Perfectly imperfect.
22 years ago, I had back surgery for scoliosis & was in the hospital for TEN DAYS‼️
You may remember from the first LV fashion series the video where I talk about ‘Rejection via Redirection’.
After my surgery, I couldn't do dance/ballet 🩰 the same, & it definitely took a while before I felt somewhat back to normal.
I drifted from the dance 🕺 world & was scouted into the modeling 📸 world. Before I knew it, I was off to NYC at about 14–15 years old.
The curve in my spine was never perfectly corrected, & this image demonstrates that, which is what I love most about it.🤲🏼✨
Here is what I want to note 📝:
Even though I was "redirected" into the fashion industry after my surgery, I then began to experience "rejection" on a whole other level! Constantly! NONSTOP.😳
Redirection doesn't always mean we made it to the end, happily ever after. Part of life's purpose is growth 🪴. We will always be climbing 🧗🏼♀️ some sort of peak ⛰️, & there will be plenty of flowers 🌼 to smell, rest spots to REST 😌, & views to take in along the way 🌄.
A part of that rejection would come from my still perfectly imperfect spine.
During swim week in Miami, I didn't book one show. Not ONE. Could this be part of that? In the end, it doesn’t matter because...
I GREW THROUGH IT.🤸🏼♀️🌟💫✨
Life is our greatest teacher, & as said, it is for us, not against us.🙏🏼
Through the ups & downs of self-acceptance, we eventually find our way to loving ourselves & all our "perfect imperfections".
Does this mean that we feel this way every second of every day? Of course not. But what it means is that even when we don't, we meet ourselves where we're at & love ourselves in those moments too.🪞🫂
We love ourselves unconditionally, in a perfectly imperfect way.📈📉📈📉
This is freedom. This is how we break the chains ⛓️ of seeing self-acceptance as "when I get there", "when I have that", "when I do this", & so on.
This kind of love also encourages us to desire our best selves, & therefore we want to “show up” because there are no contingencies to feel love based on the outcome. We just want to do our best.❤️
As we get closer to 2024, let this be part of our guiding principles! Let this be our way of loving. Unconditional self-love for our perfectly imperfect journeys.🫶🏼🗺️
All the love, fam.🤗🌞