Love Your Body TAG ♡ // Joty Rattu

Hello, beautiful beings on the inter-web!

This week at my school, we are celebrating Love Your Body Week. In honor of the movement, I wanted to share some information and start a discussion.

Love Your Body is a campaign site created in hopes of raising awareness and exposing the unrealistic and extremely close-minded standards the media places on a "beautiful" women that is viewed to be worth the love and attention of others. On this webpage, they discuss the importance of their movement and the idea behind it.

This campaign is very dear to me as a young female who grew up in a Desi family that took much interest in the female presence in the media. In older Bollywood movies, the only actresses that were cast for lead female roles in these movies were thin, yet very curvy in "all the right places," fair-skinned females that had very long, dark, and extremely smooth-straight hair. From as young as I can remember, I was only complimented on the fairness of my skin, yet criticized heavily about my weight and hair texture from those dearest to me. My mother ordered me my first flat iron at the age of 7 and we both had no idea how to work it but somehow we both believed it was the holy grail that would tackle the monster on my head. Fast-forward ten years and nothing has changed within my community of what is considered beautiful. Even natural processes such as hormonal acne and tanning from spending time outdoors is looked down upon.

When I was 17, I moved in with my cousins in New York City late summer. I spent my summer in California, so I was very obviously tanned. I was also about twenty pounds overweight of my usual weight. This, somehow gave my family the excuse to look down upon me and treat me as lesser of them because they had fairer skin and physically weighed less than me. Over the course of the 21 months I spent in New York, I lost almost fifty pounds and would avoid any contact with direct sunlight so I wouldn't have to hear the smart remarks certain cousins made of when I would get a couple shades darker.

Seriously, my community is so obsessed with fairness of the skin that skin bleaching (not bleaching of the hair on your face, but bleaching the actual color pigments in your skin) is extremely popular. Also, one of the most popular cosmetic creams is a cream called Fair & Lovely, which claims to lighten and brighten your complexion.

I could go on about all the instances that added to lowering my self-esteem, but that would just be so long and extremely depressing.

I haven't started the process of self-love until, actually, very recently. One of my fun, little, resolutions this year was to make decisions that meant the best for me. Even if that meant I had to be selfish. I have spent so long trying to be accepted by people who thought so lowly of me. At one point I was working three jobs, two full-time and one part-time, because going to school full-time and working part-time is so common now that I was not considered a "hard-worker" and actually lazy because I wasn't "using my time well." Instead of binge-watching Gossip Girl on Netflix, I was told I could have spent hours at the gym every night, I could have deep-cleaned the downstairs bathroom, I could have taken an extra shift at work.

It's the fourth month into the new year and I have made so many huge changes and so many huge decisions and because of those I am so much happier. In general, I am a much more positive person, and have even witnessed huge differences in my social anxiety and do not get panic attacks as often. I'm also putting so much more effort and interest in my work and school. I've also found the motivation to take care of my body and rest when necessary.

In honor of Love Your Body Week, I wanted to do create a tag for us to appreciate ourselves.

Take the time to come up with ten things you absolutely adore about yourself (whether is it physical or about your personality!) Also, within this next week, make a decicion for yourself that means well for YOU. Not for your mom, your siblings, your boss, the school you want to apply to, or your pet. A decisions completely based on your hapiness. And then tag another blog to take this challenge!

Here are my ten things:

1. I love the mole on my neck that most people honestly don't realize I have. My mom has one on her chin and I feel like it somehow connects us.
2. I love my small ears.
3. I love my thick hair. 
4. And I love that I have so much of it. 
5. I love my taste in music. 
6. I love my lips! 
7. I love how passionate I become about my interests.
8. I love my fingers and thumbs, I just think they're really cute.
9. I love my beautiful Punjabi heritage and all the ethnic physical features I have!
10. And finally, I am in absolute love with my "basic" brown eyes. 

For this tag, I want to challenge my friend Ieva to complete this tag! ♡

Also, don't forget to mark your calendars! My school is celebrating Love Your Body week this week; however, Love Your Body Day is October 14th!

If you'd like to learn more about celebrating Love Your Body week in your school, visit this page to get some ideas!

Thanks for reading in and checking out what I have to say on this issue and a little bit of my back story about why I stand where I stand. Tell me a couple of things you love about yourself in the comments below! Also, if you could show something the media shows as "ugly" as something very beautiful, what would it be? For me, I think females should be allowed to use swear words without being judged! I think it's fucking beautiful that we have such terms that show how passionate we are about our opinions and views and we should be able to express them without be labeled less "lady-like!" 

Let me know what you'd like to change in the eyes of media!! And until next time, try finding something new to love about yourself every day. Don't forget to check back to read about what "selfish" decision I made for my happiness as a part of this challenge tag!

xoxo, Joty ♡

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