A friend and I were talking today about my Instagram account and the way I use it, and she made the statement that she could never post the kinda of photos I post because she doesn’t have anywhere near the confidence needed for it.

My initial response was “neither do I, thats the point.” I don’t do this because I’m confident, I do it because I want to BE confident, and Instagram, plus this blog, is a safe place to train that mental muscle. I am far far from confident. I take 2-3 dozen photos for every single post, run through a whole slew of photo tools to tweak and adjust the best of those into something I can be mildly content with, and even then still struggle to hit that Submit button in the post. That green dress that I wore Wednesday? I hated those photos, they were just the best of what I took, but I went with them anyway because you cannot find your self love by listening to your self hate.

I’ve included a bunch of reject photos on this post, completely without any processing. These aren’t the worst of the worst (those get deleted), but they’re photos I felt unworthy of posting. I post them now specifically because they make me uncomfortable.

Never taken a photo of yourself in your underwear? Go do it, tonight, and post it, even if you hate it. Because you are beautiful, and you cannot see it without forcing yourself to break into new boundaries.