Learning  to  Live  My  Best  Life  and  Loving  Myself

Happy Monday! Today I wanted to start a new week or even better a new month with some positivity. It’s been a while since I talked about this topic and the last time I did do a post on body positivity was in January which was 9 months ago now. I wrote about how I was growing my body confidence which you can read here and I promised to make 2018 more positive and accepting my curvy body. I’ve actually written a few post here if you want to see more. This post however was inspired by another beach trip. I can’t tell you how inspiring a trip to the beach can be as I seem to be the most confident there of all places. It gave me this idea and today I wanted to share how I am learning to live my best life and loving myself!

| swimsuit // shorts // sunglasses // bow // earrings |

I went to Santa Monica Pier for the first time. I’ve never been and it was on my bucket list to visit even before I moved here. I’ve watched it on so many other vlogs and saw so many blog posts about it that it convinced me to visit. It was smaller than I was expecting but so much fun. I went with my roommate and it was her idea as she hasn’t explored Santa Monica to much and invited me out for a little day trip. I vlogged it and it is in LA weekly vlog episode 5 here. That is where it started and how I ended up visiting.

At first when I got there and saw everyone in their swimsuits and bikini’s I felt scared. I had this underneath a cover up dress which that outfit will be coming out soon as well and a little photo diary of my day but even with that dress I felt okay in it and it is the perfect go to the beach dress. I think I just felt insecure for a moment and overwhelmed as I was in a new place and a lot of people around me. Maybe that was my issue and since I have a little social anxiety when I’m in a large crowd. I was intimidated because all these people were around and my brain likes to think that everyone is looking at me and staring when in reality they probably aren’t and it’s just my mind being confused. So I walked down the pier and took it in slowly. My roommate wanted to lay on the sand and get a few pictures so we went. I was so tempted to go to the bathroom and just take off my dress there but the line was so long as we went on Saturday and everyone decided to have the same idea as us. I had this underneath so it’s not like I needed to really change so I built up the courage and just slipped the dress off. I had the ruffle sleeves detached as my dress was off the shoulder as it is and I wouldn’t be able to move my arms if I had the frills up on my shoulders. So I just put them off and viola I was in my swimsuit outfit.

Once I was comfortable and let me have a moment to process my thoughts I was good. I was actually doing it. I felt so free and love my little swimsuit outfit. This swimsuit and shorts combo really boosted my confidence as I felt pretty and cute like I was a mermaid with the ruffle detailing on both. After seeing a few people rocking there swimsuit and who were similar size to me or more I decided that I shouldn’t let it bother me. I looked cute and I should embrace it and so I did. All of a sudden my confidence was high and I was posing everywhere as you can see. There’s genuine happiness as I pranced around the beach in my outfit. My roommate was able to capture how happy I was to be at a beach in California again after maybe 15 years. I ran into the very cold water and danced and jumped and posed. Some older ladies were giving my a thumbs up and smiling with me and maybe they could tell I was having a good time. I was living my best life just frolicking in the ocean with the waves hitting me and the sand between my toes.

When I sent these pictures to my family back home they could see how happy I was and what a great day I had because it was a great day. I even texted my cousin these pictures and she was the one who saw I was happy in them as I didn’t see it at first. I was happy living through it but didn’t catch on to it until she pointed it out and that is another reason that inspired me to write this blog post as I’m learning to live my best life and loving myself and I thought I would share a little insight to how I’m doing it.

I’m still not as confident to not wear shorts out with so many people around. I only wore my swimsuit alone in Palawan as no one was on the beach but they were so many others on the beach last weekend. Maybe one day but for now I am working on it. I mean the shorts are really short and they are a bit cheeky so it’s progress. The swimsuit is still big on me but I rock it. I don’t claim to have a perfect body and I know I am curvy especially by the pictures above. My thighs touch, my butt is too big for my body, I have small boobs but hey it’s me. I would be horrified a few years ago to see pictures of me with my belly rolls in pictures of me sitting down in a weird way to reveal all my curves that are everywhere but I slowly learnt to love myself and I am telling you it’s been hard. I’m glad I can look to a few people that I follow on Instagram and their blogs to encourage me that I’m not alone. It’s quite a journey learning to live my best life and loving myself but every time I have a chance I work on it. You can see there are so many others on the beach that day in their own world and I was in mine. I sat there and smiled at the camera even though I would have never thought I would. I did get sandy bum cheeks but that’s the beach for you.

I can honestly say I was feeling myself and that is rare for me. I felt fantastic and that’s all that matters.

So that’s how I’m learning to live my best life and loving myself! It’s still a journey but I’m learning to accept it each day that I am me. I really wanted to write this and document my progress and how far I’ve come with everything. I hope my pictures came across and genuine and that I was really and truly happy posing for these pictures. I hope this was as inspiring as my other body positivity posts. Let me know if you want to see more blog posts like this and see how I’m learning to live my best life and loving myself because it’s been a pleasure to do these kinds of posts.