My Curves, My Journey: Self-Love, Where Art Thou?

Last time we were here, Marcy shared with our her journey into becoming Fearless in our newest  “My Curves, My Journey”  series.

Our “My Curves, My Journey” series was created as a way for us women to share our journey into finding ourselves. As we are on this journey of personal growth and learning to better love ourselves, I felt the need to create a space for our community to share those stories. Depending on where we are in our individual journeys we may just need to hear someone else’s story to help us move our along and so with this series I hope to encourage us to share with each other.

What has been one of your most pivotal moments on your journey to loving yourself and owning who you are? Can you remember what that felt like? Join us every week as we learn about each other’s journeys to self-love. 

My Curves, My Journey: Dominique on Self-Love, Where Art Thou?

I wish I could tell you I love my curves. I wish I could look in the mirror everyday and love what I see. I wish that I thought about ways to show my body more than I thought about ways to hide it. People often act surprised when I share my lack of self-love. They say “you seem so confident!”, and luckily as a fashionista I can hide my feelings with my clothes. When I feel the lowest, that’s when I’m shopping the most. I use fashion as a way to disguise myself, to trick my reflection into thinking that I love the person staring back at me, and I’ve gotten pretty good at it. I’ve got a Bachelor’s degree in fashion to prove it.

I’ve been curvy for as long as I can remember. I wore a C cup by the time I was in fifth grade. I was sharing clothes with my mom by the sixth grade. I was also trying every diet fad she was. At no point in my life have I loved my body. At no point have I been content with it, not trying to change it in some way. At 23 years old and as a body positive activist, this is something I still struggle with every single day.

I often ask myself, when will I be happy with my body? Will it happen overnight? Will it happen when I finally lose all my college weight? Will it happen when I no longer have to shop in the plus-size section only?

No one has the answer. As much as society wants to act like they do with all the diet fads, tummy teas, and get slim quick scams, they don’t. They don’t have an answer for something that is internal more than it is external. Even at my “healthiest” or smallest size, I thought terrible things about myself. So the answer doesn’t lie within my body, it lies within my mind.

My journey isn’t special, or any different from the millions of other women and girls in the country. 80% of ten year olds have dieted at least once. We know that 67% of women are plus-size. The numbers are there. But where are the results?

Only now are we seeing more representation of body sizes on the runway. Only now can we go into major retailers and find our size. But there is an overwhelming amount of work to be done. My journey has been to put in that work and to create the change that is so desperately needed in society when it comes to diversity and equal representation in fashion. My work is a reflection of my journey. My curves have shaped so many of my experiences, and as much as the body positive hashtags and my man seem to love them, I’m still learning how.

Maybe a year from now I’ll write a My Curves, My Journey Part 2 and talk about my journey to loving every inch of my curves. But for now, my journey is just getting started, and that’s okay.

Thank you Dominique for sharing and being so open about where you are!

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