Body positivity- it’s everywhere. On slogans on shirts, on hashtags on Twitter...But how easy is it to actually be positive about your body?
I used to hate my appearance - I’m extremely small and my hips are stupidly wide and I’m 99% sure that my arms are completely different lengths, but so what? I used to despise it, but now I realise that the only thing I can change about my contrary arms and my garden gnome height is my opinion on them. Ask yourself - why do you look at other people and call them beautiful, but not yourself? There’s probably people that look at you that way and think you’re beautiful. Take how you view other people and put that on yourself. Don’t keep looking at yourself and thinking ‘so and so has better legs than me’ or ‘so and so has a flatter stomach than me’ - you’re not them, you’re you. You’re the only person in the world who has your body, so there’s no way it’s gonna look like anyone else’s. You can also take the negative parts about your body and put a different spin on them. Stretch marks? Nope, their tiger stripes. Scars? Nope, proof that you recovered from something. Extremely small in height? Tiny but badass. (That last one works a lot for me). You might look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself why you look the way you do - and no one can give you a definite answer. Don’t ask yourself why, ask yourself what. What do you love? Your eyes? Your legs? Why not all of it? - Jazz
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I always used to shy away from standing out - I would never wear clothes that would draw attention and I would never do anything that would put me in the spotlight. I was too scared of what other people would think of me, whether they were strangers or people I went to school with. It sucked quite a lot, in all honesty, because I spent far too much time worrying about other’s opinions of me.
But why we do it? Because we’re scared of people thinking we’re strange? Because we want to be liked? It took me a while to realise that I would rather be liked for my perhaps-a-bit-odd self than as someone who wasn’t really me. I had to start making decisions for myself rather than from other people’s opinions. It does seem really scary, but I’m so much happier now. I’m more comfortable with myself as a person and I’m more confident too. I know my friends like me for me, and I also know some people probably don’t like me for me - but what does it matter? I always got comments from people in my year. Why do you dye your hair so bright? Or why do you wear so much makeup? - it’s pathetic, really. They choose to make nasty comments about other people but that says more about them than it does about you. I’ll always remember a quote from Agent Carter (a Marvel TV show based off a high up female secret agent in the 40’s and 50’s) - ‘I know my self worth so no one else’s opinion really matters’. It really stuck with me because it’s so true. We withhold ourselves because we’re scared of others’ opinions but do they really matter? If we’re happy with ourselves and we have people that care about us, why do we spend so much time worrying about the people who don’t actually matter to us? I spent so many years worrying about other’s opinions that I forgot about the only person’s who truly mattered - my own. Jaz I’ve dealt with homesickness since I was pretty young. I remember being nine years old on a school trip and crying every night because I missed my bed (among other things obviously, but mainly my bed). I’m sixteen now and was away from home recently and I felt the exact same.
It’s strange though, because I’m a pretty independent person and when I am at home, I stick to myself and stay in my room most the time - but they may be the exact reason I get homesick. Being forced into a new place without warning and having routine torn away can really mess with your head. I don’t go away that often, only to sleepovers at my friends’ which never prove a problem in terms of feeling homesick. I find it’s when I’m with new people, or people I’m not as close with. I also found I felt a lot worse when I further away from home too. I have learned how to handle it, however. I know I’ll never go out of my way to cure it because I rarely go away from home for long periods of time, and won’t be doing so for the foreseeable future. However, there are a couple things I’ve figured out in case I do.
It’s also crucial to remember that being homesick isn’t anything to be embarrassed about. It affects every gender and every age group and it’s completely human. But, it’s also important to not let it limit you in terms of having fun, going new places and meeting new people. You may feel out of your comfort zone but it’s worth it sometimes. Moving on can be difficult. It’s hard to leave people behind, even if you’ve fallen out, because there’s still parts of you that remember the times before then. Every friendship has it’s ups and downs but sometimes the ups make it hard to move on, even if the person is truly hurting you and mistreating you.
It’s important to remember exactly why it is you need to move on - for example, it might be because the person was abusive or toxic, or maybe you just grew apart. I’ve been in both those situations and it hurt both times, but I learnt that it’s important to pull through and leave them behind. I know I felt like I was a bad person for doing it. Even when someone was a complete asshole to me and used me, I would still stick around out of fear of being as bad as them, or out of fear of hurting them. But putting yourself before them doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t make you selfish, it just means you’re doing something for yourself to ensure happiness. There’s also the part where you might feel yourself falling back a bit - picking up your phone to message them, or remembering a good time you had and wanting to go back. I think that part is more about self control. In one situation, I blocked them on every social media because I knew I’d end falling back into a really toxic friendship otherwise. In fact, it took me multiple attempts to move on. I would always fall back and always end up being the one who got hurt. Maybe it was me being too forgiving or just giving too many chances, but it’s taught me how important moving on really is. You have to look at it the same way you might look at solving a problem - look at the pros and look at the cons, and you might find that the cons outweigh the pros. You might see that they’re more rude than they are kind. It’s about remembering all of the person and not just the bits you want to - you could say they’re mean to me but they’ve been my friend for so long. It’s important to realise that the them treating you shittily cannot be made up for by anything. A friendship is about being there for someone and treating them well. There’s always gonna be arguments and falling out in any friendship but them making you feel bad and mistreating you isn’t a friendship, and it’s vital to know that. It might hurt and you might miss them for a while, but it’s important to realise that your long term happiness and confidence is far more important than someone who hurts you. Saving money as a teenager can be difficult, especially when you’re too young to get a job. I know the feeling well, I get pocket money but when I want to save up for something it can be a struggle because I also want to spend it on other things like going to the cinema, buying makeup and going places.
However, there have been occasions where I’ve managed to save up money for things I really want, like for a convention or a concert. Here a few ways;
It also helps to keep track of your money, so it might be worth signing up for online banking. It made it a lot easier for me to know how much I had in my bank by just checking the app rather than having to find a cash point. I also found it useful to have the money I was saving up separate from my normal bank. For example, if I was out shopping and I saw a nice pair of shoes that I wanted but didn’t necessarily need, I probably would have bought them with the money I had saved up - but I couldn’t, because I didn’t have it. It might seem like a difficult, lengthy process but it’ll all be worth it once you have what it is you wanted to save up for. Feminism is a controversial subject today. There’s people who claims it’s a pro-female and anti-male movement and there’s so many misconceptions about the true meaning of it. There’s people who pick and choose what parts of feminism they do and don’t like and then there’s the people who use feminism to cover their sexism.
The original movement was to get women the same voting rights, and general human rights as men in the early 1900’s. Women would go on hunger strikes and put themselves in danger (ie throwing themselves in front of a horse) to get their point across - and they did, because women were granted voting rights in 1928. But how about nine decades later - what’s feminism nowadays? There’s misconceptions that it’s a movement for women to become anti-male and hate on all males - and I know and have seen some women do this, particularly towards men who are cisgender or straight. But that is not feminism. People think that it’s for women only. A movement to encourage females to speak up about being sexually assaulted but at the time not doing the same for men despite being aware that a major percentage of male sexual assaults go unreported because they don’t have the same support. That is not feminism. It might be a woman getting angry at a male in the street for cat calling her but refusing to acknowledge the wider, scarier parts of sexism (referring back to the previous paragraph) and only bothering with the parts of the movement that make them look good. That is not feminism. Feminism is women and men and all genders alike having the same rights and chances as each other. It’s encouraging men to speak up about sexual assault. It’s about encouraging women to go into male-dominated industries without being afraid. It’s about every gender having the same support and the same chances at life, regardless as what they identify as, regardless of what they were born as. It’s about encouraging people and supporting people, caring for people and seeing somebody for who they are and not what they are. It’s equality. I used to be really insecure about sharing what I wrote with others. I’ve wanted to be an author for as long as I can remember but I was so anxious about other people’s thoughts on my work that the sheer thought of someone criticizing it was enough to stop me altogether.
It was scary for me because I put my heart into everything I wrote and I knew it would suck if someone didn’t like something. But there’s a difference between someone not liking your writing and someone criticizing it - sure, both can be discouraging but would any author be where they are now if they didn’t listen to the advice they were given? Would JK Rowling be as popular as she is if Harry Potter hadn’t have been rejected dozens of times? That was what encouraged me to put my writing online, I started on Wattpad, a social media platform where authors upload their work for others to read and see. There’s other sites too - Quotev and Tumblr are also good sharing platforms. The thing is that everyone else on there has been in the same boat, and they understand how it feels to be anxious about what others think, and because of this they’re never rude about it. They only give their honest but polite opinions I got quite a lot of advice offered on my writing - it definitely hurt my pride to accept it but it helped, it helped a lot. I was offered criticism on how I introduced characters and how I used way too many adjectives, and because of that I (hopefully!) have improved and no longer do it. Another good things about these sites is that they cater to all genres of writing. Wattpad for example has categories for everything from romance to action to fan fiction, so whatever you write, there’s always an audience. I found publishing my writing online to be extremely helpful because I was barely a teenager at the time and obviously not ready for the big publishing companies, so the advice of other authors and readers offers the improvement without having to do that. The more encouragement and reads I got, the more inspired I was to write - and the more I wrote, the more confident I became. I don’t question the quality of my writing anymore; I know I’m no Shakespeare but I don’t worry the way I did. I’ve published my writing on a lot of sites now, including Quotev, Wattpad and Tumblr, and obviously Teenagers with Experience. In fact, if I hadn’t started sharing my writing I probably would never had got the confidence in my ability and wouldn’t be writing here today. My advice is that you should take the leap, because you never know what will come from it. Bad days can be caused by pretty much anything; a certain person, a certain lesson or a certain event can all have negative effects on your mood. I’m no stranger to that - there’s been days where I’ve got hardly any sleep and am already grumpy, and something as small as stubbing my toe can make spiral downwards and release my inner Grinch.
It can be much bigger things as well. If something major happens in your life, it essentially creates a shadow of negativity that overshadows any type of positive thing in your life, like a sort of storm cloud that blocks out any sun rays. When I’ve had a bad day, I know for a fact that the only thing I’ll want to do is get into my pajamas, watch Netflix and sleep until things are okay again. But I also know that that is not something I can possibly do - especially not with my GCSE’s coming up. I could flop into bed and stay there for the rest of the day, but I can’t. I have to force myself to do things, which seems really crappy and tiring at the time - but I feel a lot better once I’ve done it. This is because a) it’s done, I don’t have to worry about it and I can watch TV without putting it off and b) I’ve done something productive, even though I was feeling bad and that in itself is a small achievement. It might seem like a drag that takes lots of effort, but it’ll be worth it. It’s only a small difference, but putting off the work that needs to be done will cause it to build up and it’ll become harder and harder to keep up with - and a lot of work to do all at once before a deadline or a due date can create a bad day in itself. So, ask yourself - would you rather curl up under a duvet and put off your homework and studying, or just simply do it and then be able to do the aforementioned without worrying? I am the type of person that will put off school work until it’s the last minute - I’m a terrible example, but lately I have been having to change that because of impending (or for a better word, looming) final GCSE exams.
A familiar phrase for me whilst revising is ‘just one more episode’, but one more episode turns into two, and then three, and before I know it I’ve watched an entire season of Gossip Girl and still not done my maths homework. However, if I could give anyone in the years below me a piece of advice, it would be to change your work ethic before your final year. Because of my procrastination and lack of effort in school, my grades have been affected a lot and this has finally all had a ripple effect over the past four (almost five) years onto my final results. It might seem like the first couple years of senior/high school are essentially pointless because of the lack of exams at the end of them, but that’s certainly not the case. If you get into the habit of working hard in year seven or year eight, this will continue through until the end of year 11 - and if you can work hard and get consistently good marks and levels, chances are that you’ll be a lot less panicked about your GCSE’s. But how exactly do you get that work ethic? I can tell you that you need it, but that doesn’t mean you’ll know how to go about getting it and maintaining it.
It might seem like a complete drag to have to spend so much time studying, but just remember how worth it it’ll be when you’re finished. Right now, I have a ton of revision and extra school hours to do, but I finish in two months and then I can leave, and all this hard work will be a small price to pay when I get the results I want and can do the courses I want in the future. For teenagers, school takes up what seems like every waking second of everyday. Even in the school holidays and vacations, there’s the overhanging feeling of the undone homework and unfinished revision that awaits you. I, for example, have a two week Easter Holiday coming up and I know I can’t do anything major in that fortnight because I also have GCSE’s and I know I won’t enjoy much if I’m not revising.
With that said, it is still extremely important that you split your time evenly and balance everything in your life as well as you can. Teenagers have millions of things going on - school work, exams, college/sixth form applications, keeping up with friends, doing extracurricular stuff and out of school clubs. It seems like there’s not enough hours in the day to fit everything in sometimes. We’re told to prioritise school and make sure it’s out #1 concern. But what about other stuff - getting enough sleep, spending time with our friends? We’re expected to get eight to ten hours of sleep a night, but research has shown that only 15% of teenagers actually do so. So - how are we meant to do it? I can’t give you a flat out answer or method, because I myself am still not exactly sure how one is meant juggle everything and still have time to get ten hours of sleep and the appropriate amount of time outside - but I have a couple things that certainly help. The first important thing is to work out how many hours should be spent doing what on a schoolday. Work out what time you need to wake up, and from that figure out the appropriate time to go to sleep. From there, you can work out how much time you have between getting home from school and going to bed, and can fit in your tasks accordingly. For example, I sometimes get in from school at 5PM, and I need to sleep at around 11PM - so, I can split the five remaining hours between revising, TWE work and having time to relax. Next up is weekend hours - try and do the same thing, but bear in mind that it’s vital to take a breaks on these days, so include the relaxing stuff too. Ie, I include lie ins and Netflix marathons on my weekend plans, as well as revision and homework. Another really helpful method is to combine activities. If you want to see your friends and revise, why not have a group study session? You could all go to a local park or cafe or to somebody’s house and bring your books/laptops. Or if there’s an episode of a TV show or a new album you wanna listen to, why not do them at the same time? It might seem like you’ll get distracted, but if you just want a day of laidback revision then it can work out really well. Forcing yourself to revise can be unhealthy too. If you can feel your brain just blanking, it usually means you may be too tired, or haven’t eaten or drunk enough. I usually feel after an hour or so or revising, so I stop for half an hour (give or take) and have a drink and watch some YouTube videos. There’s no point trying to force yourself to learn something or do something when you’re tired because this effect your mood. And possibly most importantly - be sensible. Don’t do a week straight of revising and take a whole week off. Don’t sacrifice your sleep to revise or spend time with people. Don’t skip meals or forget to drink because you’re taking on too much. Focus on your health as much as you are your exams. Last, but not least - it’s quality, not quantity. Five hours of half hearted revision can be less helpful than an hour of full concentration revision. Four hours with your friends can be fun, as opposed to taking a whole or day two with them and letting your revision falter. Remember, this stress and pressure isn’t permanent. In three months (as of April 2017), you’ll be done with school, and it’ll all be over. It’ll be worth it. |
JazzI really hope this helped, message me if you need further advice and have a good day! Categories
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