To My Fellow Women: You Don’t Need The Garbage The World Is Trying To Sell You

This is a list of all the garbage the world tries to sell women.

But they can’t do that without breaking us down first, piece by piece. They tear away at our confidence, they pick at our self-worth, and they poke at our enough-ness.

Before we know it, we start to believe the lies they’re feeding us.

We start to believe we’re not beautiful as we are.

We start to believe we aren’t enough.

And we start to believe we need to buy shit to “fix” ourselves.

You don’t need that new red lipstick, they so originally named orgasm. You don’t need to cover your naked face in paint, to feel better or worthy in this world. Allow your bare faced beauty to illuminate under the sun’s kisses by day, and the twinkling starlight at night.

You don’t need to those new boobs. They might tell you yours are too small, like mosquito bites; too uneven, or lacking the wow factor that guys want and expect. But fuck that. Your body is nothing short of a miracle, and it is yours – to be hugged and loved, never judged.

You don’t need to wax, shave, pluck, or laser away all the excess hair that naturally sprouts from your body. Your skin needn’t be smooth like a newborn baby’s bum at all times. Because your body as a woman does not exist to please others in this world. You are not here to be a well behaved woman, who does as she’s told, without question or hesitation.

You don’t need to buy those $800 shoes the editors picked and placed on the pages of Vogue. It doesn’t matter if you choose to follow this season’s trends or not. It doesn’t matter if the clothes that hang in your closet are all designer, or from a jumble of thrift stores and hand-me-downs. Because no matter which clothes may drape your skin; they cannot define you within.

You don’t need to spend hours ironing your hair, taming that mane that desperately longs to run wild and free on this earth. You don’t need to douse poison on your scalp, so you can be a bleached blonde who has more fun, or a chocolate brunette who the men take more seriously at work. Let your locks hang and tangle as they may. Let your natural shade be a colour you embrace because it’s yours, and can’t be made or found in any packet on any shelf in any store in the world.

You don’t need a spray tan in a bottle, or to religiously lay on a sunbed for hours every week, to bronze and bake your skin. And you don’t need to hold umbrellas over your head in the heat, or lather on lightening creams to scrub away your heritage, so you can look more like the fairer women you see on movie screens and gracing the pages of magazines. So no matter where you fall on the spectrum of creamy white through to black coffee – you are beautiful. You are perfect. Please don’t allow your mind to be brainwashed into thinking differently.

You don’t need a man on your arm to feel whole as a woman. Because no matter what they say, you are not incomplete. It’s your endless love and light that swell your heart. It’s your passion and purpose that set your soul alight. It’s your magic that runs like glitter through your veins. You are enough, entirely as you are.

You don’t need the garbage the world is trying to sell you.

Please don’t think for a moment that you do.

Everything you’ll ever need can be found within you.

You see, you already are the woman you hope to be.

You just haven’t found her yet.