“Their limitations do not have to become yours. Your virtue does not lie in your ability to abide by the rigid confines of a system that was built to dehumanise you.” Speaking these truth bombs in a recent Instagram post, is none other than The Slumflower – Chimera Eggurue, creator of the #SaggyBoobsMatter movement, body positive activist and Social Media Influencer. Adding another string to her bow as an author, you can find more of her articulate and uncompromising perspective in her bestselling book, What A Time To Be Alone: The Slumflower’s Guide To Why You Are Already Enough.
The Slumflower is no wallflower. Never one to shy away from tackling negative thoughts and societal constructs that often puts women at the bottom of the pile, she has gone one step further and written her guide, with her original artwork, as to why we are already enough.
During an interview on ITV’s Lorraine, she talked about the circumstances a few years ago that helped to shape how she feels about herself today.
“When I was 18, I thought I really wanted a boob job; I can’t be saggy like this. But then I realized at 18 ‘how am I going to afford a job that can pay for a really expensive procedure’. I realized, maybe it’s a little easier for me to just love myself.”
The Slumflower continued to say how “from the moment that we are born we feel that we’ve got to fix ourselves and everything is wrong, and we’ve got to seek the approvable of everyone around us. So, the first thing that comes to mind is change it. Be desirable, because desirable means that there is a higher chance of you being loved. And it’s a shame that’s what 18-year-old me thought. That it’s easier to quickly do a procedure rather than investigate my thought processes and ask why? Who has taught me that I am not good enough and why do I believe them?”
It’s OK to sometimes be critical of yourself, but what’s most important is how you handle that.
This is what the inspiring What A Time To Be Alone let’s readers know – you’re not alone in these thoughts and struggles. It’s “for each person who thinks they are too sensitive for the world but in general for each person who knows they want to try and do better but doesn’t know where to start. It’s aimed at encouraging you to find value in your own solitude.”
Building a healthy relationship with oneself is key, she is an advocate of finding value in your own aloneness.
Falling in love with yourself first will mean that if and when you do invest in other relationships, they will be more safe and secure because you will know yourself better.
The Slumflower refers to herself as a “recovering overthinker” and dedicated her bestseller to everyone like her. Overthinking is something that leaves many women lacking confidence, as all attention is focused on the negatives rather than the positives. But she urges you to listen. You are YOU! And there is no other in the world, and through the power of perspective change, you can even transform those pesky pessimistic thoughts into long lists of why you’re worthy of self-love.
What A Time To Be Alone will force you to think about what we think about ourselves and the people that we allow into our lives and the power we give them.
“How someone chooses to respond to you is a choice that they have made which has been influenced by how they have dealt with their own past. And so, it’s easy to see that if someone is kind to you it’s not directly because of you, it’s because they have a lot of joy in them and they are able to share that. But if someone is horrible to you then that’s coming from a place of darkness in themselves but it’s important for you to, of course, hold yourself accountable in a situation, but also remember that you ultimately can’t decide how people see you, but you can control how you respond to other people.”
The body confidence blogger is hoping to inspire women to love themselves through her book, which is dedicated to her mum and even includes some of her words of wisdom inside the pages. What A Time To Be Alone is a remedy for cyclic thought patterns many have found themselves stuck in and acts as a handy guide to defeat the lies of the world’s view on ‘perfection’.
It’s true that loving who you are sounds so simple and cliched, something we should all innately be able to do. But rather, it’s a state that many of us are not able to reach, and those who do are seen as shocking or even heroic. As The Slumflower says, “It shouldn’t be that way because being yourself should be the easiest thing to be. All you have to do is show up and exist.”
So, for those at the back, who didn’t get the memo, The Slumflower says: “I want to encourage people and equip them with the tools required to take control of their own lives. In their own time, baby steps. No matter what you look like.”
2 comments
Great Article. Loved reading this and can so relate to the idea of being a recovering overthinker. Anything for learning to love thyself is key especially in a climate where social media is affecting so many people with forced images of perfection as a reality.. I also feel like people need to learn how to forgive them selves in order to love them selves aswell.
So glad you enjoyed reading it Temi. You’re comments are so true. Many of us spend so much time trying to be perfect when we need to hold up a mirror and see how beautiful we really are.