Having moved to a new city for university recently, identity and where I’m from is a subject I find myself talking about quite a lot. Meeting new people inherently involves presenting yourself and your identity (or parts of your identity). This has made it more obvious to me how identity is not something simple and there are many dimensions to it, which can sometimes be difficult to convey to people (especially someone you have just met or when you have a short period of time). This can sometimes leave you feeling a little lost or like you are not being true to yourself. 

I always find these posts really interesting to read and it is a nice opportunity to reflect on what I have learnt and the different ways I've grown. So here is what I would tell my younger self.

It is well-known that there are unrealistic beauty standards set in the media, especially for women. This is particularly shown on social media - from photoshopped models to a lack in variety of body shapes and sizes and representation in terms of skin colour. These beauty standards also exist for men, though less so than for women. In this blog post, I will be focussing on women, as that is my lived experience, but I acknowledge that there is a problem across both genders.

After taking the Harry Potter sorting quiz various times after not expecting to be sorted into Gryffindor (yes I guess I betrayed the sorting hat as you aren't meant to do that oops) and the Buzzfeed quiz with all the official Pottermore questions, it struck me how I was put in all the houses but Slytherin.  On the official website, I somehow seemed to end up with Gryffindor the most. Buzzfeed, in contrast, seemed certain that I was a Ravenclaw.

In so many places, I have come across the importance of 'balance' - having a 'balanced' diet, a 'balance' between social life and work life and more generally the balance of sleep, social life and work. Whilst of course it is important that we are being careful not to overdo one and therefore burn out, I have come to realise that using this word can be a little misleading. When you think of balance, you think of equal. Yet when it comes to life, it's very difficult that you are going to get everything exactly equal.

Be you - such an overused phrase which can often sometimes lead us to think but how?  I've heard this phrase more times than I can count and I get why people use it. Being authentic is something so important not only for your own happiness, but to ensure you are making the right choices for you. However, I've personally found that people just telling you to be yourself doesn't always help or give you any indication as to how you are supposed to do that or even what it means.

Something that came to mind recently one night was how there are certain areas about myself that nobody really knows which led me to think about whether we even know everything about ourselves. Though I feel like yes we are the ones that know ourselves best for the most part- there are certain things that only you can know about yourself and no one else can. Do any of us really know absolutely everything about ourselves?

There are different sides to us all - but does anyone see all of them? 

Wearing or not wearing makeup is too often constrained to one or two reasons either being with media pressure and self doubt or being overly confident.