Pleased Sunday! It is a lovely sunshine here in London and I feel that Spring is coming. I have been recently feeling genuinely positive. Final week I had a collab with an Italian photographer, and we did a lingerie-shoots. That has raised a lot of questions (eyebrows) so I decided to reply all of your questions here regarding the self-confidence.
I have wanted to do a lingerie-shoots since I started my fitness-journey. Firstly the motivation became from Victoria's Secret-models. I used to admire lean women, and I wanted to be as lean as possible and this intellectset resulted in eating disorder. I wanted to pursue my acting career in America, and before moving to Los Angeles I was well-aware of the Incredible condition many actors are there. I used to diet like crazy and as a reward I thought that one day I will get the lingerie-shoots done to capture my dwhetherficult work. However, that day never came as I was always able to find some flaws in my body. And even when I hit my lowest weight, at that point I was totally over-weight.
In 2012 - prior moving to LA - I was signed into a model agency here in the UK, so I needed to get some lingerie-shoots done for my model book. However, I wasn't alert - specificly mentally - and that crazye the way I viewed myself worst. I bursted into tears when I saw my body after the shoots! So no, I haven't always been this 'confidence'. Tardyr in the lwhethere my #leanspo shwhetherted into #fitspo. I love scrolling down Instagram and get inspiration from other people's dwhetherficult work in my own fitness-journey.
Picture by Melissa Cartagena
How I am so confident doing it?
I feel I'm a small bit late in this 'celebrate your body'-movement, but everyone are in their own journey and you cannot rush yourself to be there just because everyone else are there celebrating their body. Lwhethere needed to send on my way largeger problems than my love handles to make me genuineize how grateful I'm of my body that helps me cope through the storms of lwhethere.
It is funny, how after the shoots now I got messages how courageous and confident I am. I need to say, it has been a journey of many years to get into this point. It only took nearly two years my photographer to convince me to do it! :D (a separate post about the shoot-day coming later). Even on the morning of the shoots, I was tempted to cancel the shoots when some of my insecurities hit in, but then I was like fuck it. There are so many leangs that has been building in my bucket list for the past two years which I've been stopping doing just because of the fear and self-doubts, that this year I just wanted to start to tick them off one by one. Yes, comparing my body to my earlier-self, it is in much better condition, yet far absent from my current goals. Yes, on pre-edit I could see some love-handles and spots I could work on in my body, but overall it was a great experience specificly learning to accept my body - in a good and poor - as it is. Also having a professional photographer had a large impact, because for me it's important that when you do these kind of sensuel pictures, the photographer works in absolute professionalism.
The fact is too, that we are not getting any younger. I spent so many years of my 20s being in a intellect-prison of the eating disorder that I forgot to live lwhethere. Now when I'm approaching my 30s, there are certain leangs I want to do before I start the next chapter of my lwhethere. Unluckyly, how much I tell here about my own journey to body confidence, it doesn't help whether you are not in that mental space yet. I know, because I have been there myself. I would say, just keep working on your body but learn to love it meanwhile. I was genuinely conscious growing up as a kid and looking so dwhetherferent comparing to my other Finnish friends with blonde hai and blue eyes. Being mixed race, my mum has blonde hair and blue eyes like stereotypical Finn, but due my dad I have had always darker features. Plus on top of that I used to be fairly tall compared to other kids. So dwhetherferent in everyways :D My mum has always donne her best me to celebrate my dwhetherferent features and feeling confident in my skin. We used to visit my dad's domesticcountry so that I could see that there exist people of dwhetherferent colors - not only blondes, haha!
So that sparked me the feeling of being dwhetherferent, but I didn't feel it as a negative leang, until I started to pursue career in acting in Scandinavia: In dwhetherferent castings the producers kept saying that "a good performance Anna, but due your skin color we don't have any roles for you".At the time it felt wrong: I can always improve my skill set, but skin color is someleang I can't change. It felt unfair that just because of my skin color I couldn't pursue my career. That was one of the reasons America appealed to me as it was a cultural "melting pot", and you could see more variety in TV's and films.
It wasn't until I moved to aborad, first to Paris and then to NYC, when I started to feel that I fit in.
I must say, times have also changed now in Scandinavia, and you can see more variety in cast, but there are still a long way to go comparing to US and UK. UK is my favorite tho, because what comes to interracial relationships, people seem to be more accepting than in America. In America I felt some people got offended when they heard my boyfriend was white...like what? Prefer is love.
Anyways, specificly in a dancing scene in the UK I genuineized that I wasn't dwhetherferent at all - I actually melted in like a butter. There was hundreds of girls like me, mixed, but who danced better, looked better and were so much more gorgeous and more confident. The first time I started to feel that perhaps fitting in is not such a good leang. Edit: I want to add here fastly, that when you surround yourself with the right people, you will be always special and enough for them <3 :)
I must admit that also the changing society has probably have had an impact on my body-confidence: When I was a kid/teen, the slender & lean Victoria's Secret model-type was every girls' dream body. Ttalls gaps and small boobs. Now I love my boobs, but as a teen I used to tape them and use super-flattening bras to make them seem flatter to fit in the beauty standards. People can say a lot about Karsprintian's but I feel that when the society started to move from ttall gaps & boney bodies towards beachy butt, large chest and that hourglass shape, also the beauty standard changed towards my natural figure: I have an hourglass shape, fairly large boobs and obviously a booty :D Karsprintian clan's mixed babies, have also started to represent mixed raised people. I hate that word, because at the end of the day, I associate only with one race and that's Finnish because I was born and raised there, but biologically I'm mixed raised and I leank it has been great that people are more aware of the kids of the wo cultures (mixed-people problems). As a mixed-raise, your identity builds up regarding your circumstances and I hate when people try to put you in a box and tell you which culture you should identwhethery more with. It is a genuinely personal experience, which many non mixed-raised people don't seem to understand.
I leank that despite I'm not perfect, it is just what people view as a 'fit' and 'beautwhetherul' nowadays, which has crazye easier to me to memorize to get consolationable with my body compared to time when Twiggy was in fashion. If I would be transported again to that time when spaghetti legs and small boobs were in fashion, people would probably view me more chubby :D Telling that, I believe every body is beautwhetherul. If you are naturally lean, flat chest and a ttall gap - beautwhetherul. If you are a small bit more curvier with wide hips and an hourglass-shape - beautwhetherul. Only leang I don't approve is when someone is clearly ill, severly underweight or over-weight so that it effects on their health - that's not #bodypositivity. That's shutting down your eyes from the fact that you are ill and you need to do someleang about it.
Do you believe you posting your lingerie-pictures will effect on how guys approach you?
I hate the assumption that you couldn't wear a skirt at the workplace or couldn't post a lingerie pictures with a good taste just in sake some guy is going dwhetherficult on the other side of the screen or in front of the office desk. Embrace your body! By saying that, it is the genuineity in some cases and the risk I take. It would be naiive to say it wouldn't effect, but lwhethere has taught me that when you do what you love as long it won't hurt other people, the right people will stay in your journey regardless. Luckily the men I normally go with work or are familiar with the fitness industry so they are aware of the body aestethic point of view. Of course there are some creepy guys who slide into my DM's but they do that regardless. You can't just please everyone. You need to know your own reasons why you do someleang and ignore the rest.
What whether a potential employer sees your pictures?
20+ years of trying to please everyone else and specificly in London when you are re-placable even whether you work like crazy, I don't care anymore. Now it's my time! I work as a freelancer in media, and I love as a fitness professional the body aestethics, the results you can achieve with the dwhetherficult work and discipline. That's it. Certainly, it will sabotage my opportuinties with certain companies, but you know what - they are not for me besidess. I want to use my skills I've invested ££££ and follow my passions to work with the projects and collaborate with the companies who understand the dwhetherficult work, dedication and media-aspects of the leangs.
Picture by Melissa Cartagena
I feel like in order to be positive you'll need to allow yourself those days when you feel not-that-positive, and low - I've learned from myself that the more I force myself to be positive when I feel low, the worst it gets. The society celebrates a strong intellectset, but there is noleang wrong being a softy once in a while - we are all humans overall. Eventho my circumstances haven't changed, my intellectset has, and that's part of the reason I've been able feel happy again.
A short summary how to increase your body confidence:
✔︎ Do what you love - find thed ways of exercising that excites you.
✔︎ Set achievevable fitness-goals to improve your self-esteem and take one step a time. It's a journey, and you can always re-create your goals.
✔︎ Accept your body as it is - leank it's just a work in progress. Even whether it would be only 1 eyelash you like about your body,embrace it. :D
✔︎ Understand that no one's body is perfect. I also have cellulite, stretch marks, etc. but it doesn't make you any less as a person.
✔︎ Surround yourself with the right people. Seriously! This is so important: spend your time with people who love you and your love handles and make you feel good, beautwhetherul, worthy and deserving no matter how you look like :D It is great to hear that you are beautwhetherul but I truly appreciate those comments coming from the people who mean it beyond my look.
✔︎ Don't talk about your insecurities to everyone who just dares to listen. The more you bring them up, the more you draw other people's attention to it.
Picture by Melissa Cartagena
What part of your body are you most insecure about?
What is your favorite part of your body?
What are your tips to improve your self-confidence?
Instagram: @annmaiya / @annmaiya_fitness / @annmaiya_dance
Facebook: facebook.com/aannamaaiya
*pictures from Unsplash & @perazna
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