Your Muscles are Gross.

Social media is a vulnerable space for individuals posting to it...Think about it, we post moments in our life that may or may not be appealing to others in order to show others a little glimpse into our daily lives. As a person who enjoys motivating and inspiring others, I pride myself in being able to share my bodybuilding journey with my followers. It helps connect myself with the audience and also allows the audience to realize that I'm just a normal, struggling human being trying to find my place in this world.

Being an extremely muscular female makes me stand out a bit in public and on social media. It also unfortunately makes me a much larger target for social media trolls. Since I stepped into the competition circuit I have received emails, messages and comments weekly telling me how disgusting I look, how I'll never have a man to love me , how I destroyed my femininity, etc.  As much as I say it doesn't bother me. It does. Everytime it hurts. It makes me look at myself differently and I begin to doubt my successes and focus on my faults and flaws.  After getting so many, I decided to screenshot some of them so people who unaware of what us females go through, understand it is common for many of us. 

How do I get through it? Kyle [fiance] plays a large part in keeping me successful and motivated. He constantly reminds me of how far I have come and how far I still have to go. Sometimes he has to force me to take a step back to look at where I started from and I am so very blessed to have someone who is so supportive of me.  I think the hardest part for him, being my significant other, is to not say anything to ignite the trollers and agitate them more.  I do not give in or comment back to people who make negative comments, mostly I leave them up and just let others read what people have written.  I dont want to hide different aspects of my life to glamorize it, I keep everything open and public because I believe that you all deserve to know what I deal with.

What I have found it as I deal with social media more and more is to become neutral to everything that is said to me and about me.  Everything that is said should be taken as a plain set of words, take it in as a neutral comment.  Not taken as a negative or a positive.  From there, I am able to determine if I will let the words/comments affect me.  I have a choice a to let it negatively or positively affect me.  Letting people have power over my thoughts and actions will not allow me to move ahead and be successful in my life.  In order to move ahead I need to directionalize everything said to me or about me in a way that will allow me to only move forward and grow as a person.

I know damn well that I am not the only female who deals with this.  All I can tell you is DO NOT LET IT BRING YOU DOWN.  Don't let it ruin you or destroy your passion because as much as their are useless turds around making people feel like shit about themselves.  There are ten times more people cheering you on.

Good Vibes and Love.

Shan