Love the body that is yours, it is beautiful
MOST, if not all, women have been down this dreaded road at some point in our lives. Hating what we see when we look in the mirror.
We are programmed to measure our worth and define our beauty by the shapes of our bodies, and the shade of our skin. It can be a pretty debilitating thing – to despise the image that looks back at you when you stand in front of a mirror.
The flabby tummy or the coffee colour skin, the curly hair or the toothin legs (often likened to golf sticks back when I was a teenager), the soft lines that pop up around our eyes when we smile or the silver strands that shyly show themselves in a sea of black or brown, blonde or red hair.
The graceful metamorphosis of nature on the human body should be a thing to be marvelled at, but we are too busy comparing ourselves to the images of sisters who are primed, preened and propped to look immaculate and amazing on the runways and magazine covers, in ways that are just simply unattainable and, let’s be honest, downright dishonest.
I made that mistake as a child and as a teenager. Of course, hindsight is a luxury one doesn’t have until the experience has been experienced and you have lived through it.
I tried to end my life because some in my community saw my dark skin as a thing of abhorrence. But seeing myself through the eyes of strangers on the streets, thousands of kilometres from the neighbourhood kids, helped me to realise that the thing of great discomfort and consternation to me was a thing of immense beauty to others.
Now it’s a crusade of mine to convert women to seeing their beauty, worth and power not through the eyes of others but their own.
The mother of three, who once boasted a trim body and now bemoans the wobbly bits, says celebrate the greatness of your body, nurturing a life deep inside your womb is nothing short of a miracle.
The dark-skinned girl, who tries to coax her coffee colour skin to lighten up with creams that promise fairness in a jar, embrace the power of that deep, rich, sensual brown. While some may see being dark as a curse, there are many more who find it absolutely beautiful.
What would you say to your friend who bemoans her body shape, her skin colour, her hair, her nose, her legs, her butt?
The chances are it will always be something positive and uplifting right? You can see her beauty, the things she fails to notice in her blindness of berating her own body.
Why is it impossible to then see your own beauty and worth through your own eyes? You deserve your own kindness and compassion before you can even think about showing it to anyone else.
You right now, in this moment, in this body, in this skin, with that hair, have something someone else thinks is beautiful.
Teach your daughters to love who they are. Show them with your own actions that beauty and strength is not defined by others but by their own standards.
Women, each of us, are all reflections of the things our own mothers either deliberately or unwittingly instilled in us.
At 25, 35, 45, 55, whatever your number, you are never going to be as fabulous as you are in this moment, in this body, in this skin.