Why Don't You Think I Am Beautiful?

Why Don't You Think I Am Beautiful?

Why don’t you think I am beautiful?

 Why don’t you think I am beautiful? Is a phrase we all often ask ourselves. For some people we are too tall, for others we are too short, for others we are not tan enough, skinny enough, or blonde enough. This never ending cycle of wanting to be beautiful in the eyes of others has plagued the minds and hearts of girls and women everywhere.

Yesterday I got off the phone with a school counselor from Rialto, and he began to tell me about how he is constantly getting young girls in his office to are telling him that they feel ugly, fat and worthless. He went on to say that these girls are some of the prettiest girls in the school, who have healthy families who speak encouragement into their lives and who are constantly telling them that they are beautiful. So what is the problem, what is causing these young 6th girls to believe that they are not good enough, skinny enough, or pretty enough?

The answer…the media and their peers. Their peers are constantly looking at images in the media that are perfect, so as a result they measure everyone in their life to the perfect images in the media. Boys expect girls to look like Victoria secret models, the stars they see on Disney channel, and the models in the magazines. Other girls at school expect their friends to wear the most trendy clothes, have their hair and makeup perfectly done, with the latest phones in order to have them in their group of friends. Needless to say the ticket for acceptance and love in our society has been based off of our perfect outer appearance.  This constant strive for perfection has driven many girls crazy. I mean..who can have their hair and makeup perfectly done, with the trendiest clothes on all the time? Well..no one..not even teen stars Kendall and Kylie Jenner. On social media now days, we often put out a perfect image of ourselves, because we want people to see a painted image of us, and we hide who we really are. Our social media accounts rarely reflect the real us. Authenticity has become less and less popular. Most of us want to be authentic, but in our airbrushed, needing to be perfect world, it’s hard to be perfect.

So what do we do about this? When we feel not beautiful enough for the people around us, for our peers, and boys at school? We stop trying to be good enough, we stop trying to measure up to everyone’s standards, and we go on a journey to discover what makes us beautiful. We must choose to mute the negative voices and comments from others in our life. And we must choose to turn up the volume of those who truly love us and celebrate us. We need to stop measuring ourselves and others to a false airbrushed images we see in the media, and we need to start embracing the authentic beauty that we all carry. Everyone will have a different beauty. Someone will have a beauty that is tall, some short, others curvy, some skinny, and others medium. What makes us all different is what makes us all beautiful. so let’s stop the self-hate and start the self-love. Choose to see what is beautiful in you, so that you can learn how to see the beauty in others.

We are all worth celebrating, and remember….YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL.

By Christina Boudreau

Founder of www.beautyhasnosize.com