of person, I didn't succeed in getting through them all! There were some extenuating circumstances, but still, I should probably be disappointed with myself, right? I mean what kind of person sets goals and then just completely fails to reach them? Oh wait, that would be me.

The trouble with getting older/growing up, for me anyway, is that I'm still trying to figure out that boundary between flexibility and self-discipline. I know I'm capable of doing a lot, but somehow I still manage to scrape in at the last minute, and it's not a recent development. I was always the last to finish my drawings in art class, taking them home to be completed most of the time; I vividly recall sewing buttons for a craft competition (homeschooler alert!) the night it was due to be handed in for judging, despite having had two months to work on it. My essays were always in on time at uni, but I was forever behind with my reading, cramming my brain full on the train on the way back into Oxford for tutorials. It's like I have all these ideas and no clue how to manage my time around them, or allow for the inevitable interruptions, also known as Life Happening. I make schedules and plans and I can organise to a minute detail; I can pull off a huge party, or food for thirty people in a morning, or a corporate seminar. But when it comes to personal life goals, I always seem to be behind. And what is this self-imposed timetable I am trying to keep up with?

My 27th birthday was last Saturday, the 6th of June. I was discussing this blog post with the husband who cheekily pointed out that it was funny I would be writing about growing up when I'd had a Neverland-themed birthday party, i.e. a celebration based around a boy who never grows up. I hadn't really thought of it that way - I just wanted a pirate ship and bonfire and to be a mermaid, and clearly don't see those why those things should be exclusively for children! - but I had to acknowledge a degree of incidental irony. There I was, swanning around in an elaborate homemade costume and blue wig, garden littered with little bamboo-framed tepees and plastic bows and arrows and glass jars with candles in them, my own personal Neverland - and my list ignored, my goals unreached, and as yet no job to go to the following Monday.

It sounds so irresponsible, so careless when I read it back. I like to think those are terms most people I know would not apply to me. But sometimes you can't control all the cards you're dealt, or you don't know how to play them, or quite simply you get it wrong, and the best you can do is have a few parties along the way while you're figuring it out. It doesn't mean I'm not going to try to improve myself, or hit some of those targets, even if they're late. But at the same time, I've realised there's a lot we hold onto that may not be good for us, it just seemed like a good idea at the time. And that's where I was at when I wrote this.

All the things I thought I would have done
Live in a box
Which I take out and browse sometimes.
It's stored where no one else can find it
Although I let a few close friends have a peek
Once in a while.

Regret sits proudly in one corner,
Relief in another;
Ambivalence and forgetfulness
Can be found at the bottom
If I rummage.

There's a lot of junk
But some things I'm not ready to throw away yet.
It's difficult to detach ambition from sentiment
As they have become tangled over the years,
Mainly with my childhood memorabilia.

Notes from adults who no longer feature in my life,
Opinions lettered in bold ink,
Awaiting trial.
Bright-coloured thoughts wrapped around University papers
And daydreams hurriedly scrawled
In endless notebooks,
None of them full from cover to cover.

I think I keep the box because
I don't know whether I've finished with it.
Whether something I can work with
Will surface from amidst the dross.
Whether my vain hopes
Are extinguished sufficiently
For me to move on,
Find new ones. 

The fact is, I've spent the last few years sifting through those hopes, opinions, daydreams, plans. And I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one who finds themselves looking backwards almost as much as they look forwards, because sometimes it's really hard to tell what's worth holding onto and what isn't.The one thing I am set on is finding a way to prioritise the goals I definitely know are important, because those are the ones I don't want to fail on. As for the rest, I may have to wait and see.

Mantra

Lately I've been thinking about mantra. It's on the long list of things on which I can't claim to be an expert... Honestly I've been in two minds about whether to write anything on this subject at all, because my first draft really was more like an essay (seriously, it even had references). But then I remembered this is a blog and not an academic exercise, and the whole point is that I write about things that actually mean something to me, and this does. So here goes.

My very basic understanding is that mantra is the use of words and phrases which are supposed to have sacred meaning or power; to aid concentration; to psychologically influence. Those who use it in a spiritual sense believe it can create an awareness which connects us to our inner self, although there seems to be some argument as to whether this is down to the specific words used or simply the thoughts behind them, but either way there is a very natural association with the practice of meditation.

I hadn't considered myself the meditating kind, but really anyone who has stopped to contemplate the beauty of life and nature and has found some peace through that contemplation - isn't that exactly what we were doing, in one way or another? It's just not that not everyone has a spiritual context for it.

I was recently in the Lake District and until I climbed some of those hills, until I looked out upon the vast rugged terrain and breathed in the fresh sea air, I had forgotten. I had forgotten how much I needed these moments of elation, this quiet but overwhelming glory. To find that actually, for someone so naturally verbose, I was out of words. For once I didn't actually want to describe, to quantify what was in front of me; I just wanted to take it in. I wanted to be part of it.

I think that mantra in the modern age for those of us without the cultural-historical references of its history has become equivalent to lifestyle wisdom, a proverb or a catchphrase. From 'lean in' to 'yes we can', a few well-intended words can easily become trite when too often used or without sufficient thought to their meaning - YOLO is a pretty classic example. You do only live once as far as science and most streams of philosophy go, but somewhere between being the modern-day 'carpe diem' and the life-endangering disasters that have filled up YouTube, clearly something was lost in translation. For this reason I have been trepidatious, bordering on cynical when it comes to the concept of mantra, because not only am I not sold on the spiritual element of it, but I feel like even if that does hold water, it's been hyped up and hijacked by diet programmes and politicians, and I just don't have time for words that have no meaning.

The thing is, I do believe that words have power. We've all heard 'the pen is mightier than the sword', and for those who would argue the toss think of how the philosophies which inspired the sword (i.e. all conflict) were disseminated: in writing, by word of mouth, through popular song and story. History, literature and religion are full of discussions of the influence words can have, for good or bad; it makes sense that humanity naturally accumulates these phrases, whatever we choose to call them, to help us make sense of our world and delineate our outlook on it. I suppose I've always been drawn to language because of the power of it, the way it can draw us from ourselves, can break apart or solidify our thoughts, feelings, decisions. In the same way those Lake District views stopped and centred me, the right words can bring to the surface the strength and resolve I need to tackle a challenge, while the wrong ones can reinforce negative patterns that make me self-destructive.

The important thing to remember is that we make the decision as to which words we allow to affect us; we choose what we accept as truth. Plenty of what we take in is subconscious and even instilled in childhood, so as an adult I am finding myself constantly in need of re-conditioning, as I become aware of what I've accepted that I shouldn't, or what I've misinterpreted. The key to this re-conditioning is awareness - I can't change something I don't recognise is wrong. And then of course there is the uncomfortable fact that actually, I probably can't change it by myself. Miss independent needs some help.

This is where my personal concept of mantra comes in, because I don't believe that I can simply be emptied of the negative. We fill ourselves up with whatever is around us; naturally like sponges we absorb from the people we know and the life we live and what we hear and watch and read. It's a deliberate and conscious effort therefore to pick and choose what to hold onto, but I know I need to if I'm going to become a better person, if I'm going to succeed at anything. So I look for what inspires and positively challenges me, and what I think is true, and I hold onto that - I repeat it, I have it on my phone or on my wall. I teach myself what I need to know, my mantra, and I try to live these. More posts to follow on what they are...

The Real Me

The real me. I wanted to take this statement and start with a very simple question - what does that mean?

Is it a slogan? A confession? An affirmation?

When we speak about 'me' and prefix it with 'real', we recognise a degree of constructed identity in our public and perhaps even private lives. By emphasising that something is real, we acknowledge that it must have an unreal alternative, a false twin. The actuality of the core being throws its shadow into relief, and maybe for a few seconds we realise that the shadow was masquerading as the whole.

It's easier than ever to create the personal reality we want to. We have so many freedoms - our education, our friends, our politics, our clothes, what we read, where we go, how and what we speak. Text, photos, sound, all are editable, malleable tools for self-projection, for image-creation. But whether what we create is indicative of our reality is up for debate. Naturally I pick and choose the parts of my life and myself I'm willing to publicly share - I don't mind people knowing what parties I go to or when I've been on holiday; I'm more cautious of letting them in on how many times I wear my jeans before washing them, or the rants I have when I'm by myself in the car. I'm using what may seem like trivial examples but this is how simply the charade can start - because I know once I begin worrying too much about how people see me, I stop remembering who I actually am. I can even believe my own construction for a while. My created reality is liable to run away with me, and like Peter Pan I'm left slumped on the floor imploring my shadow to come back and behave itself.

Of course the shadow metaphor has its limitations. Humanity is not two-dimensional; it is possible to be multi-faceted, to be complex, to be 'real' yet still changeable and diverse. I believe that the centre of 'real' in this human complexity is honesty with ourselves and others. What we acknowledge to be the truth is the starting point for all our decisions, be they moral, ethical, emotional, practical. When we centre ourselves honestly, we are better placed to relate to others and to our own selves. So why is it that I find this so difficult?

The main measures I used for myself when I was young were academic and moral. I wanted to be top of my class, and I also wanted to be the best-behaved; I craved the pat on the head, the gold star stickers, the sense of moral superiority (and I know some of you are nodding because you remember this about me!). Clearly wanting to succeed at school and wanting to do the right thing are perfectly good objectives, but it was easy for it to become about performance and perception just as much as it was about content. When I fell short of those standards in any way I didn't feel I could acknowledge my weakness; I wanted to maintain an image of a perfect reality that simply wasn't possible. 

The trouble with reality in our society is that it never comes up to our standards. On a global level there are wars we don't understand and poverty we may feel helpless to fight. On a community level there are prejudices and injustices of which we can't fathom the roots. On a personal level, we struggle for a degree of success that is so often judged by external measures which have gained huge influence in the public consciousness, but which can constrict our viewpoint and cause us to feel that failure is our only option. These measures filter into our mindsets so easily from such a young age that it can seem impossible to extricate ourselves, to decide which are valid and which are not.

I think this is why it's so important to make 'the real me' something to be unafraid of. More often than not we can think of it in terms of exposure - we think of our negative attributes, what people are going to judge us for. Well guess what? That's going to happen anyway. How about we decide to go for honesty that flies in the face of a perfection-obsessed culture, and work to some standards we really believe in? How about we give ourselves the chance to breathe and let down the facade? I'm not suggesting we forgo all privacy, which is a very necessary safeguard, but I am suggesting that seeing as we are imperfect we might as well acknowledge it, and realise that it's okay. We have value anyway. We are loved anyway. And when you consider that 'perfect' actually means 'complete', not flawless, it doesn't look so bad.

I readily acknowledge that I've a lot to learn, but what I do know about the real me is that too often I have let shame destroy my confidence and freedom. I would much rather celebrate the value of honesty in a world of unattainable expectations, and set some goals for myself that I can reach for without having to hide behind shadows that don't represent who I truly am. Improvement is always on the cards, but so too should be love and acceptance.

This is Project The Real Me, and I invite you all to join.