y name is Romy Dya,
I’m from the Netherlands, 33 years old, I’m a mom of two boys of 11 and 13, I’m an artist, songwriter, producer and entrepreneur. This is my story about my self love journey and my experience and thoughts about plastic surgery.
I’ve always struggled with loving myself. People around me always told me I was fat and I used to be so ashamed of myself. I was never the skinniest girl and I always had wide hips and big thighs. Which is now being seen as ‘thick’ or ‘curvy’. After my two pregnancies I got stretch marks, more cellulite and loose skin around my stomach. I couldn’t even look in the mirror because I really ‘hated’ the way my body looked, especially my stomach. I always thought people would look at me and would say hurtful things about me because I thought I was ugly and fat. I cared so much about other people’s opinions. Especially in the music scene. In the music scene you constantly have to prove yourself. They’re constantly judging the way you look, what you sound like and test you if you’re strong enough.
A couple of years ago I lost a lot of weight and I was at my most skinniest self. I thought losing all that weight would make me feel so happy, because I could finally wear a lot of things that I was never able to wear. I had a lot of attention and people said I looked so good since I lost weight. But I still wasn’t happy. In fact, I felt even more empty. So I began to do some soul searching and realized that happiness starts from within. I had to face traumatic experiences from the past and had to process everything and forgive myself. I learned to listen more to my intuition and learned to follow my heart. Step by step though.
In 2018 I broke up with my ex after 12 years. After all those years I realized that we were never going to make eachother happy. The main reason was that I never loved myself enough. I loved him more than I ever loved myself. Although deep inside I actually knew that we didn’t belong together, but we had two kids so I did everything I could to make it work.
From the moment we broke up I chose me and booked a ticket to LA in the middle of the night without any luggage to follow my heart and pursue my music career. I hoped that there still was a chance to let our relationship work but the love was gone. He saw it as the most selfish act ever, because I left him alone with the kids for 3 weeks. But I wanted to show him that I could turn my dream into reality and we would all benefit from it.
Going to LA was the best choice I’ve ever made in my life, because that’s when I finally started to love myself cause I chose me. I hit rockbottom a couple of times after I came back from LA and the last two years were my toughest years ever. But I could finally make a living out of music and I practiced self love. I started to meditate and be conscious of my mindset and my surroundings. I’ve learned to trust myself, to follow my intuition and to be kind to myself. As cheesy as it sounds, because I’ve heard therapists saying this all the time, but since I looked in front of the mirror and started telling myself: ‘you’re strong, you’re beautiful and you got this’ my life started to change in a good way and more blessings came my way. And don’t get me wrong and I’m not saying that my life became easier but I felt so much more grounded. I started to glow from the inside out.
In January this year I’ve made the choice to do a mommy makeover. My breasts looked like two empty teabags and my stomach looked like a kangaroo’s pouch. Yup, I’m just being brutally honest but that doesn’t mean I didn’t love them. Because before I did this whole mommy makeover I wanted to love and accept my flaws. Cause I knew that if I would change my body for the wrong reasons I would still be unhappy. So I really had to ask myself why do I want to do this? Well, I wanted this because I wanted the best for me and feel more confident. YES, I DID IT FOR ME AND NOBODY ELSE. I also wanted it to look as natural as possible. So I told the surgeon to follow my natural curves. Funny thing is that even before the surgery people thought that my body was fake. Especially because of the wide hips. And no, I don’t need no validation anymore. I already was confident before the surgery but now I feel more confident to wear a bikini or to wear that skintight dress that was hanging in my closet for such a long time. I feel more confident to jump on stage whenever it will be allowed again to perform.
And yes, with a surgery like that you also have people that will say that I’m fake. But to be honest I don’t care about people’s opinions. It doesn’t hurt me anymore. When people are saying something hurtful to me to bring down my self esteem I tell them to love themselves a little more and that I still got love for them. Because most of the time when people are saying stuff like that, they are just projecting their insecurities on you. I used to be like that too and I always wanted to look like somebody else.
I still have my stretch marks and my cellulite that I used to hate but now I see it as art. And NO, I don’t want to promote plastic surgery at all. Especially if you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. If you do it, do it for yourself and nobody else.
I think this whole self love journey is so important to share because my world has changed in a positive way. Not because of the surgery. No, I don’t love myself more because of the surgery. I started loving myself before the surgery and really wanted to create the best inner version of myself. Don’t get me wrong, I still have my ups and downs. But one thing I keep telling myself when I’m doubting myself (and yup here comes the cheesy but really effective part) is: ‘you’re strong, you’re beautiful and you got this’. It really works. I became my own best friend. So please, if you’re still struggling with loving yourself please start to look in the mirror and tell yourself the above mentioned.
Here is a beautiful song Romy wrote for SMV, hope you enjoy it as much as we love it!! Keep a look out for it in her newest album coming out soon!
If you want to follow me or you want to more about my music, go and follow:
Instagram: @romydya
Twitter: @romydya
Facebook: @romydyamusic
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5gWzmnHTLNXz5CjOc0wAuK?si=GXUNHu1tTmqoov3SOdXHhw
