Holly used to hate her tummy. She called it her “saggy mum tum,” and there were days she wanted to take a pair of scissors to it. She would pull it away from herself in disgust, reject it, despair at it like it had betrayed her.
One day, in a Liberty body-positivity workshop, I asked everyone to go around the table and share what part of their body they struggled with — and, more importantly, the story they were telling themselves about it. When it came to Holly’s turn, she said her tummy looked sad. To her, it was like a droopy mouth.
I looked at her and said, “No, Holly. You’re looking at it the wrong way. It isn’t frowning at you. It’s smiling up at you.”
Something shifted in her that very moment.
Holly went home, and instead of hiding her stomach, she began to share photos of it — boldly, unapologetically. She stopped calling it saggy. She started calling it hers. And then the magic happened. Her audience grew, then grew some more. Today, Holly is known online as The Body Positive Mum. She has over 250k Instagram followers, brand deals rolling in, and the photos that consistently perform the best? The ones where her tummy is on full display.
That belly she once wanted to cut off has made her more money, more opportunity, and more impact than she could have ever imagined.
Here’s the truth: the thing you’re most ashamed of, the thing you’re convinced disqualifies you, is often the very thing that makes you magnetic. The body part you’ve spent years hiding? It might just be your superpower.
Holly and I go way back — I was 21, she was 19 — and for over a decade we ran Liberty and Dimples & Daisies side by side. We built something beautiful together: a space where women came to remember themselves, and where we learned how powerful it is to see someone through a new lens.
Even now, when Holly can step away from her whirlwind of projects, she still dips her toes into Liberty. Watching her confidence, creativity, and style evolve has been one of my proudest joys. Her success didn’t happen in isolation — it was built on years of us reflecting each other’s light, pushing one another to go bigger, and never letting the other forget her magic.
That’s what Liberty still is today.
A place where you’ll be seen by people who believe in your brilliance and for Holly-it was her genius I saw, even when you can’t see it yourself.
If reading this made something stir in you — that whisper of maybe it’s time to see myself again — this is your invitation.
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You never know where one brave moment in front of the camera might take you.
