I grew up through the age of ‘perfection’ being in the form of skinny models on magazines.

It’s hard to remember such a time and I’m sure many of you won’t be able to imagine such a time, but there were no mobile phones (unless you were a billionaire!), no internet, no social media, no photo sharing – unless you printed duplicates and gave them to your friends! So newspapers, magazines and just four tv channels were all we had to go by and skinny, toned, happy ever after perfection is what we were sold. It was only around my mid-teens that I became aware of Sophie Dahl making the headlines for being a plus-sized model and realised that it wasn’t all so simple. She was a size 14 and at the time I loved her! And we have clearly come a long way from there now. You only have to spend 30 seconds on Instagram and you’ll find thousands of people promoting self-love and encouraging us to be proud of whatever size we are and to ‘own it.’ But has anything really changed?

I get it, I really do but I also have a massive issue with it. A few weeks ago, I received an email from the Body Shop*, promoting a “self-love uprising” and inviting me to meet their “leading lights” who all have the “superpower” of self-love. Yikes! What an introduction! Three out of the four people talked about how we should all learn to love every part of us, even the bits we think we shouldn’t. I know it seems a far cry away from the pressure of having a perfect body and it is much better but it’s still telling me to live up to an ideal. It’s just a different ideal. However, the intensity of pressure is still very much there and the risk of feeling like I’ve failed or the guilt for not being able to do it ‘right’ will still be there.

Instead of being presented with one idea of perfection, these days we are bombarded with so many different people telling us to sparkle and shine and to be our best selves and to live our best life. To me it’s all just a new impossible dream. And it doesn’t tie up with other big campaigns around mental health and how we should be able to feel how we feel and the “it’s ok not to be ok”.

SHINE: glow or be bright with reflected light; give out a bright light; to produce or reflect light; to be bright*

For around three decades now I have battled with all of these ideals. I have lived a life of inner confidence inside a body that has often had little confidence, mostly because of it’s size and shape. I have grappled with understanding who I am and what I’m capable of, whilst also grappling with how I present that to the World. I have spent years of my life wanting to be seen, wanting to sparkle and shine so bright that everybody notices how capable I am but having insecurities that have stopped me in my tracks. I would secretly love to be one of the ‘super-heroes’ the Body Shop wants to interview but I also don’t want the pressure to have to shine that bright! In getting to know who I am and how I work, I have learned that my insecurities were not the only things stopping me, that actually that too is part of how I’m made.

SPARKLE: shine brightly with flashes of light; be vivacious and witty; to be full of life, enthusiasm or humour*

Let me give you an example of what I mean. For my 30th Birthday, Mr Particular and my parents threw me an Alice in Wonderland themed garden party. It wasn’t a surprise, I knew about it so had customised a dress to go as the Queen of Hearts and spent the morning twisting my hair in to a sparkly heart shape. I felt great. I was so excited… until we turned up and everyone was looking at me! So I spent the first 10 minutes hiding in the back of the small garden tent, getting my nerve back! I LOVE people noticing the things I achieve but I HATE people looking at me with expectation. I’ll happily steal attention by saying something witty but I will gladly throw it back the minute I have it. It’s weird, I know, but it’s me and I know that about me now and I’m alright with it.

In the Oxford English dictionary, I’m told the words sparkle and shine mean “to be bright”. The truth is, I don’t want to be bright all the time, that’s too big an ask for anyone. There are times when I want to be able to keep to myself, times when I need to indulge in my deepest, most hideous habits (usually eating strange, melted home-made deserts in front of some soppy rom com trash tv!) without anyone knowing, times when not feeling ok is part of the journey to being an even better me. And I don’t want to love every single part of me, for very good reason. If I say I love the extra weight on me at the moment then I’m also saying I love not being healthy.

Twinkle: shine with a gleam that changes constantly from bright to faint.*

I have always known that I will never be skinny and I have come to accept that I will never have a six-pack! But there are good reasons for all of that. For some, they’re made slim, that’s just their body type. It was never designed to be mine and actually I don’t want it to be, I genuinely like my curves. For others, they work really hard at their toned bodies and I don’t want to do that, it’s just not my priority and that’s ok. I will always choose a chat with cake over a session at the gym – that’s just me and if that means my body reflects that then so be it! But I do want to be healthy, so I won’t stop grappling with my weight or my over-love of food sometimes. Not because I don’t love myself but precisely because I do love myself that I want to be around for as long as I can. I want to always be able to dance and run with the Little Misses and I want to enjoy extravagant date nights with Mr Particular without the guilt. For you the battle may be a different one as let’s not forget not all ‘skinny’ people want to be so – us curvy girls are not the only ones with body challenges, we each have our own to work out for ourselves.

So I really don’t love that extra tummy roll at the moment but don’t judge me for that. I can accept it as part of me but I don’t have to think it’s wonderful. I love me as a whole package but including the negatives doesn’t mean I love them it just means I’m aware of them. Do you really and truly like the look of your stretch marks or the spots on your face? It’s ok to say no! I know I’ve had twins and all that, I can apply logic to the stripy things on my stomach but I would really rather they weren’t there. Because I’m ashamed? No. Because I think that makes me ugly? No. Simply because I think my stomach looked better without them! But they’re not going anywhere so I’ve accepted them and moved on. I don’t need to tell myself I love them every day. I just need to have made the decision to not feel bad about them.

For me too, I thrive on goals, challenges and self-improvement. So if I were to really reach a point of 100% ‘self-love’ of everything I am then I’d have nowhere to go with that. I’d have no goals, no self-improvement, no challenges. And aren’t they all the things life is about? They are for me! Plus, the very nature of life means my body, my face, my hair, my understanding, my knowledge, my wisdom and my experience of life changes constantly so even if I did love everything about me right now, there would soon come a change I’d have to embrace any way.

So if it’s ok with you (and even if it’s not), I’d rather not shine and sparkle all the time… I’ll twinkle thanks. Because to twinkle means to shine with a gleam that changes from bright to faint. Sometimes I’ll dazzle you, sometimes you’ll barely know I’m there and that suits me perfectly.

How about you, are you a twinkle in the eye or a bobby dazzler all the time? Whichever you are, know it and be it. That’s my only ask. Maybe that’s pressure too but I think getting to know yourself and being proud to be you, in all your wonders and imperfections is a good pressure to have.

*Definitions from the Oxford Dictionary