Dancing with the Stars dancer, Jenna Johnson, explained that embracing insecurities begins with brain positivity. The dancer posted a before and after picture of her body, but explains to her followers that mental health is the bigger transformation that took place in the photos.

Jenna is a professional Latin and ballroom dancer and choreographer. She found fame in 2013 when she placed third in season 10 of the dance competition show So You Think You Can Dance. She continued her professional dancing career on Dancing with the Stars and won the second season with her partner, an Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon. She then went back to So You Think You Can Dance: The Next Generation when she became one of the mentors and choreographers. She returned to the show again as an all-star in season 14 and made it to the top 4. The versatile dancer also married fellow Dancing with the Stars ballroom professional Valentin Chmerkovskiy in April 2019. In spite of her successful career and personal life, she recently became very raw about her physical and mental health.

Johnson went to Instagram to inspire followers with before and after photos of her physical transformation, but the caption spoke of a very different battle she fought inside herself. She started the caption with a quote, “Love Your Brain, Love Your Life,” then went on to explain that the quote meant a lot to hear when she first heard it from a video of Dr. Daniel Amen talking about mental health. She wrote, “I was so struck by these words and really reflected on them,” then spoke about the before and after pictures of herself, writing, “Pictured are two girls. And I LOVE both of them.” She said that the state of being she was on the left was that she “didn’t know who she was. Tried to be what other people wanted.” She noted that “ultimately it reflected on her outward appearance.” Check out the post below:

The 25-year-old professional dancer wrote about where she is now, saying that although she is healthier physically, it was the mental paradigm shift that she finds the most important. Jenna acknowledges the obvious “body positive” nature of the post, but wrote, “more importantly it’s a BRAIN POSITIVITY post.” She then went on to talk about how much effort it took to get where she is now physically, but then asked her followers, “but why don’t we put that same effort into our brain?! And our mental health?!” She concludes the lengthy caption with how grateful she is for both versions of herself, saying, “I’M PROUD OF HOW FAR I’VE COME! And how HARD I’ve worked on both my physical and mental health!” 

The Dancing with the Stars professional put a spin on the traditional body-positive Instagram post by spreading awareness for the importance of mental health. She is working on feeling better and she claims that looking better is just a side effect. She appears to have a bright future ahead of her.

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Source: Jenna Johnson