being comfortable with your body

Are you all comfortable with your bodies? I know its been a long road for me and im still not all the way there yet. Likw, tonight i went to a friends birthday party and everyone but me was drinking and we played the drinking game kings, and all of us ended up getting naked and it took everything to not be like uh no way.

If you aren't comfortable in your skin, whats holding you back? And if you are, any tips or stories?

Thanks to body positivity blogs and forums such as these, I've come a loooong way and have actually began to accept and like my body for what it is. But no way in hell does that mean that I'm ready to jump out at the beach in a string bikini. It took twenty years for me to finally get tired of people telling me I should hate my body. When you're an impressionable little girl out shopping with your own mother and she tells you that you should buy things that cover your arms or maybe try a bigger size, that shit sticks with you. I used to get SO upset at the comments people would make about my body, and it caused me massive anxiety. So all that isn't going to go away just overnight.

However, I've gotten to the point where I can stand in front of the mirror naked and feel almost the exact opposite of what I used to when I looked at my body. Which I think is pretty incredible. I believe it's very much an internal process.

Edit: And by the way, you are a VERY brave soul, sunshine!! There's no way in hell I would have done that, especially if I was the only sober one!

I'm pretty comfortable these days. I have my days of anxiousness about certain situations or whatnot in relation to my size, but in general I have a pretty happy "this is me and I'm cool with that" attitude. It's taken me 34 years. It wasn't easy, though I've always had pretty supportive "we don't give a shit about your weight or what colour you choose to dye your hair or if you have eight million metal things in your face" kind of people around me (just lucky I guess) and always had partners that have always been accepting and such... but just being a bigger person living in the world is enough to put those blah doubts and crap in your head. All the media is geared towards making us feel inadequate. Everyone, not just bigger people. Everything is sold based on fear and "you'll be better off/more loved/more accepted/more popular/etc" and it seeps in to your brain whether you want it too or not. It kind of sucks... and it's hard to keep it out sometimes. A good sense of humour helps lol. Being able to walk away from assholes who think they have the right to comment, the right to judge and make other people feel bad because they feel bad or have been so indoctrinated with this idea that people are only worth something if they look a certain way.. that whole long road too "you know what? i'm not perfect, i never will be.. but neither is anyone else and i'm kind of fucking awesome anyway" is ongoing forever and ever.

I like my body. There are things I'd change, all stuff I could change if I decided to put my heart in to it and use a bit of will power, so I have no big issue with it. It does what I tell it too, absorbs alcohol at a good rate and preeeeetty much looks ok, I think. To me anyways.