The Soul of a Black Woman

Today I decided to get up early and go for a run. Now usually when I go for a run I make it to the end of my street before I’m turning around and coming back home. It’s not that I’m tired, I just developed a condition called Compartment Syndrome which came from years of running track. But today I made it a lot further! I made it all the way to the park near my house which would be considered half a mile. It might not seem like much but it was definitely an accomplishment for me. I’m learning to work with my injury instead of just not doing anything about it period. I know that I have to stay healthy and active. So today I ran half a mile and then I did an extreme core workout which I know I will feel tomorrow morning. Lol. But I feel great though. Just wanted to share that.

Avoiding a mosquito bite is like trying to stay dry during a storm….not gonna happen. I went to a total of 2 cookouts this Memorial Day weekend and ended up with about 20 mosquito bites that itch like crazy! I have no anti-itch creams are anything, so I found a few remedies using ingredients that’s very common in the household.

1. Baking Soda & Warm Water (creates a paste) apply to the insect bite and let sit until hardens…wash with warm water.

2. Witch Hazel apply to the insect bite.

3. Baking Soda and Ammonia (creates paste) apply to the insect bite and let sit until hardens and wash off with warm water.

4. Toothpaste. Apply to the insect bite let sit until harden and either peel off or rinse off with warm water.

5. Apple Cider Vinegar rub on the insect bite.

6. Ammonia rub on the insect bite and rinse off.

HOPE THESE HELP YOU FIGHT THOSE ANNOYING INSECT BITES!!!!!

Oh and remember…..bug spray does absolutely nothing.

I can remember being younger and wishing I looked like all the models I saw in the magazines and on tv. I remember having subscriptions to Glamour, Vogue, and InStyle Magazines at a very young age. I was an aspiring model, and writer. As I got older I started to have a better understanding of the way the modeling industry worked and I knew I wasn’t small enough and I didn’t have the right figure to do it, so I would stare at those magazine pages and compare the models I saw to myself. I wanted a skinnier face, higher cheekbones, clearer skin, I wanted my shoulders to be smaller and my hips smaller and my stomach flatter. No matter how skinny I was, it wasn’t enough.

What prompted me to write this post?

I was browsing the Internet and I came across an article on the E! website accompanied with a video clip from The Anderson Cooper Show about this lady who called herself the Human Barbie. She has 2 daughters: a teenager, and a child under 10. Her teenage daughter is a dancer and is very self-conscious about sweating while performing, so instead of explaining to her daughter how the body works in terms of sweating she began taking her daughter to a dermatologist to get injected with Botox. Then she gave her youngest daughter (I think 6), a voucher for breast implants that she can redeem once she turns 18. The crowd and Anderson were both disgusted with her and he asked her to leave his show.

Girls tend to be the most vulnerable throughout our lifetime because we go through the most changes physically which in turn effect us emotionally and mentally. We are very impressionable when it comes to how we should view ourselves. We grow up with the ideas that skinny is good, we subscribe to magazines and fantasize about having the same shape and figure as the models gracing the pages, but in the back of our minds we look for reassurance that the way we look is perfectly fine and normal. If there’s no one there to assure us then we continue to reform and shape ourselves into what we think is perfect through eating disorders, psychological disorders, etc.

The pain of beauty is real and I don’t mean physically, but the mental pain and the emotional suffering not to mention the hurting we put on our finances by investing in all the latest products that claim to make us look younger, or slimmer, or more radiant.

There is no set definition for what beauty is. There is no guideline you have to follow to be considered beautiful, you just have to love yourself and appreciate the people who love you too.

Stay beautiful people.

XOXO Soulofablackwoman 💋