I recently was asked to write a guest blog post. The theme was overcoming a personal struggle and having self-love.

Cue digging deep, getting personal. My armpits are tingling.

I ended up writing a piece that challenged our Instagram-oriented world in some key ways.

I love the gram, the gram is like my fam.

So don’t get me wrong, I’m not hating on Instagram.

But, I am evaluating it with a healthy dose of intellect. In my blog post for Beautiful U Journey, a movement devoted to helping women have positive body image, I asked readers to say “buy-bye” to that old comparison game.

You know the game where you compare your face, body, and or life to that of another girl’s.

That girl who is a professional model with 10,000 hair and makeup artists, a personal trainer, top-notch nutritionists, and let’s be honest, a heck of a lot of self-control when it comes to burgers and fries.

Or maybe that girl who is killing it at some dream fashion PR firm in a perfectly Instagrammable New York office.

Wow, her job looks so important.

Wow, her life looks so glam.

Wow, every damn coffee cup flat lay looks friggin’ perfect on her big, fat, awesome desk.

Where were we?

Yea, that game is so old. So just don’t play, OK?

Thank you.

So during my pre-typing-self-exploration of this topic of self-love I got to learn more about the Beautiful U Journey.

It’s a badass community that provides 365 days of tools and encouragement to stifle your inner critic, and find self-acceptance from within. DREAMY.

Cue the hallelujah chorus. Positive body image isn’t just a fabled whisper among women! It CAN be attained.

Let’s be honest, between the film and TV industry and our own inner voices, we’ve got a lot of expectation coming at us as far as looks go.

Founder of Beautiful U Journey (and total babe), Heather Deranja is a licensed and registered dietitian. After years of coaching hundreds of clients on health and nutrition she kept coming back to the same theme; women lacked and longed for self-acceptance.

(see, total BABE, from the inside out)

All the greens in the world couldn’t satisfy that craving.

Not even the smallest waist or tightest abs could stifle this inherent need for self-love.

Heather discovered an important facet to the core of humans.

Positive body image is not correlated with our actual bodies, but with our hearts and minds.

Ahhh, so that’s why all this striving hasn’t resulted in anything but the need to strive MORE. We’re not feeding our souls with self-love.

Basically, I’m hooked on the inner beauty bit. It feels amazing and it actually transcends to my outer appearance.

I’m glowing, no SPARKLING with inward beauty (most days).

Some days I’m toad status because of all of the negative shit swirling inside me.

But that’s part of the journey. You’ve got to own ALL OF IT. Even the bad parts.

If you’re looking to pump the breaks on that old comparison game and if you’re yearning for that positive body image that doesn’t have a damn thing to do with your how well you drew your winged eyeliner, Beautiful U Journey is the perfect daily roadmap.

Get tapped into a community of other women looking to harness positive body image and FEED YOUR SOUL.

Stay beautiful my friends, from the inside out.