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Body Confidence After Stoma Reversal: Part 2

Body Confidence After Stoma Reversal: Part 2

Read Part 1 here

Hello, my Perfect Pelican Lovers, here I am again nattering on with another one of my monthly blogs. For those of you who are new to me, I am a chatty Natty and I welcome you into a part of my life very close to my heart. Before I go on if you have not yet read the last 3 blogs have a read so you’re up to date.

Last month I was about Body Confidence but how I was with it in regards to my scar and stoma I had. This month I wanted to take the time to give you some body confidence self-love, kind of like a pep talk.

So, at the end of my last blog, I spoke about announcing something special for you Pelican lovers, I have to say sadly the amazing venue I did find is unable to hold my fashion show next year due to them having no priest. I am gutted as it was a quirky little church smack bang in the middle of Shoreditch.  The hunt continues so I hope to have a venue by the end of this year.  I really want to tell you all how to apply but I need to wait on venue confirmations first.

So, to catch you up on what’s been going on the last time we spoke I had my ‘Body Confidence 2’ shoot coming up. I was so pleased with the beautiful people who choose to participate. I want to tell you a bit about them very shortly, but first I want for all of those who keep wanting to do one of my shoots  I shall be taking them on tour next year across the U.K so those who are a bit too far can attend one of them.

So, I had 3 ladies do my shoot with stoma bags! I am so proud of each and every one of them for different reasons.  Jasmine, one of my closest friends joined in my first body confidence shoot earlier in the year, went from being such a shy, insecure girl to ‘I don’t care –  I am fabulous, sassy and in my undies rocking Stanley the Stoma’. The second girl, Natalie (yes we have the same fabulous name) was up first, bless her, she had never done anything like this in her life and she aced it. She didn’t let her nerves get in the way, and she did a brilliant job, I also want to point out at the time of the shoot she also had a drain. Her stoma has the COOLEST name ever, ‘Paloma the Stoma’. Natalie messaged me after receiving her pictures thanking me and saying she had never viewed herself as ‘beautiful’ until this shoot. I literally wanted to cry because THAT is the reason I do these shoots. I then had a beautiful lady called Anna, who was such a bubbly character, such fun to be around and we hit it off right away (I found a fellow chatterbox!) Anna sadly wasn’t very happy with her shots, which is OK! We are all human and we all have our insecurities and remember, what we usually criticize about ourselves, others cannot see. We are sometimes our own worst enemies. Either way, she looked bloody gorgeous like the woman she is, and I can’t wait for her to be a part of our next shoot.

I had another lady who doesn’t have a bag but has Psoriasis – I just want to put it out there, she has NEVER shown her body in 15 years where she was ashamed and embarrassed, I told her ‘hey if it’s good enough for Kim K’. My goodness this beautiful lady stripped right down to her undies and the next thing you know she was smashing it! Yass Queen. She has now been asked by Psoriasis UK to tell her story and why she wanted to do the shoot.  I can’t forget those men out there. I know men can sometimes be the worst when it comes to ego’s but I had a fabulous young man by the name of Luke, who not only suffers from a speech stutter also has Asperger’s and depression. Luke also did my first shoot; yet again we ladies had competition when it came to posing, he was literally giving us some fabulous looks.

I do my body confidence shoots so that I can help bring out the confidence in others I once was scared to have. I have been every single one of those people; I have been too scared because of what others might say. I now post my scars all the time that I get some ignorant people who have no CLUE of the battle I faced say it’s for attention. Yes. those comments do affect me a lot especially because half these people were not there on those dark days where I wanted nothing more than to just not wake up at times. I post my scars to help change lives and be the reason somebody else comes out of their shell, that dark place of insecurity I once was, and to show who cares, I am still human, I am still ME! People hate at times to see other people doing something good for the world instead of living a life of bad energy.  Whilst I am out here making a change I know karma will get anybody who says anything negative about my scar and what I do. It also took me a long time to overcome comments like that. But with the help of some amazing people I learned never stop being your true self.

I want you all to look in the mirror every day and tell yourself 3 POSITIVE things you are, sometimes when I feel I am going to have a day where I am going to struggle I will say:

I AM STRONG – I AM BEAUTIFUL – I AM CAPABLE OF ACHIEVING WHATEVER I WANT

I also want you to all take the time before you go to bed to write down one thing about your life you are grateful for. I say this because think of all the negative energy you waste putting into the universe how much you hate this or that about your bodies? Think of all the GOOD energy you could attract if you’re appreciating your bodies and what good things you have in your life. REMEMBER, there is always somebody in the world worse off who would love to trade places with you in a day.

Look after you, if you’ve been given a scar OWN IT! If you’ve been given a stoma OWN IT. Who wants to fit in anyway? Why be a fish when you can be a mermaid? I feel that we all look way too much at celebs and social media and compare ourselves to those women or men with the ‘PERFECT’ bodies. There’s a thing called Photoshop these days and best believe a lot of people use it. I AM AGAINST this, as part of my mission is to break the Photoshop trend so we can embrace our beautiful selves. WHO cares if you don’t look like Kim Kardashian, you look like YOU! Do you know how stunning Winnie Harlow is and she’s a superstar model embracing her Vitiligo? I don’t know her, but I can bet you she had to battle her own demons to get to where she is today and love her skin.  Aim to be the Winnies in the world, where we own what body flaws we have and see the beauty in it. I am a big fan of RuPaul saying, ‘If you can’t love yourself, how the hell you going to love somebody else?’ Learn that phrase, live and breathe it because I have.

I really hope this helped and somebody has taken something positive from this. I HOPE you all do the little mini task I have asked of you, and don’t forget if you take body confidence picture to hashtag ‘Selflovebynatalieamber’ and join my movement.

Look forward to speaking to you beauties next month.

Lots of love

Natalie-Amber x

Join Natalie-Amber’s body confidence movement with #selflovebynatalieamber

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