Becoming Unfiltered

The word unfiltered has a bit of a reputation.

People hear it and think rude.

Blunt.

Unaware.

Someone who says whatever comes to mind without caring how it lands.

So when the word came to me, I hesitated.

I looked for other options. Softer ones. Words people might receive more easily.

Authentic.

Genuine.

Aligned.

They’re all beautiful words.

But the longer I searched for something more palatable, the more I realized I was doing the exact thing I was trying to write about.

Filtering.

Softening the message.

Editing the edges.

Trying to make it easier for others to accept.

And I caught myself.

If I’m writing about becoming unfiltered… why am I trying to filter the word?

So I stopped.

Unfiltered it is.

But when I say unfiltered, I don’t mean careless or cruel. I don’t mean speaking without awareness or kindness.

What I mean is honest.

Genuine.

Not being the version of ourselves the world has shaped us into.

But the version that is truly ours.

Leaning into our voices, our bodies, our thoughts, our purpose.

Not trying to fit in.

Not constantly editing ourselves for the comfort of others.

Just being… us.

And for me, that realization showed up somewhere unexpected.

A photoshoot.

For my website, I decided to include photos of myself wearing only my underwear. Not a boudoir shoot, photos expressing the journey to me.

Even writing that makes me smile a little, because if you had told me a few years ago I would willingly do that, I would have laughed and said absolutely not.

Like so many women, I have spent most of my life struggling with my body.

I hated it.

I blamed it.

I avoided it.

I punished it for not being what the world expected.

But this body… she has carried me through a lot.

She held the little girl who was told not to look in the mirror and smile because that was vain.

The child who was told she was too fat to be loved.

The teenager who lost weight and then experienced sexual assault and rape.

The teenager who fed herself to stop hurting.

Who padded her body to hide.

Who tried to make herself invisible so she wouldn’t be hurt again.

The girl who made jokes about herself before anyone else could.

The woman who spent more than forty years in a battle with food and with her own body.

And yet through all of that, this body kept showing up.

She kept rising.

Again and again.

There was also a man who saw something in me that I struggled to see myself.

My husband loved me in a way that had nothing to do with how I looked.

He loved me.

He saw the real version of me, the curious, honest, messy, unfiltered one and he loved her fully.

He never asked me to become something different.

He simply encouraged me to keep discovering what it meant to be myself.

Recently, one morning, I stood in front of the mirror and something shifted.

For the first time in my life, I looked at my aging body and smiled.

Not because it was perfect.

Not because it looked the way the world tells us it should.

But because for the first time, I saw her.

My body.

This vessel that has carried me through everything.

Love.

Loss.

Pain.

Grief.

Joy.

Life.

And during that photoshoot, I felt something unexpected rise in me.

A love poem.

A love poem to her.

⸻

A Love Poem to My Body

You have carried me

through every chapter of this life.

Through love.

Through loss.

Through the breaking open of grief.

You have held the little girl

who learned early

that mirrors were dangerous places.

You held the teenager

who tried to disappear

inside layers of protection.

You held the woman

who fought you

for far too many years.

And still,

you kept showing up.

You kept breathing.

Walking.

Holding me upright

when life knocked me down.

You have known tenderness.

You have known violence.

You have known the deep ache of loss.

And yet you are still here.

Strong.

Aging.

Evolving.

Still carrying me forward.

I used to look at you with criticism.

Now I look at you with respect.

Some days I still cringe.

Most days

I smile.

I finally understand something.

You were never the problem.

You were the survivor.

And today,

standing here in my skin,

I can finally say the words

you have deserved all along.

I love you.

⸻

Becoming unfiltered isn’t about arriving at some perfect version of yourself.

It’s about unpacking the layers you picked up along the way.

Looking honestly at what’s there.

Keeping what’s truly yours.

Letting go of what never was.

It means leaning into your voice.

Trusting your body.

Honouring your thoughts.

Allowing yourself to exist without constantly shaping yourself into what you think others need you to be.

The truth is, that process is messy.

But it is also deeply freeing.

Because the more we let go of the filters, the closer we get to the person who has been there all along.

Waiting to be seen.

Lately I’ve been dreaming about what it would look like if women gathered together in that place.

Not filtered.

Not performing.

Not trying to be what the world expects.

Just real.

Women showing up as they are messy, evolving, healing looking to finally discover themselves.

I keep imagining that space.

And I keep coming back to the same thought.

The Unfiltered Woman.

Not perfect.

Not polished.

Just honest.

And I believe that’s the most beautiful version of ourselves we’ll ever become because it's unfiltered.