I was scrolling through Instagram the other day and an interesting quote that someone had posted stood out to me…
“And if I asked you to make a list of things you love, how long would it take you to name yourself?”
Okay. Honestly, when I started to read this, I started to run through things in my head that I love “family, dogs, helping others…” but then I got to the end and realized, “huh… I don’t think I would’ve even said myself.” And its funny because I love myself and who I am, (unless we are talking about Taylor Swift) I would always choose to stay myself over being someone else. Then how come it didn’t dawn on me to say myself?
We as humans are trained to believe the saying, “I look beautiful” or “I am sexy” are conceited things to say. We get put down for giving ourselves compliments, but we also get called self-conscious when we call ourselves ugly. It is a lose-lose situation.
How can you actually define beauty? Well, yes, you could look it up in the dictionary, but is someone came up to you and asked you to define the word beautiful, what would you say? I can tell you one thing; your definition will be different than almost everything that answers, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For instance, I believe that a 90-year-old woman is beautiful, although some people would beg to differ.
So I guess what my point here is, we are so quick to judge the things we find ugly, but not as quick to call something beautiful. Let’s be honest, most of the time when you look in the mirror, you probably find the ONE thing that you hate about yourself, right? I bet you probably point it out, too. TO BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL IS NOT BEING CONCEITED. You are allowed to find yourself beautiful.
One thing I think we also have a hard time grasping is that you hardly (if ever) see yourself in the midst of a completely natural moment, one where you are not worried about how you look or what you are doing, you are completely 100% in that moment. When you look in the mirror and smile or you take a picture, you are more often than not, posing for this. You are not in a completely comfortable state. But when you wake up first thing in the morning, are in the middle of a stomach tightening laugh attack, or even just sitting there with a blank look on your face… Those are moments that you do not see yourself, you are not aware of how you’re acting. You are completely in the moment and 100% unaware of how beautiful you truly look. Truth is, we all pose for pictures, fix our hair, and put on make up to try to look beautiful, but in reality the times that we are most beautiful… are the ones that we never tired to stage at all.
So next time you take a picture and you want to delete it because it isn’t beautiful enough, your smile was crooked (Rachel), or you got the ‘wrong angle’, think again. Rachel is a perfect example, her smile is crooked a lot of the time, but it is one of the most beautiful, genuine smiles that I have ever seen, BECAUSE it is crooked. It is unique and it is what makes Rachel, Rachel. Embrace your imperfections, because there is beauty in every single one of them.
So now back to the question at the beginning. What if I gave your permission to love yourself… Would you finally do just that?
“And if I asked you to make a list of things you love, how long would it take you to name yourself?”
Okay. Honestly, when I started to read this, I started to run through things in my head that I love “family, dogs, helping others…” but then I got to the end and realized, “huh… I don’t think I would’ve even said myself.” And its funny because I love myself and who I am, (unless we are talking about Taylor Swift) I would always choose to stay myself over being someone else. Then how come it didn’t dawn on me to say myself?
We as humans are trained to believe the saying, “I look beautiful” or “I am sexy” are conceited things to say. We get put down for giving ourselves compliments, but we also get called self-conscious when we call ourselves ugly. It is a lose-lose situation.
How can you actually define beauty? Well, yes, you could look it up in the dictionary, but is someone came up to you and asked you to define the word beautiful, what would you say? I can tell you one thing; your definition will be different than almost everything that answers, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For instance, I believe that a 90-year-old woman is beautiful, although some people would beg to differ.
So I guess what my point here is, we are so quick to judge the things we find ugly, but not as quick to call something beautiful. Let’s be honest, most of the time when you look in the mirror, you probably find the ONE thing that you hate about yourself, right? I bet you probably point it out, too. TO BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL IS NOT BEING CONCEITED. You are allowed to find yourself beautiful.
One thing I think we also have a hard time grasping is that you hardly (if ever) see yourself in the midst of a completely natural moment, one where you are not worried about how you look or what you are doing, you are completely 100% in that moment. When you look in the mirror and smile or you take a picture, you are more often than not, posing for this. You are not in a completely comfortable state. But when you wake up first thing in the morning, are in the middle of a stomach tightening laugh attack, or even just sitting there with a blank look on your face… Those are moments that you do not see yourself, you are not aware of how you’re acting. You are completely in the moment and 100% unaware of how beautiful you truly look. Truth is, we all pose for pictures, fix our hair, and put on make up to try to look beautiful, but in reality the times that we are most beautiful… are the ones that we never tired to stage at all.
So next time you take a picture and you want to delete it because it isn’t beautiful enough, your smile was crooked (Rachel), or you got the ‘wrong angle’, think again. Rachel is a perfect example, her smile is crooked a lot of the time, but it is one of the most beautiful, genuine smiles that I have ever seen, BECAUSE it is crooked. It is unique and it is what makes Rachel, Rachel. Embrace your imperfections, because there is beauty in every single one of them.
So now back to the question at the beginning. What if I gave your permission to love yourself… Would you finally do just that?