LEARNING TO LOVE YOURSELF

  MACCENTRE

Macquarie Centre has just launched their AW16 Campaign with the fashion film LOVE YOURSELF, starring Sophie Lowe and Ryan Corr. So much more than a dreamy sequence showcasing this season’s looks, the film's message encouraging people to have confidence and learn to love themselves really resonated with me.

Many of us struggle with the concept of Self-Love through various stages of life, but motherhood in particular seems to bring out Self -Doubt for many. Ironically, confidence and self love is probably the most important trait we can teach our children, but to teach it we have to live it. And this can be tough as we often put everyone else before ourselves. We are partners, we are mothers, we are our professions, but who are we really- when we strip all this away? It's so important to take (and make ) the time to get to know ourselves, to find out who we really are and nourish our souls. Learn to meditate, practice yoga, go for a walk, learn something new. Grow.

“If you were asked to define yourself in one word, what would it be?”

As mothers we have the most important job in the world. We get to shape who our children will become. It’s so easy to get bogged down in the every day and forget about this bigger picture, and on the flip side when we step back and see how important our job is- the pressure can be overwhelming- and the cycle of self-doubt begins. From the moment we fall pregnant we worry about the kind of mother we will be, we are bombarded with well meaning but conflicting advice about what we should and shouldn’t do. We are too fat, too thin, too strict, too lax. As much as we try not to, we compare ourselves to others - at mother’s group, on social media – and none of us think we measure up.

“You are your beautiful mistakes. Your imperfections. And they’re perfect the way they are”

That’s why we need to share our motherhood stories- warts and all. We need substance behind the perfect pictures of perfect lives in perfect homes with perfect babies. Of course it’s wonderful to celebrate the beauty of motherhood- it inspires and makes us appreciate the ordinary, but we also need to balance it with the realities - because perfect is boring. It’s our imperfections that gives us character and helps us connect with each other.

So let’s appreciate and celebrate who we are and build each other up- as women, as mothers, as individual souls. Maybe all this isn’t as complicated as we think, maybe we simply need to learn to love ourselves- just as we are, and show our children that we are enough. That they are enough. Just as they are.

 “The most powerful relationship you will have is the relationship with yourself”

 

View the film HERE. #loveyourselfwithmacquarie #inspirationeverywhere