You may have seen the Dove video where two entrances are put up, titled “average” and “beautiful”. And how only very few people dare walking through the latter. How much it takes for us to feel beautiful. But how those who do straighten their backs and feel so good for stating to the world that I AM BEAUTIFUL, in my own way.
At 13 my parents had heard me describe how atrocious my body looked for so long that they decided to make it into a human size poster – and showed it as part of their speech at my confirmation party. Crooked teeth, different size feet, eyes and boobs, hairy legs, crooked toes, wide frame, short fat legs, half-blind, crazy curly hair… You get the picture?
And yet in reality, here was a pretty normal girl – my self-image was just magnifying the little discrepancies, instead of celebrating and magnifying the overall impression, which was OK. And who says what beautiful is? I have definitely had moments of feeling beautiful.
We are who we are. We look the way we look. We all look DIFFERENT, so how can we even judge versus others, when every single one of us looks different?
Guess what? The little moments of feeling beautiful are not getting likes for a pretty selfie. It’s when in a glimpse we accept ourselves as we are. Inside out. I am who I am. You are too.