Can you see your own beauty?

This may probably be one of my most personal blogs yet. 

Please, I implore you to hold off the compliments, I am not writing this for that. You will understand when you read it. It is a normal reaction to want to say “no, that is not true, you are beautiful”. Before you do that read the whole thing and recognize the honesty on what is written. 

I don’t think I am ugly, not by any stretch of the imagination. I think I am normal looking just like most of you. There are those women who are very beautiful and recognize it. There are those women who are very beautiful and don’t or still struggle with self esteem issues. I strive to be a normal looking woman who doesn’t beat herself up or get to down on herself. I have made great strides. I can take a compliment and say thank you for the most part. I can be ok and confident in how I look for the most part. 

I went to lunch once with a friend, she is not a close friend but she is a friend. She is, to me, a very attractive woman. At the end of lunch she wanted to take a selfie of us for a project. We both groaned but got together and took a few photos. She handed me her phone and said “you pick, I can’t stand to look at pictures of me”. I too don’t like looking at pics of me but I picked the best I could. To be honest I mostly looked for the best one of her and made sure I didn’t have a my tongue out or anything ridiculous. I know honestly I am not the most photogenic person. That is just me being honest. 

When I look at myself in the mirror, I generally say “ok, not to bad”. But for some reason when I see pics of myself or even worse videos I get really disheartened. There are times when I want to crawl in bed and never leave. Or quit my job, become a gym rat and join every weight loss program possible. I have to pull myself out of that and recognize how crazy I am being. 

I tell myself “what would you say to your friend if they said that”. I literally look at myself in the mirror and say them. 

Why are we so hard on ourselves? I think women do this more but I don’t think we are the only ones. I think lots of men do as well. Why are constantly comparing ourselves to those who we perceive have it all together? Why do we think others are judging us? And if they are, why do we care so much?

We really can be quite mean to ourselves and to others, all based on looks. I don’t know the answer on how to change this. I know that pretty people, or should I say “people that have good symmetry and come across well in pictures” are pleasing to look at and it makes sense that they are used in commercial ad and such. But why should that make us feel bad about ourselves? Why is there so much ridiculous photo shopping to create the perfect image of a person? 

We say all the right words “everyone is beautiful, beauty comes from the inside out, beauty comes in all forms and sizes”. We all believe that to be true and we want media to promote that. But I am talking from a personal level, how do we believe it about ourselves. 

I know I can stand to lose weight, I know when I am being lazy about my appearance. I want to work on losing some weight and take better care of myself without beating myself up. 

Is this a struggle for you? What are your struggles? Can you be honest with yourself? Can you see your own beauty?