I have recently gone through a seminar called The Body Project which was centered around teaching us or better, opening our eyes to, all the things that go along with body image and body shaming.

Body shaming was always something I knew existed but never did anything about or really took the time to learn about. I’m sure that is how most of you reading this are too, which is totally fine. Learning more about it, however, taught me the importance of what it truly does to young girls and women today.

Growing up in the age of social media doesn’t make this topic any easier. We have the Instagram explore page. We have the YouTube videos of beautiful girls with zero fat on them living the “quintessential” lifestyle exploring the world. We have the fashion industry putting a size 6 as pretty much plus size.

And of course, we have all the celebrities flaunting their perfect lives and bodies all over every platform of social media you could possibly think of. I mean, after all that, it’s hard to believe that no one will get caught up in the mix of trying to make all of those things their reality.

It is truly hard to believe that the people we see on social media are not perfect. We only see what they want us to see and maybe their pictures are edited/photo-shopped but then again maybe they aren’t and that’s okay.

Not everyone can look the same or have the same body type. Not everyone has the same shaped eyebrows or flat stomach or a big butt. We are all unique and that’s the best part of it all. It sounds so cliché and I'm pulling a mom quote on you but everyone really is beautiful just the way they are.

Of course, there are things that we don’t absolutely love about ourselves but that doesn’t mean they are bad things or that we deserve to be shamed for it.

I know it’s not easy to not compare yourself to everyone you see. I do it too, we all do. There comes a point, though, when it is important to take a step back and realize that while most of these girls you’re comparing yourself too are gorgeous, so are you.

We live in a world spent fantasizing about the things we can’t have and just watching these random people who have what we think we want.

Let’s start going out and actually doing what we love no matter what it looks like to everyone else. We are all beautiful people and contrary to the millennial ideal: looks are not the most important thing and getting the best Instagram photo is not going to change any real life things going on.