Do Tell, Michelle: Are You Scared To Become Body Positive?

At the moment, I'm working on a lot of projects that seem bigger than me. I'm working on a lot of things that make me feel like I'm not good enough. I doubt my readiness for them, and if I'm being completely honest, I've not felt like this in a long time.

I know what you are thinking. How are you, Michelle Elman - BoPo warrior, body confidence coach and body positive activist - not feeling 'good enough'? Haven't you hacked this by now? Isn't this one of the core fundamentals of body positivity? HOW? HOW? HOW? (Okay, you might not be thinking exactly that...)

Here's the thing that Instagram will trick you into believing: that in order to be body positive, you have to have this check list, and once you've placed a tick in the box, that's crossed off the list and conquered for life. 

Bikini. Check.
Crop top. Check.
No dieting. Check.

To an extent, yes, but also no.

The more body positive and the more confident you become, the more you think you're capable of doing. With that, your dreams enlarge and your realm of possibilities widens. This means one thing though: the fear never actually goes away.

The amount of fear I have about these projects is the same amount of fear I had with regards to wearing a bikini for the first time. The difference, though, is that, back in 2014, these projects would have been so scary, that I would doubt their possibility, and if the opportunity were to arise, I'd have said no. Now, I'm in the position to say yes, and I'm scared. But that's okay. Why? Because fear is a normal human emotion. Fear just means that I'm out of my comfort zone. But, when you make the uncomfortable comfortable, that allows it to become your norm.

So yes, these projects bring up the same amount of fear as that bikini initially did, but not the bikini brings me absolutely no fear. Therefore, it won't be long before these projects reach to the same level of normality.

A message to those of you who are scared to allow yourself to become body positive, to those scared to throw away the scale, to those scared to say no to diets for good. It's okay, it's normal. And that's coming from a woman whose campaign name is Scarred Not Scared...

It's okay to be scared, just don't let it stop you from starting.