As a person who’s struggled with body positivity my entire life, I find it extremely frustrating when people automatically assume that just because you know how to be body positive, means you’re always body positive.

In a world where we’re bombarded with several ideals of beauty – few of which actually look like the majority of women in the world, I find it hard to love my body everyday. Let’s be honest: staying body positive is hard work, it often feels like a full-time job!

I had a brief conversation about this with a friend earlier this week and I wasn’t surprised to hear that even someone like her who works for a company that prides themselves on being body positive, she too struggles to feel amazing in her own skin everyday. Her affirmation immediately got me thinking how every single woman, regardless of body type, size, weight, feels helplessly trapped some days, struggling to find the positivity in their bodies.

As someone who waves the love thyself flag across social media and this site on a daily basis (and I’m sure my fellow bopo bloggers feel the same), I often feel as if the responsibility to always love the skin I’m in, love myself and my body on the daily, leaves me feeling defeated some days.

Now that I’m over 5 months pregnant, the struggle is realer than ever and I find myself having to look back at my own posts and videos for tips on finding my confidence again. 

And it sucks, a lot, but I’m a person, not a robot, and so are you. We think, we feel, we see the examples of admiration and beauty put in front of us everyday and they don’t assist in our body positive/self-love journey’s, they often redirect us from the path with their sneaky whispers: if only you could lose a little weight, if only you didn’t have a tummy…. 

I’m here to tell you all: there’s no shame in struggling to love your body everyday, it’s completely normal and it’s okay. The struggle is a very real reality that lots of women live with every single day, not just sometimes. So if we can get even a couple days out of the entire the week where we don’t dwell on that weight gain, our pants being too tight, cellulite or any other so-called imperfection, we’re still body positive warriors! 

Remember, even a warrior is defeated in battle sometimes. But she keeps going, keeps fighting because she knows it's worth fighting for.