Stepping out of my comfort zone!

On Tuesday evening I was brave , really brave, so brave in fact that I entered a room full of strangers and proceeded to take off all of my clothes !

I was life modelling for a local art group. Something that filled me with terror and a good dose of embarrassment but none the less I had chosen to do this .

When I was modelling full time in my twenties , taking off my clothes and getting changed in front of strangers on photo shoots was pretty normal. I still remember having similar insecurities about my body back then. Ironic really considering I was being paid to model underwear and swimwear.

To be honest I have always been self conscious about getting naked . My relationships were fraught with episodes of getting undressed with haste and diving into the sheets so that no one could see my bits! Seriously I had a lot of body issues. But why ? where does that come from?

Is it an English thing I wonder … is it passed down from my parents ? should we have been a more liberal family happily embracing being naked around each other, openly naked ( although I do remember feeling uncomfortable with seeing my dad naked even then).

What I do know is that the older I get the more I feel at peace with all of me 'warts and all'. I work very hard to look good and keep my body healthy. On a good week I go to the gym 4 times and manage to walk 12,000 steps most days with my dog. I eat healthily and never diet.

My biggest vice is wine ! I do drink more than the recommended amounts but I enjoy it and I accept that I am not perfect. I am flawed by need and the pleasure I get from socialising and putting the world to rights with my husband while drinking a New Zealand Sauvignon in the summer, or a nice Argentinian Malbec as soon as the nights start to get shorter.

There are so many pressures on women to look a certain way in our society and this makes us alarmingly body conscious . Concentrating on how we look on the outside rather than how we are on the inside is something we need to tackle for the sake of our younger women. Empowering our younger generation and instilling in them the importance of body acceptance and self love is so important. I wish I had had more guidance and help with this when I was a young woman.

Embracing ourselves for all that we are, perceived flaws and all and cultivating self love and body acceptance from a young age is key.

My life modelling experience was an intentionally courageous one. Looking at all the drawings at the end of the evening was interesting. Some I loved ( the ones that looked like a slim me especially!) but even the ones where my tummy was rounded and i looked like a bigger version of myself were worthy of my respect.

I appreciated each artists style and thought that I was actually providing a great service for these creatives. They need bodies of all shapes and sizes to draw, paint and to help them improve.

In the end I was just a human body, a different one .

““Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring”

— Marilyn Monroe