As women it’s easy to think that being beautiful will fix everything. 

For so long I subconsciously felt that if I were only skinny, more feminine, had straight hair and would just learn how to properly apply make-up, then I would finally be good enough. And if I was good enough then I was certain that the voices in my head that made me ashamed and insecure would finally shut up and quit bothering me. I would finally be outgoing.

Confident.

Popular.

I remember during my sophomore year of college. There was this girl I knew OF but didn’t know super well. This girl was my ideal image of beauty. She was small, thin, hilarious, witty, mature, and always dressed perfectly cute with sarcastic green eyes. She wasn’t afraid to talk to guys and flirt and be herself. She seemed so confident and appeared to be careless about whether anyone liked her or not. She was the life of the party. Always posting pictures of her cool adventures online with laughing friends in every frame. When I saw her she was always entertaining a circle of laughing people.

THAT.

That was what I wanted to be. I wanted to be just like her. I was sick of being shy and of always feeling ugly. I hated constantly feeling worthless and wondering if people even liked me. I wanted to not care what anyone thought. I wanted to be free to be myself and to be happy with who I was.

One day I overheard her and a friend talking.

About boys.

And their conversation rocked my little heart.

“…yeah but that’s what I bet he likes about you, you’re different.”Her friend said.

She looked at her with questioning eyes, “You really think he likes…ME?”

This girl who I thought was the picture of womanly perfection, this girl with all the guys watching her and the ladies laughing with her, this girl who was a perfect display of spiritual maturity and leadership and confidence, and style and grace…

her heart was asking the same questions as mine.

She was wondering if she was noticed.

She wondered if she was good enough.

She wondered if she was genuinely liked.

I knew those questions by heart, like a sad little script I recited to myself constantly.

I thought that if I could change my appearance maybe I could change my shy and timid heart. That day I began to question if that was true.

Because what if I lost the weight and I was still quiet?

What if I learned to apply makeup and guys still just saw me as a “friend”?

What if it still wasn’t enough? What would I do then?

That day was when I realized my hearts burning questions ran so much deeper than the body I was living in.

We think we are chasing after the worth of our bodies but the truth is we are hungry to know the worth of our souls. It’s easy to get hung up on the outside, that first layer of ourselves, because it’s the first thing people see and judge but what we really want to know is that we are loved and accepted for ALL of who we are.

We don’t want to be accepted simply for our weight or our trendy  clothes.

Plus I learned that the voices inside of your head don’t care about whether you’re having a great hair day or not. They won’t be silenced by a compliment on your clothes. The secret to stopping insecurity is not to appease the voices and become “perfect.” What we must do is step bravely into the open,  in all the glorious mess that we are,  and listen to the people all around us that fully embrace us just as we are.

We don’t need to become perfect we need to hear that it’s okay if we aren’t.

So remember, no matter what you feel to be true you are enough.

and you are beautiful…just like this.

 

 

Beauty.

As women it’s something that we admire and something we long to have.

And our world keeps changing what the definition of beautiful means. It used to mean THIS but now it means having THAT (thigh gap?) So we pinch and sweat and paint and pluck and style ourselves into looking as much like THAT as we possibly can.

But for the girls who wake up rarely feeling beautiful, because they are impossibly far from being THAT, remember that beauty comes in so many different forms.

Have you ever watched the sunrise? Beautiful. Seen the mountains capped with snow basking under light blue skies? They’re Beautiful. Hung Christmas lights around your room? Beautiful! The thing is, beauty is everywhere and shows itself in so many different ways.

We love flowers because they are beautiful. But it would be a ridiculous and boring world if we tried to say that the only thing in nature that is beautiful are flowers. The thing that makes nature overall so amazing and spectacular is the vast array of beauty in different forms. I think us  as women need to embrace this same truth about ourselves.

We all can’t look like Taylor Swift or Ariana Grande or Jennifer Lawrence.

Some of us have great eyebrows and no butt. A perfect body but horrible acne. Nice abs but weird looking toes. And some of us feel a lot more like a potato than a person. But that doesn’t mean you’re not beautiful, girl.

Flowers are beautiful but so are snowflakes and they look NOTHING alike.

We are all a glorious mess of different spectacular pieces and just because you don’t look like THAT doesn’t mean you aren’t beautiful in your own ridiculously awesome way.

So smile at yourself in the mirror today. Because my hope would be that the way you feel watching a sunrise would be the same way you feel looking yourself in the face.

Own your body.

Rock what you got with a smile.

You got this.

 

 

 

It’s a Tuesday.

And I rolled slothfully out of bed today just to stand staring at myself in the mirror, trying to see something good in the reflection. Trying to find something in this face and this body that I could call beautiful.

And we’re always standing here in front of polished sand trying to figure out who we are, trying to see if we measure up.

The truth is there ain’t much good in staring at your reflection because the most beautiful parts of yourself cant be seen there.

Now I am not about to serve up some hallow cliches for you to cling to. I am not going to tell you  your true beauty lies in your talents, and choices, and relationships. While those things are true and while it’s true that beauty is more than just our outward appearance there is still something in all of us that I think longs to be looked at as beautiful on the outside as well.

So that’s what I am saying, girl.

The most beautiful parts of you can’t be seen in a mirror.

Because you can stare into your green eyes and check to make sure your mascara went on right but you will never see the way your eyes sparkle when you laugh belly deep or the way they snap in your sarcastic moments or how they dance when you see his face smiling at you.

You can look at the way your thighs and hips fit into your new pair of jeans but you will never be able to see how they roll and sway graceful when you’re dancing crazy in the bathroom with your best friend.

And you can pinch at your arms and flex in the mirror but you’ll never see how good they look when you’re carrying heavy moving boxes for your newly married friends or how your forearms flex sexy strong when you lift up your little cousin to swing him around laughing.

You  can do your nails and admire your fingers but you will never see how beautiful they look clasped in between someone else’s fingers or how gracefully they fly over guitar strings. Or how warm they feel to your grandma or how soft they still seem to your Father. You will never know how great your hand looks going in for a high five.

And you can color and curl and pull your hair all sorts of ways but you’ll never see how attractive it looks blowing back in the car with the windows down or how it hangs all messy beautiful after your morning run or the way it falls soft around your shoulders just after waking up.

We can prep our bodies for the day ahead but we don’t really get to see them in action. That’s why you can’t see the most beautiful parts of yourself in the mirror. Because so much of your outward beauty is found not in what your body is but in what it can do. 

And maybe you can’t see it in the mirror right now because the beauty of your body shines so much brighter in the mundane motion of everyday life.

In the laughing, praying, running errands, cleaning, working hard and playing hard motions of life.

And maybe that’s why people keep telling you that you’re beautiful.

And maybe you should start believing them.

Smile at yourself and rest in the fact that you’re body is pretty freaking great.

It’s beautiful.

You’re beautiful.

Be brave enough to believe in your beauty, even if when you don’t see it.

Love ya, Girl.

 

~Britt