The Self Report: Beauty Talk

The Self Report is a series of posts on Reena’s Edit for mental health and wellness. These may include the newest research, previous or current experiences, and methods of care by Reena or featured guests. Some subjects we will cover are body love, the importance of self care, daily rituals for mental health, recommended products or services, self valuation, and creating your future.

Beauty talk — body beauty that is. There are three topics every young women must understand. The first — seeing beauty in every skin color, second — erasing the fear of ‘fat,’ and three — why you need to stop thinking you’re ugly.

Beauty in Every Skin Color

I was not born in a family of color and I do not know what it feels like to be looked at differently if your skin is colored, but I do know that people do it all the time. Others looking at you or treating you differently (whether acted/spoken or in their heads) but that is a whole other topic. I wish to touch upon that it starts with you to see your beauty. You have to realize this beauty!

Whether you are of dark color, or you’re a pale white, or you’re rosy, or maybe even bronzy, — there is beauty in every single skin color. Your identity is yourself. You are different to the person next to you in so many different ways. Do you think beauty is defined by a certain color? Well there’s Beyonce, Lupita Nyong’o, Gemma Chan, Meghan Markle, Priyanka Chopra, Gigi Hadid, or Ambar Driscoll — all different skin colors yet all beautiful. The same for you and I, whatever skin color we may be.

When you open up the question of is every skin color beautiful, you open up a door for bigotry and hate. Find the love your body and your mind needs and eliminate any dislike you might have for yourself. There are ways to embrace yourself and your skin color. You can switch up your hair color, the shades of clothes you wear, or the makeup colors you choose. There are many ways to EMBRACE your beauty, take advantage of it if you’ve been doubting yourself.

Erasing the Fear of ‘Fat’

We tend to see thinness as being universally good based on magazines and fashion shows. Good — as in you’re in control of your body, as if you are responsible for it. Not all of us are though. Many believe that we should be as skinny as the models on the catwalks but that is not true. I will let you on a little secret — it might even be dangerous for your health to become as skinny as those models. You should aim for healthy instead, in whatever shape it might be.

Similar to different skin color, there are many many different body shapes but still are all beautiful. Take a look at Taylor Swift, Sara Sampaio, Ashley Graham, Farina Opoku, or Barbara Palvin. Wouldn’t you say they are all beautiful? — and they all have different bodies. There is no limit to beauty — there shouldn’t be. Again, you must enhance your beauty the way it works best for you, whether it’s a new hairstyle to change your face shape or a different style of clothing to compliment your particular body shape. It can all be done in enhancing your own personal beauty THAT YOU HAVE! And again I wanna emphasize, that it can be done by enhancing the beauty that you already have.

Stop Thinking You’re Ugly

Let’s start with this — maybe you don’t think you’re ugly, maybe you just keep giving up on your beauty and saying you ‘don’t look good.’ We call that calling yourself ugly. Let’s keep it under this one title.

Where do we see all our inspirations? Social media and all those magazines. They portray a certain sense of style, beauty and fashion which we choose to follow or not to. It all has to do with the way you look at yourself because you are yourself. You know you shouldn’t be listening to what others say. You should be embracing who you are — you should be embracing your beauty, your different personality and your different body than those around you. When you start embracing what you have, you will start looking at yourself in a different way. You will be content, you will feel love for yourself, you will gain confidence, you will see potential in yourself and most of all you will not call yourself ugly.

There are days we don’t feel ourselves, there are days we are PMSing, and there are days we are rushed and throw on whatever, but make sure you take those things into mind before you start calling yourself ugly that day. And on those days you feel extra beautiful, embrace it, girl, even more!

Oh, I will comment on a girl’s photo saying she’s beautiful or stunning, but there should be no standards to beauty. We should be building up our self-esteems and others around us. Imagine what she would be like if her inner voice of criticism was taken away? She’d be more confident than ever, she’d be embracing her beauty, she’d be working on her heart and soul. That inner voice takes up a lot of time and confidence that we wish we had.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t change your body — you’re more than welcome to work on your future self. If you believe your future self will be so and so amount of weight or so and so shape, and you start today to work on it, girl, I will cheer you on! Similarly to a work ethic, start today for your future self to be grateful you did. Every girl wants to change something about her body shape or size, and many, many people hit the gym or eat differently or spray tan to do so. I am not any different — but I want you to get rid of calling yourself fat or ugly. Reclaiming yourself can be such a gorgeous act of self love and it can be anything from weight loss or gain, surgery, tattoos, or even just getting lash extensions.

I wrote about the Five Minute Journal before, about how if you repeat your affirmations over and over (especially if in the mirror) it will begin to happen, you will begin to not only believe it but do it and become it. Just the same with if you keep calling yourself ugly or fat, you will keep hurting yourself with such hurtful words.

@neelamkg

This must change and it starts with you. I am asking you to focus on yourself, not anyone else. Reach your goals if you have any but always when you’re making a little bit of progress, realize you’re making progress. When your daily affirmations are spoken aloud to yourself in the mirror, you will act on it. Call yourself beautiful the way you are, making progress, or ‘I am who I am’ — and if you’re not content then start today to change whatever you wish to change. I would love to hear your thoughts about this and anything you would like to add. Add your thoughts in the comments and motivate other girls!