Since summer is upon us in the States, I have been reflecting on the slogan, "get your summer body ready" and contemplating about what that means in my life.

I identify as a plus size woman, and for the longest time, I'd refer to myself as fat. Let's face it: since I am plus size I am a bigger woman, and I hated myself and the way I looked.This sentiment often lead to me calling myself fat. Now looking back, this makes me incredibly sad because fat is never something you should call anyone--especially yourself. Swimsuit season has always been a really hard season for me because I hated seeing people who I viewed as better looking in swimsuits that I wished I could pull of. I'm asking myself now "why do I compare myself to other girls?" My size is no reflection of who I am, and their size and beauty don't change my size or my beauty.

As women, we all compare ourselves to others. Whether we are skinny, plus size, tall or short, we see other people and wished we looked like them. I'm guilty of it constantly. But it's something that as women, we need to stop doing. Because as we compare ourselves to others we either tear ourselves down or begin to tear other women down and that's ridiculous. Instead, we should be building each other for the beauty that we all hold. A friend of mine posted a series of pictures about how she has gained weight and she began to not like the way she looked. However, now she identifies as plus size and she's still beautiful and she's always been beautiful. This got me thinking about how many woman view themselves as ugly and that makes my heart hurt because It's entirely not true; we all beautiful whether we see it or not. It also got me thinking about how long it took myself to see the beauty that is me and my body.

I've finally began to realize that I am beautiful with my curves and all. And It only took me moving half way around the world to finally see myself as beautiful! It took someone constantly telling me, "yeah I promise, you're beautiful" and encouraging me to look in a mirror until I saw it too.

I want to be that person for any of you who don't think you're beautiful... You are and you just need to look at yourself in the mirror until you see it also. It's going to take time but if you constantly look in a mirror and remind yourself that you are beautiful you will begin to see it also.