Every day, the female body is exposed to more and more judgment from society. Social media feeds are full of unrealistic photos that can really make someone feel uncomfortable in their own skin. For women with postpartum bodies, this topic can be the most sensitive. To support others, this proud mother decided to stop hiding behind filters or pieces of clothing and embrace the flaws that truly make us special.
Most mothers aren’t prepared for the challenges that come after childbirth.
Danisha, a mom of 4, recently started sharing her journey about accepting her body on social media. At first, she was really ashamed and constantly tried to hide her postpartum belly, but with her last baby, she wanted a change.
“I didn’t know that I would have as much loose skin as I do now, and stretch marks. No one ever discussed it, my doctors didn’t discuss it,” the mother explained. “I didn’t know that my body just wouldn’t look the same anymore. But I want to embrace my body, and I’m happy where I’m at.”
Danisha believes a woman’s body creates miracles.
Seeing tons of celebrities and models posing with their pregnant bellies can give us the wrong image. They can make us believe that perfection can exist and that something might be wrong with our own bodies, even lowering our confidence to the point that we forget to love ourselves.
In one of her Instagram posts, she pointed out to other moms that they are loved, saying, “Don’t let society trick you into believing you need to be ’fixed.’ Your body is not wrong, society is!”
Society expects a different image of the female postpartum body.
Women are expected to quickly bounce back to their pre-pregnancy bodies. For many mothers, this can feel like they’re strangers in their own their skin. Fighting against your body means losing the battle in the end, but knowing how to accept it and start loving yourself from all angles is a different type of pure love that can only occur if the mother is 100% ready to do it.
The brutal honesty behind Danisha’s posts makes her even prouder of who she is. “Our body is meant to evolve and change, that is what happens with growth, not everyone’s body will change the same and that’s okay,” she admitted. “My wonderful body carried 4 beautiful blessings, my belly is a reminder of that and signifies growth. It has taken me a long time to accept her, love her, and appreciate her.”
Despite the negative comments that come from everywhere, knowing how to keep your positivity is one of the hardest jobs that people face when they show themselves at their most vulnerable online.
“I have a pouch, I have soft stretchy loose skin. My physical features are not what makes it beautiful, but the fact that my body was able to create life itself for a fourth time. I’m strong as a mother.”
Danisha doesn’t let the negative comments stop her. Showing the raw reality behind a mom’s body is a huge help for other mothers out there as well. “A lot of mamas are unprepared for postpartum.”
It’s a privilege to watch our bodies change as we grow older.
Sometimes, despite all our efforts and hard work to keep our bodies in shape, genetics can get involved and create a different person in the mirror. She explained, “I love it when people tell me that if I had moisturized my skin more then my belly wouldn’t have looked ’this way’ or if I wore a waist trainer I wouldn’t have a pouch and even greater if I dieted or exercised more, then my belly wouldn’t be as ’big.’”
The mother of 4 continued, “The reality is genetics play a big role. My belly is this way because of 4 reasons. I created life 4 times and no oils or creams would have miraculously prevented it. My sagging skin, stretch marks, and other love marks are reminders of bearing my children.”
Every mother is special in her own way and no one deserves to be discriminated against because of their appearance.
“To the mama looking at herself in the mirror: It’s completely normal not to fit into your pre-pregnancy clothes your body outgrew in order to make room for your beautiful blessing. Sizing up is nothing to feel ashamed of,” Danisha declared.
It wasn’t easy, but Danisha started accepting her body.
Understanding how to love stretch marks and accept body changes can be one of the hardest steps that a mom can do. They are a natural response from the body.
“Many would love to have tiger stripes. You can also have them without having children. My tummy was home to 4 of my children, and they love it,” she said.
Beauty comes from both inside and outside.
Regardless of what we look like on the outside, whether we differ in skin color or weight, all people are special in their own way, and our bodies do an amazing job at keeping us alive. In an effort to encourage others around her, this mother points out, “Whether you choose to cover your belly or not, you’re still worthy, still beautiful.”
Here are some similar stories that show us the beauty in every woman’s body.
A Mom of 4 Proudly Documents Her Postpartum Body and Becomes the Dose of Body Positivity We All Need
A Mother Was Told Her Stomach Was “Nasty,” but She Proves How Beautiful Women’s Bodies Really Are
9 Times Ashley Graham Embraced Her Motherhood Journey, From a Postpartum Body to Breastfeeding
8 Celebrity Moms Who Got Honest and Showed Us the Raw Reality of Motherhood
Preview photo credit mama3x__ / Instagram, mama3x__ / Instagram
12 People Who Were Right to Trust Their Gut Feeling
Listening to what your intuition is telling you might just keep you safe from harm or sorrow. That’s what people online found out the hard way, when trusting their gut feeling meant a completely different outcome in a serious situation. Their stories are an important reminder for us to believe in our own inner voice.
- I would always walk down the hallway in the night without turning the lights on. One night I get to the end of the hallway and have a sudden urgent feeling that I need to turn the lights on.
I go all the way back to my room and turn the hallway light on and go back.
Just in front of where I had decided to turn around was a huge and deadly Taipan snake making its way from one room to another across the hallway. If it had bitten me in the dark they wouldn’t have been able to get me the correct antivenom. © risska / Reddit
- I was mowing my backyard with a ride-on mower, and I began to get an overwhelming feeling of being watched. I started looking around and thought I saw a figure in the upstairs window. I tried ignoring this as no one was home and continued with mowing when I started to feel an unbearable sense of dread.
This made me immediately stop. As I did so, the ground in front of me gave way forming a 15-foot wide 12 foot deep sinkhole. If I hadn’t stopped immediately I likely would have been crushed by the tractor. © MujimIsYou / Reddit
- My wife and I rented a really nice cabin in Big Sur, California, for a few nights. She woke up panicky and crying (which she never does) over a bad dream. I had an awful feeling after waking up and told her we could go for a drive.
The further we went, the better we felt. We ended up staying in Monterey for the night. The cabin we were at burnt down. I still get chills writing this years later. © Unknown user / Reddit
- I asked my mother to take me home early from boy scout camp because I was afraid of bears. A bear ravaged the camp the night I left. Luckily, it didn’t hurt anyone. It just tore everything up from what I was told. © SenatusRomanus / Reddit
- I’m a firefighter. We got called out to a tree fire started by fallen power lines. We pull up in the truck, and I’m trusting that my driver and crew leader are doing their job and have good situational awareness. We get out of the truck, and we’ve parked next to a set of power lines (not fallen). It’s a very windy night and I can see the lines swinging, so I voice my concerns to my crew leader who says it’ll be fine.
We get our hose out (risk of the tree fire catching onto a house outweighing potential risk of arcing plus the line disconnected when it fell) and I’m on the branch ready to start putting it out with two others near me when I get a chill. I look up to see the lines swinging violently and yell, “everyone move”. As the three of us sprint and dive out of the way we hear a thwip and crack and sure enough the line we were under came loose and stayed connected to the power pole. If I hadn’t got that chill chances are we would all have died. © DYESMOD / Reddit
- My daughter was a year and a half at the time. She had a cold, but bedtime went off without a hitch. I woke up in the middle of the night that night, really uncomfortable and anxious. Something was off, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. I got up, had a midnight snack, tried to calm my nerves. I decided to check on my kids, who shared a room, before trying to go back to sleep.
I get in there, and immediately I hear a light sound coming from her crib—wheezing. It was so quiet, there was no way to hear it outside of the room. I got her up and saw that her breathing was fast and labored. I took her to the hospital, where she ended up with an overnight stay, oxygen, and nebulizer treatments because her oxygen had dipped. She was diagnosed with Reactive Airway Disease due to the cold (which triggered an asthma attack). © Thr33wolfmoon / Reddit
I was riding my motorcycle with a friend on the back. We were going down a country road behind a truck hauling a bunch of old car tires when all of a sudden I decided we shouldn’t be there, so I slowed way down to let the truck go ahead of us. Just as I did, one of the tires fell off the truck and landed right where we would have been. © d***eyeAZ / Reddit
- When I was two or three, I had nightmares. One night I woke up, went to my foster parents’ room, and informed them that there was a bee under my pillow. “No, there’s not, Arwen. Go back to sleep,” they said. Cue the rivers of tears. Finally, my foster mom goes into my room, switches my light on, says, “There aren’t any bees in here. Look!”
As she picks up my pillow lo and behold, a bee flew out. My mom shooed the bee out the window as I was sobbing hysterically. She gave me the strangest look and asked how I knew the bee was there. I had no idea. My nightmare was completely unrelated. © Unkown user / Reddit
- I was like 5 or 6 when my mom and sisters wanted to go for a drive out of town. I cried and cried because I just didn’t want to go with them for some reason, and decided to go with my other sister in her car. Turns out, my mom and other sisters ended up crashing, and they said, “If you were in the car, you would’ve had to sit in the middle, and you would’ve died.” Luckily my family was okay though. But I sure did feel really cool after that. © SnowLeopard000 / Reddit
- I was driving on the road one night and I saw a car in the middle of the road with two people lying on the ground. My gut feeling was that something is suspicious here, and I decided to act on it by driving past the car and the two people.
I stop to take my phone out and call the police and I look at my rearview mirror to see the two people lying on the road stand up with five other people coming out of the bushes. © Naweezy / Reddit
- I met this cute girl on Halloween night, so I invited her to a party I was going to later. She drove with me to the party and I took her two friends too. We talk a little, but we ended up working the room and got split up. I had this sudden overwhelming urge to find her and I ended up getting a little worried.
Some guy had moved in and had brought her outside and taken her to a semi private area underneath a patio balcony. I didn’t really care what he thought, grabbed her by the hand, acted like it was important and led her out of the party and in to the front yard. We both heard a massive crash as the very large patio collapsed above where she was standing three minutes before.
I know most certainly that if I hadn’t grabbed her, she wouldn’t exist today. I ended up marrying her, and imagining how it almost never happened in such a dreadful way terrifies me. © Unknown user / Reddit
- My mom tells this story a lot. She was working in an office, and she suddenly had a powerful urge to leave her cube, just to leave and be somewhere else for no reason. Not a minute later, a fifteen-foot-wide section of the ceiling collapsed, burying the floor in metal and plaster. © Kaleon
/ Reddit
We all have personal stories we’re afraid to share because they sound unbelievable. But some people feel better sharing them anonymously online. We gathered a few of those eerie stories in this article, and they prove that anyone can be deeply affected by spooky situations.
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