Take a moment, slow down, and repeat after me: “I am enough.”
If you felt like a poser saying this, or uncomfortable, then it’s definitely time to reassess how well you show love and patience to yourself.
Everywhere you look there is a constant push to change and be better. We watch makeup tutorials on TikTok, see ads for butt-shaping leggings on Facebook, and drown in brilliant ideas on Instagram. For women, our insecurities are specifically targeted to make products sell. The beauty and dieting industries both make billions of dollars a year selling products engineered to make us feel better.
Your mission should always first be to find peace and joy in the skin you’re in, wrinkles, rolls, and all.
It’s ridiculous. What they won’t tell you is that their product won’t make you feel better. Only you can do that. Feeling good about yourself comes from the inside. Your mission should always first be to find peace and joy in the skin you’re in, wrinkles, rolls, and all. Start with something simple. Find something about your body that you love. It could be your eyes, your neck, your patience. Then, spread that love to parts you perhaps don’t love as much. Find a silly reason to love those parts as well.
You are perfectly you. You are enough just as you are. Breathe and be. You don’t have to change who you are or what you look like to feel good about yourself. It’s actually the opposite – you must embrace who you are.
Try This
Leave yourself love notes. Write nice honest things about yourself and tuck them into places where you might find them later, like the coin purse on your wallet, a compact mirror, or inside a drawer. You can also download this image for your lock screen on your phone or find another inspiring message that helps you remember to value yourself as you are.
Storytime
Up until literally the beginning of this year, I always told myself I didn’t like to wear makeup, that it didn’t look good on me, that it was always better to default to a natural look than to look like a troupe of insane clowns had attacked me. These were excuses I had used for the better part of my life and I was going to stick to them.
Then, an influential person in my life passed away. While this person encouraged me to do a lot of good, they also made it awkward whenever I dressed up or wore makeup by making comments that were less than helpful. Instead of fighting that battle, I stuck to mascara and lip gloss, t-shirts and jeggings, and told myself I liked it that way.
After they were gone, something really strange happened. I started valuing myself differently. Because I no longer had to worry about what this person would think or say about what I was doing or wearing, I was free to decide what I liked.
It’s been several months now, and for the first time in my life, I’m starting to feel comfortable in my own skin, and it’s the best feeling in the world.
