Happily Imperfect. Stacey Solomon

took it too far, but underneath it lay the strong belief, passed on to me by my amazing parents, that personality outweighs physical appearance. The thing I care most about, regardless of how I look, is who I am as a friend and a mummy, and I try to be as decent a person as I can possibly be.

      The seed of self-esteem must have been planted in me by my parents because as I got older, and grew into my body, I grasped that my worth was as a complete human being, and didn’t rely on looks or achievements. I became more confident as people liked me for who I was, and the more sure of myself I became, the more boys started fancying me. I realized there was so much more to me than looks. I was growing up.

      My parents had always told me that beauty is subjective, that everyone found different things attractive: there was no fixed idea of beauty. They instilled in me a belief that beauty is a state of mind: if I felt attractive, I would be attractive. In a weird way, this started coming true. The more at ease I was with how I looked, the more people were attracted to me. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

      It took me a long time to ‘find’ myself, and by that I mean accept and love myself. It didn’t happen overnight. School was a bad time for me, and probably for most people. You don’t know who you are. Your looks and your body are changing. There’s a lot to go through when you’re young and vulnerable. When I accepted those changes, I started letting go of any anxieties I had about who I was and what I looked like.

      Zachary’s arrival had a massive impact on me. Everything I’d ever worried about suddenly seemed superficial because I had brought life into the world and I was entirely responsible for him. Even though the birth was difficult, I entered into a Shallow Hal period of happiness with my body – I was totally oblivious to the shape, weight and look of it. Instead, I marvelled at how my boobs could feed a tiny human, how I’d created little fingers and toes, and a beating heart, a person in his own right. My body was brave and amazing. Look what I can do! I felt like saying to anyone who’d listen. Look! I can make fingernails and kidneys and hair!

      I was convinced I’d snapped back into shape after his birth and carried on regardless, wearing tiny bikinis on holiday and squeezing into skinny jeans. Looking at photographs of myself in those days makes me laugh. I clearly hadn’t snapped back at all. I carried extra baby weight for quite a while but I really didn’t know, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have cared a jot. I’d made a little boy. I was utterly impressed by myself.

      After that, I refused to see my ‘flaws’ – the things I’m told by the media and advertisers that I should hate about my body. I realized I had to let go of what society was telling me. I was a perfect version of myself, and I felt beautiful. At last, I accepted that I could choose to feel those things, and that there was no perfect formula for attractiveness. We’re all beautiful, regardless of what we’re told we should look like. We can determine how attractive we feel. I get to decide whether I’m pretty or not and I refuse to give that power to anyone else.

      I feel just as beautiful without my hair extensions, false eyelashes or fake tan. I feel amazing when I’ve got no make-up on and my hair is pulled back into a messy bun. Who is going to tell me otherwise?

      I do all the make-up stuff, the glossy hair and fake lashes because it’s fun. I love dressing up. I love being able to change my appearance according to my mood, and I have a laugh with it. I never feel I need to do all that just to be acceptable. Anyone following me on Instagram or Twitter knows I’m just as happy to post pictures of myself without make-up as I am when I’m glammed up.

      Being with Joe has also made a huge difference. He thinks I’m stunning, full stop. He loves me and thinks I’m the prettiest girl in the world, and that helps me feel I am because it’s how he sees me. There are many mornings when he wakes up and he has my false eyelashes stuck to his neck or back, and sees me with mascara streaked down my face and greasy hair. He doesn’t care. He loves me just as I am.

      I’m not saying we need to have a partner to validate our sense of being beautiful, but it elevates my confidence for sure. I have had times in relationships where I’ve felt insecure, and others have projected their insecurities onto me. I freed myself from those situations and soon understood that someone else’s view of me didn’t have to be mine. Joe is amazing at being the total opposite of that. I used to hide my insecurities by being loud and funny. I’m still pretty loud, and I love having a laugh, and making people smile, but I do it because that’s me. I have nothing to hide any more – and that feels amazing.

      I’m in control of how important, beautiful and intelligent I feel, and I stay vigilant: I notice when negative thoughts come into my mind, and talk positively to myself in response. We all have them, those creeping, gloomy ‘I’m not good enough’ thoughts. When they come in I bat them away. They still turn up every day, though far less than when I was younger.

      If you’ve ever felt like an ugly duckling, like I did, then I’d advise you to take your head out of your phone for a second and look around you. I’m always surprised by the difference between real and online life. It’s comforting to lift my head and see that everybody else out there is like me. Nobody has yet invented a real-life skin smoother or airbrushing tool, so outside our laptops and mobiles, there are no perfect-looking humans, or CGI characters. What a relief! Everybody is beautifully different, and it’s those differences that make us people, rather than characters in a fantasy version of life. It makes them real.

      The reality is that we don’t notice people unless they’re directly connected to our lives. We feel that everybody is looking at us all the time, but are we being looked at? Probably not. The narcissist in me, says, ‘Oh, maybe I can’t go out in my unicorn slippers with half my eyelashes hanging off’, but why am I worrying what the world thinks I look like? Why do I genuinely believe that the world is so interested in what I look like when I’m doing the supermarket run? It’s not! Take great comfort in the fact that nobody cares and that’s a really good thing.

      It is never good to judge ourselves on looks alone. Why would we do that to ourselves? I look at my body and think, I can make stuff with my hands, or My legs can run, walk or do silly dancing – and that’s incredible!

      I’m no ugly duckling – neither inside nor out.

      STAY POSITIVE

      When we’re feeling less than radiantly beautiful, which, let’s face it, can be a lot of the time, there’s a little trick that helps. Look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that you love yourself, and that you’re an awesomely amazing human being. It works. Try it for a week. Stand in front of a mirror every morning just before you leave home, and tell yourself you look amazing. It only takes a minute, and it feels super-weird at first, but the benefits are surprising. That minute of appreciation and self-love can help you face the world outside the front door. That confidence-inducing self-talk, celebrating your awesomely imperfect reflection, can be really powerful in helping you live your best day possible, while imparting a little Ready Brek glow of courage and inner beauty to help you on your way.

      CHAPTER 4

       My Tribe (My Big Jewish Family)

      Three words sum up my childhood: Friday. Night. Dinner.

      It was always held at Nana’s tiny two-bed Jewish flat in north London. It really was a Jewish flat because the block had been built after the war to help refugees settle in London. It was next to Manor House tube station, and every Friday after school we’d all pile into those small rooms. By ‘all’, I mean my mum and dad and us three siblings, then later my step-mum Karen and her children, my aunties Marilyn and Alison, their children, plus my dad’s brother Sonny and his family. Ten kids at least, assorted adults and the biggest vat of homemade chicken soup you’ve ever seen.

      Playing with my cousins was the highlight