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Blogging and self-confidence

June 10, 2014

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True beauty is something that attacks, overpowers, robs, and finally destroys.

-Yukio Mishima

I don’t think I will be the only blogger to say that blogging has helped with their self confidence. You see, I never saw myself as pretty or beautiful or really attractive, if I’m honest. In fact, it was only in recent years that I became a little more at ease with the way I look. I barely own any photos from when I was a teenager, as I destroyed them – I didn’t like the ugly duckling staring back at me and didn’t recognize myself in them at all.

Since I started blogging on Livejournal back in 2002 or so, and because I had a digital camera, I started experimenting a lot more with photography, particularly self portraits. I started having my photo taken a lot more often as well, as a few years later I started posting the good old outfit photos, which also helped attain some easiness in front of the camera. These days it’s a lot simpler, with the rise of the selfie and the availability of smartphones, that can take better snaps than a lot of proper cameras…

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Looking at oneself in a photograph, and having the opportunity to try different angles over and over again, can be considered obsessive or self absorbed. I would say yes, but also argue that if it helps people get over their hangups and feel more beautiful and confident, it can’t be such a bad thing altogether.

Thanks to digital cameras and blogging, I was able to become more self aware as well as able to manipulate and control my own image. It did (and still does) help me in terms of questioning my looks. Who do I want to be (or look like) on a particular day, can be later revisited and analysed, for further development.

I have a somewhat theatrical approach to the way I dress and as such, see it as a creative process. I’ve been doing the same thing for a while now and after some soul searching (been doing a lot of that recently), I have decided I want to take it beyond the daily outfit experience. I want to experiment not only with the clothes I wear to go to work but also invent other more extreme looks, play with makeup and just push the envelope further – question what beauty is, my self image and generally play with my appearance. In a way, be my own canvas.

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How about you? Has blogging helped with your self confidence? How do you treat your self-image?

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9 Comments

  • Reply Ella June 10, 2014 at 08:49

    Great post Sarah! And I’m glad you feel so much more confident now, you always look fabulous. I can’t wait to see you pushing it further with the eccentricity too. I know the older I get the less I worry about whether I look daft or not. My teenage years were spent kind of half fitting in to various different tribes never quite feeling I fitted into any of them completely. It made me ill confident rather than embrace being my own silly little kook. I thought I had terrible skin to go some kind of mighty boosh style huge face and matching big fat body mostly down to a really odd relationship with food stemming from odd comments and things my mother did when I was a kid, amazing how these things stick.(either that or someone was putting acid in my tea!) So daft, I’m the same size now and perfectly happy being curvy. My mum is skeleton thin and it ages her sooo much.(don’t tell her I said that though!) A shame it takes so long to become comfortable with ourselves! (not that I don’t still have bouts of self doubt frequently but much less time for those worries these days πŸ™‚ )

    Sorry that was a bit of a long winded ramble!! x

  • Reply KizzyDoll June 10, 2014 at 09:12

    Hello lovely, these are gorgeous pictures, of course I already know these πŸ˜‰ But, I think it’s important to push the envelope and try new things, people won’t always understand or get it, but that doesn’t really matter. As long as you, yourself gets it and got something from it. Some people are just, plainly putting it – boneheads, haha. They don’t get anything that isn’t explained to them and then they fear it. As you already know, I myself will be doing more different types of posts and not just outfit ones as I’m bored of it sometimes. I think creative types need to evolve as they go and experiment as it makes them feel better. It’s how they express. Blogging has helped me a great deal in feeling more confident about myself. I was an ugly duckling growing up and didn’t like pictures taken of myself what so ever & even now when I find one of myself in that awkward stage, I tend to destroy it, haha. I keep baby pictures, but then it’s all blank, haha. Or I hide them, as maybe one day I will look back and it won’t bother me so much. I had bad hair, bad bad skin, huge ugly glasses, terrible clothes, I was stick thin and tried to hide away with big clothes, a very awkward teen I was. But, I know I’ve come along way and so have you, even in this short space and we will continue to go where we wish to be and achieve what we want to as well. And its good that we have these blogs to use to express and create. It would be nicer if more bloggers used their blogs for more deeper issues and creativity rather than just outfit posts. But, then it is nice having the rare gems that do. I look forward to more of these doll :))) Have a lush day xx

  • Reply jocy June 10, 2014 at 12:10

    It has helped with my on camera confidence definitely. I believe there are different types of confidences. You can be very confident at work but insecure in your relationships or vice versa.

    With the rise of smart phones it has allowed me to experiment a lot and find the right angles. Because i have to take so many pics I started to enjoy doing them. Must say i still feel self conscious with my ootd pics but that’s because i have still to practice them πŸ™‚

    Cant wait to see what your experiments will look like. I feel the same way! The other day i did a fotd with stars on my cheek and i wondered why i should leave it for world cup or carnival only loll

  • Reply MIS PAPELICOS June 10, 2014 at 12:44

    What a post Sara, blogging has helped me to get out what was already there.
    I also used to hate photos.
    Photos are like mirrors if you like yourself they love you, but if there is something you donΒ΄t.
    The blog has definitely made a difference.
    Tons of love, dear Sara
    XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

  • Reply Miranda June 10, 2014 at 12:46

    Honestly, blogging has done the exact opposite to me. I have had quite a few blogs since 2002, and because I am such a biatch in the way I speak my mind, have always fallen under anonymous attacks and bullying – I really don’t think I have exyreme views and opinions about anything, but I do have a knack for being an expert in something FNM call “The gentle art of making enemies” as I excell there!! – but have always been quite quite confident with the way I look, to the point of finding myself a Giselle Bundchen even when others just see plain Jane in me (I was THAT full of myself, yeah, and so happy to be loool). But at a point I opted for a personal style blog where I posted pics of myself, a woman over 36 years old, who had just had a child, gained a huge amount of weight, and still wanted to dress herself in her own creative way, wearing what she liked and not what society and fashion expert-isms said she should; and there’s where I have suffered the biggest personal attacks in my life, ranging from jokes about my weight and body image, to my personal taste and even my child, from those blogs whose main intention is to shame other bloggers. I even received emails from fake addresses and fake accounts saying the nastiest stuff I ever came across, calling me ridiculous and what not, and some of the stuff I read about myself did take away my self confidence a lot. THe moment the comments started focusing on my child and the ways he might or might not look, or behave, or feel about me – saying the child was surely to be ashamed of having such a ridiculous mother as I was – that was the end for me, no more blogging with outfit posts and no more showing myself. I have always looked at me as a beauty, despite anyone else’s opinion – come on, I know I am NOT a beauty as one would say about top models and stuff, but in my eyes I have always considered myself beatiful – and the moment I started feeling ugly due to the comments of anonymous people, I chose to stop sharing myself in that way. I love photography and playing with photography, so the only way to go now was really to start chosing other models for my photos, and that’s what I did, no more selfies for me, lol, because they were taking away my self confidence.

  • Reply PinkCheetahVintage June 10, 2014 at 17:40

    Great photos! Expand! Explore! I love it πŸ™‚

  • Reply pastcaring June 10, 2014 at 19:10

    These photos are very interesting, and powerful. Yes, I think blogging has done a lot for my confidence. And it is a great way to explore all sorts of issues and our creativity within a supportive community. xxx

  • Reply sandra June 12, 2014 at 11:31

    Yes! blogging is definitely a factor in improving self confidence – I also think the selfie is great, for everyone, as more people grow accustomed to their own images and love them, I say Bravo! I love your continuing confidence and your next step of viewing yourself as a canvas in order to express yourself, I think that is brilliant! I like to treat my body as a frame in which I have days where I want statement and volume, other days defined, it’s very exciting x x x

  • Reply Connie* June 13, 2014 at 00:22

    This was a very nice thoughtful post. I love the photos. Just love ’em. Actually blogging is helping me to become a lot more self aware and at 60 it’s about time, dammit!! I have always hated seeing photos of myself and I still do but I’m really trying not to be quite so invisible. After a wild colorful youth I spent the greater part of my adulthood just trying to blend in with the background in order to let my children shine. They are out on their own now shining away so maybe I can stir up some latent pizazz in myself. When I see how beautiful creative thoughtful you are I give a great big cheer. Yay Sara!!!

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