The Standard of Beauty

We hear it all the time, all the cliches;  love yourself- look in the mirror and love the person staring back- be happy in your own skin. But how can we learn to love ourselves when we always compare ourselves to others who may seem better. How can we like the person in the mirror when we are continually assuming someone else is better than us? Or how can we be comfortable with ourselves when we are continually trying to keep up with every trend that comes our way?

These concerning questions I ask myself are very harmful to my self-esteem, and I, nor others, deserve to think this way about ourselves.  So why do we do it? Why do we continue to talk ourselves down? 

I like to think it stems from the unrealistic standard of beauty that our society has placed on us. The standard has been set saying if you follow this trend, your hair will look like this. Or that a perfect contour is a must, and if you don’t know the latest in pop culture, then you’re slacking. Our culture moves from one trend to another so quickly it is no wonder it is so hard to keep up. And how can one possibly be happy with themselves when they are constantly being told to change? This forces me to ask the question, could this perhaps be one factor to why anxiety and stress rates are increasing in young people and predominantly in young women? 

How are we supposed to love ourselves and be happy in our skin while simultaneously being told that we are not good enough? That we are not keeping up with the latest trends well enough, that we should be doing more to fit in.  Sounds stressful to me. Correction, it is stressful to me. 

So how can we turn off the criticisms and fully enter into the happiness of being purely ourselves and stop listening to what our culture is feeding us? I have a few ideas. 

One of the most helpful ideas that I have discovered is to take a break from social media entirely. On social media, it is all too easy to scroll, troll, and compare yourself to everyone that comes your way. Just worrying about my own life and not competing with everyone else’s is entirely needed and so good for the soul. It puts things into perspective. Our lives are not meant to be a competition with everyone, but to individually work hard to the best of our ability. Meanwhile, lifting everyone else around us to do the same. 

Second, discover what you are passionate about it and do that, again, another cliche, but so true! Is this the gym, writing, music abilities? When we discover what we are passionate about we can dive into that, and it will help us become fully alive in something we love! The catch is when we find that thing we must not compare or despair to others. We all have our unique strengths and gifts that we can learn from and encourage one another to grow in and nurture our abilities. 

Finally, we have the amazing gifts of the sacraments, prayer, and adoration! How beautiful all of these are to help us clear our mind, take a step back, and have Jesus remind us that we as individuals are so wonderfully and beautifully made! He does not want us to be fretting over our hair, makeup, or how we are doing compared to our friends. He wants us to see that we are enough.

I believe that if we put our energy into these three ideas, we will become comfortable in our own skin. We do not need our culture to tell us we aren’t good enough and we do not need the next person’s highlight reel on Instagram to tell us we aren’t. We will be able to love the person in the mirror more fully when we understand that we are enough. In God’s eyes we are good enough. He solely wants us to love him and love us in return. 

It is that simple, and we are worth it.