I started a How to Feel Beautiful series last week. This is a topic that has been weighing on my heart for a while. So many women out there feel like they aren’t enough in life in general….and being beautiful falls into that category.
You can find the first post HERE.
Today’s Challenge
In my video today, I discussed several things. First, I went back over my concept of why I think so many women feel insecure about the way they look. A lot of it has to do with marketing. Everywhere we look, we are told we have to look a certain way, live a specific life, or do specific things to be beautiful.
Last time we got together, I challenged you to stop comparing yourself to other people. Now, I know this is not an easy thing to do, especially when you are filling your mind with the lies of the media. I asked you to eliminate the influences in your life that cause you to feel insecure about the way you look.
Today, I’m issuing you a new challenge of what you can do to feel beautiful. I want you to go look in the mirror and really identify some things you love about the way you look. Yes, this is a weird thing to do…maybe even a little scary, but it is necessary.
Why Do I Need to Identify Features I Love About Myself?
I think that there are a lot of reasons that we do not have features that we like about ourselves. Here are a few of those reasons:
- Overly critical about the way you look
- Have unrealistic expectations of what your body should look like
- Never really sat down and thought about the features you like
- It feels weird to say that you find yourself or certain features about yourself attractive
- Worried you will develop an elevated opinion of yourself or become conceited
Some of these reasons are valid reasons as to why some people shy away from saying they love certain parts of their body. I am specifically talking about being worried of becoming conceited. Some people do have an elevated opinion of the way they look, and that isn’t attractive or healthy.
However, just because you find yourself to be attractive, or like certain features of yourself does not automatically mean you will be conceited.
Just like you find aspects of other people beautiful, handsome, attractive…whatever your word for it is…is how you should look at yourself. You can appreciate beautiful or attractive features of other people. It is ok to do the same thing for yourself.
Maybe you have a friend who has really pretty hair and you love the way they style it. Why can’t you love your own hair? Why can’t you love the way you did your makeup today? Or the way your eyes look?
Seeing Yourself The Way Others See You is Impossible
There is no way in the world for you to actually see yourself the way others see you. What you can know is that other people, your spouse in particular, find certain aspects of you to be beautiful. However, you can learn to appreciate things about yourself.
This carries over into more than just your physical beauty. You should identify aspects of your personality that you like. Or maybe aspects of who you are that you love.
Isn’t it only fair that you do this for yourself? I mean, you are probably very critical about parts of your body and your personality. Why not commit to identifying parts of who you are that you love? You wouldn’t be fair to yourself if you didn’t.
I’m not saying that you should never have a critical view of yourself. We all need to admit where we are wrong or need improvement. At the same time, we also have to look at the positive things about ourselves and how far we have come. To have a healthy view of yourself, you need both.
Why is It Important to Have a Healthy View of Yourself?
It is very important to your relationships that you develop a healthy view of yourself. For one thing, you need to be able to take instruction. If you have an elevated opinion of yourself or are arrogant, you will shun instruction. All of us need to do things to better ourselves. It starts by accepting that you have a problem.
On the flip side of that, you need to be able to accept compliments, too. If you can’t accept the good things people say about you, then you can only go so deep in your relationship with them. Essentially, you are discounting a person’s feelings when you refuse to accept compliments. They are allowed to think you have beautiful hair, even if you don’t think it looks good that day.
These are just a few examples of how it can affect your relationships in negative ways. I will be talking more about this concept later on in the series.
So, what about you? Will you take the challenge and identify features of your body that you love? If so, I would love you to share them with me in the comments section.
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