My body isn\u2019t what you see in magazines or media\u2014it\u2019s far from \u201cperfect\u201d by those standards.
But today, for the first time in 25 years, I put on a bikini anyway.
I stood in front of the mirror, took a deep breath, and said to myself:
\u201cYou look great.\u201d
Then I hopped in the pool.
A little later, my teenager came over, pointing out their own stretch marks with concern.
I smiled and said,
\u201cYou\u2019re supposed to have them. Your body is growing. Want to see all the ones you gave me?\u201d
Without missing a beat, my teenager\u2014sweet as can be\u2014looked at me and said:
\u201cMom, you look great.\u201d
And you know what?
I believe that.
Because I\u2019ve learned it\u2019s not about the shape we\u2019re in; it\u2019s about how much we love and respect ourselves.
It\u2019s about self-confidence, and sometimes that means showing up just as you are.
On my last solo adventure on the road, I found myself again.
Flaws, scars, stretch marks, and all\u2014I fell back in love with who I am.
I realized:
I\u2019m kind of a unicorn. There\u2019s no one else exactly like me.
So today, I wore a bikini.
And it felt damn good.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My body isn\u2019t what you see in magazines or media\u2014it\u2019s far from \u201cperfect\u201d by those standards.But today, for the first time in 25 years, I put on a bikini anyway.I stood in front of the mirror, took a deep breath, and said to myself:\u201cYou look great.\u201dThen I hopped in the pool.A little later, my teenager […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"2880","footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[24,30,22,33,43,39],"class_list":["post-1183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whispers-from-the-round-pen","tag-finding-your-truth","tag-finding-yourself","tag-healing-with-horses","tag-journey-to-yourself","tag-no-room-for-hate","tag-self-confidence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whisperwithhorses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whisperwithhorses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whisperwithhorses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whisperwithhorses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whisperwithhorses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/whisperwithhorses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whisperwithhorses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whisperwithhorses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whisperwithhorses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}