If I ever met the younger me, there is a whole lot of things I would love to tell me. But I think the most important I would love to tell me is You don't need to be the best, the smartest, the prettiest, you don't. You don't need to be always so unhappy with yourself, so unsatisfied so serious. I bet I was not the only one out there that as a teenager was feeling bad about her body image because I wasn't slender enough, I wasn't thin enough, tanned enough I wasn't athletic enough... I wasn't enough.

Enough for what?
Enough for who?

For the demands of the society, the media and who knows. Luckily, at that time we didn't even have social media, or my life would have been hell.

I felt the pressure was real. I was at war with myself, I fought against my own instincts and penchants to try to fit in. I struggled to accept myself and never fully did. Until recently. Until I became a mom, an expat mom with very few friends. I can't begin to tell you how much I've changed in my head. I've never been farthest from THAT MODEL of what a perfect woman should be that used to live inside my head. How she should look and how "successful" she should be according to the others. Also I've never been more at peace with myself.

I am finally at peace. I am happy with who I am and I LOVE myself the way I am. Totally imperfect.

Imperfect for what?
Imperfect for who?

I am not flawed, I am unique. I am beautiful in my own way, and working on the things I don't like about me that are no longer what the magazines or the social media dictates. I am happy to have discovered this new me, that is really my "old" me. I am happy of accepting me the way I am today, and not torturing myself for the way I could be one day.

We live in a society where inequality reigns and the biggest most universal and unfair inequity is the Gender one. Since forever, women, we are perceived as objects, we are raised as if we were objects to please others. Our mothers and grandmothers have lived that way, and even if some things have changed for our generation, even if we had small victories, we'll eventually follow the same pattern and we'll raise our daughters the same way. The pressure of the male dominant society is very powerful. But the pressure is not only out there. The pressure is in my head. It is in your head. In our heads. The pressure exists because so many people actually believe in it.

Don't allow it.
Do not let it in.

Do not let the pressure take over your head. It is not real unless we make it real. If you are feeling bad with yourself as I used to, if you feel you are not enough, please give it a thought for a second, why are you unhappy with yourself.

You are enough.
You are important.

Don't fight yourself, make peace with the REAL you. The war is out there.

Stay strong,
Nati