Concerns about our image are, unfortunately, a pandemic that affects all of us. Confidence and self-love are the essences we hope all women get to hold and be proud of sooner rather than later. I want to share some thoughts that helped me, and I believe it will do the same for you.
Seeing the world makes you objective
When we travel, we’re mesmerized by the world’s beauty and its diversity. I want to encourage you to take that same appreciation when you look at yourself in the mirror, and embrace yourself and jump in the body positivity movement too.
Luckily, if you’re one of those that love to travel –me? What? Ok, yes!– then you’re already there.
When you start exploring, you’ll realize that you walk away with something new after each trip. You’ve grown and added this experience to what makes you “you”. You’re better in a way, and this applies to your inner and outer beauty just the same.
Discovering new places makes us start to see things differently. You’ll realize that the more you know about a culture, the more you learn about their perspective on several things, including physical beauty.
That way, after each experience, you come out more aware that this or that is what beauty looks like there, and it could be the opposite somewhere else. For example, in some European countries, you’ll be considered exotic, or they might be to you.
As obvious as it sounds, before you start living in different scenarios around the world, it’s hard to truly immerse yourself in this reality. Probably, you weren’t that aware of it or even knew how much it changes in every place.
These remarkable differences teach you to be more open-minded and understanding that other ideals are exactly that. Someone else’s opinion of what makes someone beautiful, and in no case, it becomes a universal truth.
At the end of the day, this cultural exchange also allows us to share opinions, showing us that what we consider beautiful is not the same in every continent. The same way that our beauty can be appreciated differently somewhere else. That we’re all beautiful in our own way.
It’s like you’ve packed all this new confidence and perspective with you. It’s beautiful.
Straight to the backpack
When travelling, you get to be the best version of yourself, whatever you want. That way, everywhere you travel to, you’ll discover all these new things about you whilst getting a broader sense of the world in the process.
It’s a fantastic tool that gives you all this new content that you can simply transfer to your “normal” daily life after. That way, when you go home, you realize you are the same person, you’re still there, with all of it you’ve taken back with you.
It’s like you’ve packed all this new confidence and perspective with you. It’s beautiful.
Once you realize it, you’ll see yourself with all these new added perks that will change the way you perceive yourself, which also determines your relationship with your own body.
Every time I came back, I felt like I was a little more in love with myself. It feels pretty good, and it boosts your opinion of what you’re capable of.
In a way, I told myself that if I’ve achieved and done all that I got to live while travelling, then surely now I could do the same back home or wherever I wanted to start now.
You have to ask yourself why you should even stop and put a lot of doubts on the road, when you’ve come such a long way and become this new amazing and better woman, who can surely do anything.
New lense
Travelling puts this magnifying glass over your life, making you see what you like and don’t like about it. This also applies to your body confidence.
It teaches you to adapt and appreciate everything more, so you also learn how to be a little more forgiving about yourself. You start allowing to cut yourself some slack. About time!
For example, plans change or we simply change our minds, and this is such a common thing in this lifestyle that you get used to taking what you get and make the most of it. You learn to accept it, appreciating whatever you have. This has to apply to how you see your body too.
After each trip, we put all we’ve lived on top of this newly-discovered appreciation of our beauty from other cultures’ perspectives. This results in a bit more confidence and self-love gained every time.
This is beautiful and is something that us women need to start holding on to and be proud of more and more. Because after all, we’re bringing it back with us; it’s always been with us. Embrace it, love it, and most of all, love yourself.
Little Chilean 