You don't even need me to tell you that! You know and have known this your whole existence! But you allowed yourself to be weighed down by other people's limitations and restrictions to govern what you do. How do I know this? I let it happen to me. For many years the things people said to me in my youth shaped who I became as an adult. Some spoke positively and others negatively. Some spoke positively but all I heard was negativity because whatever they said I read the actions which accompanied those words and they said the same things. Doom and gloom for the fatty!
Somehow my being bigger to some people meant that they thought I could not access certain areas of life. It was to be the penalty of living 'heavier life'. And I believed them. They meant well. Preparing me for the big cruel world out there. I even appreciated it. Whenever I was denied a chance I would be told or shown through action that it was because that wasn't right for me. Too big, too fat, too black, too young! Other people believed they knew that much about me that they could determine where better a fit to box me. I confined myself to that box for the longest time until such time I had to break out of it! I watched others progress before me knowing deep inside that I was actually capable of doing as well if not better but not wanting to come out from the security of the box made for me. A kind of 'Stockolm Syndrome' thing. The box had turned from my prison to my home inside my head. I thought it was as far as someone like me could go. But one day I began to feel deeply unhappy. I started to feel scared. I didn't know why these feelings kept nagging at me. I started to become irritable and even started getting heart flutters. Suddenly I was aware the box was still my prison and not a home at all. As I grew the box got tighter around me. Choking me. I wanted change. But change was the deep dark waters that if I dove into would swallow me up! I didn't want change! Did I?
Yes, the truth was I did. But again I sat on this for a long time. I wasn't strong enough I told myself. I would surely fail and be even more of a laughing stock than usual. No I couldn't risk it. Even when I got praised at work and promoted I could hardly believe in it. A lot of the times I'd been bypassed for promotion because people took a look at me and made a decision based on what they saw not on how I performed. I was mistrustful. But I started to prove myself. I took charge in meetings and came up with genious strategic business ideas. I shocked them. I shocked myself! I had started to feel the fear but had done it anyway and it had paid off. It started something in me I could not stop. I packed in my 'life', my comfortable position in the life race and went back to university! I was as scared as anything! A middle aged woman (almost) going back to school?! Leaving the comfort of a monthly salary to become a poor student in the middle of a recession was the epitome of crazy! I was. Crazy with ambition. All that locked up ability needed somewhere to go. And it's going. Into my studies, my writing and everything else I didn't dare do before but which now is waiting on that list for me to get to. I still feel scared. But it's better than that other feeling. You know the one I mean, the one where you know you can but don't or won't for fear of everything big and bad and scary!
It's a more prevalent feeling of this when you're a bigger person I think. Not always, that's true. Some bigger people get it early. But sometimes you don't even need a box built for you - you build one for yourself! Today I just felt I wanted to encourage you whoever you are reading this. Plus or no. To stop listening to other people and listen to yourself. What has God placed on your heart, if you believe? Feel like you think following your dreams is foolish? Like you're too weak to do it? Well I'm here to say don't worry God will give you strength whether you believe in Him or not! Because God placed strength in us all. If you're foolish and weak then you have two of the best requirements right there already! Why? Consider this verse from the bible?
"1 Corinthians 1 verse 27
But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty!"
Amen! And Amen!!! That's me. 
And that's you too! So that thing you've been wanting to do but have been to afraid to do it? It's time. Get started. Google is a good place to start and easy to find about your thing. From there you can see where to really begin.
Come on! Feel the fear and do it anyway!
Stay beyoutiful bigYoutifuls!
RayRay xx
PS - My book will launch next week and be available on Amazon Kindle. Finally! The first of many hopefully. It is a guide to living happily as a plus size and a recount of what I have been doing to achieve this happier state. It's a very personal style of writing but I hope it will reach out and touch some people looking for some encouragement. I am writing under a nom de plume (Alexandra Grace) as I am writing other books in different genres and so don't want to confuse. I'll be sure to share that with you when the day comes. xoxo
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