Why am I so ugly? or How to love yourself

Nobody is perfect. I know that, you know that, and yet, for some unexplainable reason we still demand perfection, from others, and more painfully, from ourselves.

Our hair is never in the right place, our nose is always the wrong shape and bigger than it should be, and our body, ugh! Don't even get me started. We walk out that door feeling like Quasimodo's twin.

The worst thing is that these thoughts of ugliness and inadequacies don't stay in our head. We reflect them in every thought and action. We can't accept ourselves so we don't expect others to like us, and we go through life selling ourselves short because we don't believe we deserve anything better.

It's time to stop! It's time to start loving ourselves and to believe that we deserve love. But, primarily, it's time to start loving ourselves because nothing good will ever come our way until we start loving who we are.

THREE SIMPLE STEPS TO LOVING YOURSELF

Step 1: Take a good look at yourself. A good look. Not just a glance in the mirror, but actually spend a few minutes looking at your face and falling in love with it.

Why is this step important? Because sometimes we hate ourselves without really knowing who we are. Some people can't stand to look at themselves in the mirror. I know a girl who applies her make up without using a mirror because she doesn't like looking at herself. Her make up always ends up looking like Heath Ledger's joker, and still she refuses to see her reflection. 

 

Try it. Look at yourself, but instead of pointing out your perceived imperfections, point out what you like about yourself. Do this every morning. Don't be afraid of who you are.

Familiarize yourself with your own face. We spend most of the day looking at other people's faces and sometimes we just forget to look at our own.

Step 2: Take a hard look at your "imperfections." Are they really that bad? Why are they even imperfections?

"My nose is just too big and crooked." Says who? Who defines what a perfect nose should look like? Or are you saying that because your nose doesn't look like the ones that appear on billboards or TV?

Reclaim your power. You gotta acknowledge that billions of dollars are paid in advertising every day to make us feel like crap, to make us feel inadequate, to make us hate ourselves.

Are you gonna give these greedy people the power to dictate how you should feel about yourself? Are you gonna allow them to rob you of your self worth? NO! You are the only one that has the right to dictate what is beautiful and what isn't, and without a doubt, you are beautiful.

Step 3: Understand where true beauty (and sex-appeal) come from.

My friend thinks Edward James Olmos is the hottest man on Earth.  I think John Stewart is super handsome. Are they really handsome? Show their picture to someone outside our culture and compare it to a picture of Brad Pitt? I'm almost sure Brad Pitt would be the winner in most occasions.

What makes Olmos and Steward so utterly handsome is their self-confidence. They don't fit the standard of "handsome" and yet so many girls are attracted to them.

And that, my friends, is what true beauty really is! Beauty is self-confidence. Beauty is feeling perfect even if you don't fit the mold. Beauty is accepting all your traits and showing them off. Beauty is loving yourself. 

So start owning your love! Don't let anyone tell you what you should and shouldn't love about yourself! Love it all!