Just a few days ago, I got a message from one of my best friends talking about the terrifying nightmare that we call a scale. She stepped on it, stepped off and that's when it all started. She felt unbeautiful as if the number that she saw on that scale defined her.
She was telling me about how upset she was and how she couldn't help but to just cry. As a best friend, there is nothing I wanted more than to tell her how a scale is just a man-made construct and the numbers that we let define us are as well. Those words would mean nothing at the moment, but there is so much to her beauty that she couldn't see because what she was staring at was so blinding.
Those numbers meant absolutely nothing.
It is easy to stare at ourselves and feel so unbeautiful, especially this time of year when all we hear about are summer bodies and the perfect tan. We think of these objectives and automatically believe that if we don't fit them than we fall in a non-existent category of those who aren't beautiful.
Well, I am here to tell you that it's all a lie. The category of unbeautiful people has been made up in our own minds and you, I and every other girl who has been in a position of feeling this way are just as beautiful as the next.
So, this is for all of us who have ever felt unbeautiful. Who let standards that mean nothing define us because the truth is there is so much more to our beauty.
I have been there. I have been the girl who stares at my reflection for endless hours and wonder, "why am I not beautiful?" The thing is, I was asking myself the wrong question. What I should have been asking myself was this: "Why do we define beauty by worldly standards?"
We are all beautiful.
We are beautiful for the way we see the world and find ways to relate to it. We are beautiful for the way we sing our favorite songs during our morning showers or love the smell of sunflowers in the field across from our home. We are beautiful for the things that make us, us.
We are beautiful for the visible birthmarks that make us so unique, for the naturally curly hair that we can't tame or the board straight hair that never seems to have enough volume. We are beautiful for the jeans that run just a little tight on us or for the slinky dress that we can't seem to keep up. We are beautiful because we are us.
We are unique and we deserve to embrace our individuality.
Don't let the world or the lies that you have allowed yourself to believe take that away from you. We deserve to look in the mirror and see all of the things that make us different and feel great about them.
Being different is beautiful.
So, the next time you look in the mirror or stand on a scale, don't let what you have been told to believe is beautiful actually define what is beautiful.
Appreciate yourself. Appreciate others. Appreciate your beauty, because no matter what you see or believe, you are beautiful.