At some point in our lives, we have looked in the mirror and hated what we saw. Maybe it was something to do with our face, our upper body or maybe our whole body. Whatever it was or is, we've all been there.
We see people on T.V. who are seemingly near perfect. Maybe we make ourselves feel better by justifying their almost unnatural beauty with the fact that they usually have a whole team of people who make them look like that.
But then we see the people around us. Every day people in class or on social media who are just as beautiful. And we all know they don't have a team of qualified individuals working on them, they just hit the gene jackpot or are good with makeup or both. Who really knows.
The great news is that they can be beautiful and so can we. It's not like there is an allotted amount of beauty in the world and the IG models and celebrities have used it all up. Someone else's beauty doesn't take away from our own.
I won't sit here and spit out cliche's that we've been hearing from our moms and grandmas since we discovered mirrors, I will just say that you are beautiful and you are handsome, even with all of your flaws.
We don't have to be perfect to be beautiful.
I've come to realize that we all have things we don't like and in fact we sometimes share insecurities. So I asked some of the best people I know, who I love dearly, things that they disliked about their physical appearance and things that they liked about it. Here's what they had to say.
Matt, 22
Like- his ability to grow facial hair
Dislike- his height
Grace, 22
Like- her eyes
Dislike- the way her body retains extra weight
Josh, 21
Like- the build of his body
Dislike- his nose
Winnie, 20
Like- her curves
Dislike- cellulite
Andrew, 20
Like- he thinks his toes look pretty normal compared to other peoples
Dislike- his teeth don't align with the center of his face
Sarah, 22
Like- her freckles
Dislike- her ears
It's surreal to think that even the people you find attractive or most confident have their own insecurities. It's hard to know that there are people in your life who don't like things about themselves when you love almost everything about them.
Don't you just wish that others could see themselves the way you see them.
We can love the strangest things about other people. The way their eyes light up when they talk about the things they love. Or the way their eyes crinkle at the corners when they get excited. A bashful blush when you point out something good about them. It could be a laugh that fills the room. Maybe its a lopsided grin that makes your whole world shine a little bit brighter.
Sometimes it is so easy pointing out all the things wrong in the mirror. But if it's so easy to love the things others hate about themselves, don't you think it's just as easy for them to do the same to us?
We all have imperfections. We all have things we don't like about ourselves. But there are so many good things about ourselves that we won't ever notice if we keep pointing out all the bad.
Know that when people look at you they don't see all the bad things. They don't see the extra body weight, the strong nose or the misaligned teeth. They see a strong body, a welcoming face and a great smile.
I wouldn't say it's the perfections in us that make us beautiful, or attractive. I would say it's the imperfections. Those are the things that make us who we are and those are usually the things that people love about us the most.
I just hope that you start loving those things too.
