People think that because they see a pretty girl that that girl sees herself as what they see. But more often than not, the very same girl people admire, doesn’t even think of herself as pretty enough. And then they wonder, ‘what made her even think that way? Doesn’t she have a mirror, because if she had, she’d see how beautiful she truly is…
But the sad truth is that, ONLY 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful. Only 4%!!! Go figure!
That means that the rest of us – the 96% of us to be exact – feels like there is something wrong with the way we look.
Why do we struggle with our body image?
As women, we see over 200 negative body image advertisements on television per day, all with a goal to induce us to look for perfection in ourselves. While this undoubtedly earns the cosmetics industry billions of dollars each year, at the same time, it comes at an extremely high cost to us – we start to feel inadequate. We start to feel…not good enough.
All of a sudden, make up is the first thing we put on when we wake up. ANTI-cellulit treatments are a must before hitting the beach, and tanning salons are the next go-to-station.
And why all that farse?
Because beauty industry teaches us that our figures are flawed, and not only are they flawed, but that the majority of our worth lies within how we look. And then how we look suddenly directly influences how we feel, which, of course is never “perfect enough”. I don’t have to tell you that this affects EVERY woman’s life on a monumental level. I am sure you feel like this too (unless you belong to that unbelievable lucky 4%).
We are so much more than what beauty industry portrays us! We are all beautiful in our own way but because of the fact that the way we view ourselves and our bodies impacts the way we participate in the world, we so need to learn to love ourselves the way we are. We need to learn to embrace the glorious mess that we are. Our men already did!