Meet Tori (@victoriahead_). This brand new Calgarian is a Health and Wellness Advocate and #swimsuitmodel.
Why did you choose this career path?
I’m passionate about people’s personal growth, as well as their physical and mental well-being.
How would you describe yourself?
I am a confident, happy 25-year-old who loves to spend time with family and friends. I need to be active each day for my overall mental and physical health. I participate in a daily activity that allows me to sweat hard- this provides me the equilibrium to maintain that physical and mental health balance. I have learned this about myself over time and now knowing what I need to do each day, makes me a better person and guides me in how I treat myself and others. It gives me more clarity on what I want out of life.
What are three words your best friend would use to describe you?
Genuine, focused, and compassionate.
How do you hope to connect with and inspire your followers?
My desire is to connect with them on a very personal, honest and genuine level. I want them to be inspired knowing that their confidence, and resulting happiness, shines brightly when they cease making comparisons and simply accept and love the totality of themselves.
We selected you for this campaign because we believe your life is aspirational. What do you feel makes your life aspirational?
I have an intrinsic need to be on the move. While I need to move my body physically on a daily basis, I also need to move around logistically to see and experience variety in my life. This movement is represented in different ways. Due to family work opportunities, I have moved to different locations in Canada most of my life. I love the challenge it brings as I get to meet new people, experience new cultures and create new connections. These new connections have come in the form of education, sports and work. I share these positive experiences with other people I have met on a regular basis and strongly encourage them to be on the move as well. Providing inspiration and confidence to others, based on my personal experiences, makes me proud and gives me a stronger desire to keeping pushing myself. I love resetting myself by moving, exploring and seeking adventure in the outdoors. Southern Alberta is a wonderful place to do this.
Why did you decided to participate in this campaign?
When initially asked about my interest, my reaction was a degree of self-doubt. I believe this reaction would be common to many people. I thought, “well, I’m not a swimsuit model.” But, like with most challenges in my life, I looked at it closer and quickly realized that the Swimco campaign is highly representative of the way I now live my life. I am confident because of what I have learned through experiences and the Swimco campaign is compatible with the way I lead my life. I recognized that the campaign messaging goes far beyond me as a bathing suit model, but rather speaks to being confident and happy with who I am as a young person. I feel connected to this campaign and wish to promote the idea of having a deep level of love for ourselves and others. In this way we are able to grow our self-confidence. Further, the campaign provides me with the opportunity to continue promoting my efforts in being healthy and active. By doing this, I start from a place of gratitude for my body instead of feeling any discontentment. I believe I am consistent with the campaign in feeling that our mindset about our bodies needs to shift to a place of acceptance. From there, we will see positive growth in our thoughts and feelings on what it means to be a #swimsuitmodel and how we feel about our bodies.
What does being a #swimsuitmodel mean to you?
A #swimsuitmodel means being authentic and proud of my healthy body and mind.
What makes a body beautiful?
What the body is capable of makes it beautiful. We cannot ever take this capability for granted. Whether you are exercising or training for a race, running after kids, walking your dog, or putting in long hours at work, knowing what your body is capable of means so much! A beautiful body takes all forms and needs to be nourished, loved, accepted and always on the move. When you’re proud of your beautiful body good things will result.
Can you describe your self-confidence journey?
Every one of my life experiences has attributed to my level of increased self-confidence. My family contributed to the journey, but I attribute a significant amount of it to my involvement in sports. Like most people, the journey to self-confidence is ongoing and progressive. I am not sure what success looks like but I can say that my journey in this area has gone from how I felt I needed to look, to how I want to feel each day. I had an active childhood and while I participated in many sports, a large part of my young life was spent playing hockey, resulting in playing at the university level for five years. I was privileged to have an opportunity to play hockey for the University of Guelph and the University of Regina. Being a university athlete taught me the importance of caring for my body. With studies and training, I quickly learned that fuelling it properly, and maintaining a healthy mental and physical state was very important. Confidence also came as I worked hard and succeeded in graduating university while playing hockey and working part-time. Once hockey ended, I was feeling a bit lost. I felt like I needed to conform to a certain group that fit my physical identity. I was searching for an outlet; a group that made me feel confident and accepted for being a tall, athletic woman. Over many years, I’ve built my identity on my athleticism and I felt this shifting. I wondered why I felt like I needed to conform to a group in order to feel comfortable in my own skin. I needed to let go of this feeling to have this unsustainable and false sense of myself. When hockey ended I started become more independent and the additional free time allowed me to realize that I didn’t need to be part of a group. I began doing other activities that gave me happiness and confidence. I began swimming and running. I successfully competed in triathlons and accepted my height, my size, and my athletic build to become who I really wanted to be. I felt this need to feel confident, happy, and content with myself. Sport gave me the opportunity to form healthy habits and understand how my body works. I’m grateful for that. I now know I need to sweat once a day in order to maintain a healthy mental and physical state. I need to challenge and take care of my body. I need to do these habits daily, in order to feel like myself. Once I started to base my identity off how I wanted to feel, rather than fitting into a certain image, it was freeing to BE and FEEL like myself. To feel confident, happy, healthy, and excited to experience more with this learnt mindset.
If you could say one thing to someone who may not be confident with their body, what would it be?
I have sat and talked to young girls who I know are struggling to find their identity and confidence. I share my own experiences with them. I ask probing questions about their reasoning for feeling a certain way and get them to describe what they feel they want to change to feel beautiful and more confident. These conversations can be raw and gives the young ladies and opportunity to express themselves. I tell them that confidence is an emotion; it needs to be worked on- these are deep-rooted feelings which we have developed over our lives. I tell them that the way they look at themselves will dictate how they treat others and how they feel about their bodies. I would tell them to ask these self-reflective, difficult questions in order to begin changing mindsets and see positive change in themselves. These questions and self-assessments require grace and patience. They need to know it is okay to stumble and perfection is not the ultimate goal. The objective is to feel good, fuel confidence and feel alive. I would tell them to change their routine and start to tap into what makes them feel great. They deserve to feel like that, we all do – your light will only shine through after that.