Life with filters

Since I was little I have heard phrases like «that is not well seen in a woman», «a woman does not dress like that», «these clothes suit your body type better», «you should wear more makeup», «you should wear less makeup», Whether they told me or someone close to me, I grew up believing that I should always have a «filter» to look good to others and I did so, why? I just didn’t want to get comments about my body that would drive me home, lie down, put my face on the pillow and cry trying not to be heard.

How good would a self-esteem class be at school. At work in the city I loved heels, I felt powerful and tired of course, but the latter was not a valid answer for whoever asked – «How are you?» -. “Everything is fine, in the office fine, with many things and many university jobs” that was an accepted answer, another filter flourishing.

For some strange reason we believe that the busier and more desperate we are, the more successful we will be and the closer we will be to fulfilling our life purpose.

That’s how I showed it and even worse, that’s how I lived it, because over the years the filters and I became one, I forgot what I wanted to study, what I wanted to do and simply lived as expected. Without a thing changing, any comment about my body led me to put my face on the pillow to let my tears fall, feeling the freedom that I wanted but didn’t know.

A freedom that now, after several emotional falls, I begin to feel in my own flesh. Now I am more into tennis than heels, more into mountains than from offices and more from reality than from filters, but above all, now I am more into loving my body regardless of the comments that come, because of course the comments follow, people We believe we have the power to comment and judge about the lives and bodies of others without knowing the damage we cause.

The tears continue, it’s not that one day I woke up and said «today I’m going to love myself more» and as if by magic I accepted my body, I saw myself lovingly naked in front of the mirror, I stopped criticizing myself and told the girls to go to hell. people and their comments, NO, I wish it worked that way but it takes time, it involves learning the value we have as people, that we are more than a physical appearance or a filter that we use to show our best version, it involved forgiving, forgiving myself for being so hard on myself when I should have given myself love and for accepting comments that are harmful to my physical and mental health; and to forgive people who, perhaps unintentionally, made me more insecure and to know that it’s not telling them to go to hell, but setting limits.

How good it would have been to be able to set limits and not filters my thoughts and my actions in the face of the thoughts and actions of others, how good it would have been to identify my own value a few years ago and not have hit rock bottom in my own way and how good it would have been that now little by little this is changing.

And just as with this dress, with love, time and security we stop being one, the «filters» and I also stop being one, to give free rein to a responsible freedom with myself, to a happiness where, as an imperfect being, I love myself, I respect myself, I value myself with my ups and downs, my mood and my weight, and I am filled with empathy for those with whom I share life and existence in this world, learning, loving each little step and each reality, my reality.