I found this Marilyn Monroe quote and I had to share.
I have spent the last couple of months looking at visuals of myself and picking myself apart. My team and I have focussed on the reality of who I am as an artist and tried to bring out the different facets of my personality in the most natural way possible.
Sometimes, however, I cringe at what I see. We are all without doubt our own worst critics, are we not?
We all have a lot of choice these days, and I wholeheartedly agree with freedom of choice - but having experienced the hospitalisation of my father as a result of a necessary operation that did not go according to plan, I will never have non life saving surgery. Could I do with a tummy tuck? Oh yes…does my face need tweaking? Probably… but...I suppose what I am saying is I have reached a new level of acceptance of how I look and am becoming increasingly comfortable in the skin I’m in - even though it is less than toned in places and the wrinkles are starting to pick up momentum. However I can't pretend I'm not fortunate - I'm very lucky with my hair for instance, and you lovely people have been extremely flattering about my new video (in which I'm not wearing a whole lot!).
A few people have commented on the fact that you can see my stomach in certain shots in the video and how that is quite brave as it is my least favourite bit of me.
But whilst it was uncomfortable when I first saw it - it is part of me. The reality is I put on a lot of weight when I was pregnant with my kids and lost it quite quickly, this coupled with a massive muscle separation in my stomach left me with a lot of work to do!
And whilst a toned flat stomach would be incredible, I have two beautiful children - so I feel lucky. If that was the trade off - I came out on top.
I suppose it is human nature to point out our flaws and it is easy. It also seems increasingly easy to "fix" our physical flaws and create a contrived reality...and I suppose that is where choice comes into play.
I will be writing some posts about how we try to create perfection in some way or another in our lives - whether it’s body image, lifestyle or autotuning vocals on an album. And as I gather research, I would love to know what you think.
Through creating content for my new album - the amazing team with whom I work have urged me to embrace how I look and the faces I pull when I sing and have reminded me that the imperfections of reality have merits. In fact, I am grateful for this reminder as I truly believe it is our flaws that make us interesting and beautiful. Your thoughts?