Beauty In a Box: Why You Should Have Self-Acceptance

 Self-acceptance can lead you to your destiny and allow you to influence others to accept themselves. 

                                                                        

I was at the store getting some boxes to move with. As I was putting the boxes in my car these two men came to me and said, "Excuse me, can we ask you a quick question?" I nodded my head as I looked anticipating the question. One continued as he was trying to find the right words to say, "you are so beautiful, (which I knew was nonsense and something was up because my face was covered with a mask.) "but we have a bet going on," then he hit me with the question," you aren't 50 years old, are you?" I laughed as if it was a ridiculous question and I said, " no" (I'm in my mid-thirties. I didn't tell them that, but I'm telling you so you can understand the age difference). The question didn't bother me at the moment. My mind was busy getting all the boxes that I needed. When I finished putting the boxes in my car. I got in the car and reflected on the incident, and then I called my mom and told her what happened. She laughed and said how crazy of a question it was. She asked me, "How old did the men look?" I really couldn't tell and didn't pay attention, which is bad because these strangers were talking to me and anything could have happened, but I was busy and focused, and for some reason when I wear a mask my brain doesn't function the same. It's like my senses weaken.  They may have been in their twenties or thirties, I don't know their age, but their attire was urban with saggy pants. They must have been young and/or immature to be there looking at me putting boxes in a car and instead of trying to help they were debating about my age.  My mom and I got off the phone and I began to question myself and analyze my appearance. Was it the way I wore my hair? Was it my outfit that made me look older or was it the shape of my body? I could have pondered about the way I looked and the way people viewed me all day, but the important questions are, "do I like me?" "Am I being the best me I can be?" This was the moment I could let this bother me, change me, or I could let it go and be me.  

Speaking of letting it go, I was watching Married to Medicine season 8 three-part reunion on tv and on the last episode Dr. Simone Whitmore brought up how Dr. Heavenly, a dentist, negatively talks about her teeth because she has an overbite. You can tell Dr. Heavenly's negative comments bothered her because she brought it up as an issue in their friendship, but Dr. Simone was persistent that she liked her smile, and her teeth was going to stay that way. That was refreshing, because nowadays we see people, especially people on tv getting cosmetic surgery to fit this social construct of beauty or standard of beauty that I call "beauty in a box." Beauty in a box is when being beautiful only lies in this box with four walls and if you don't fit in that box, you are not what is considered beautiful according to society standards. If you don't naturally have this body or facial features, you need to go to a doctor to get it or enhance it. The thing is, these ladies who go this extra mile to fit this idea of what is considered beautiful or fit inside this box are beautiful, but there is not just one type of beauty. It doesn't have to be this and that's it; there are all sorts of beauty. Two people can look completely different with different skin tones, different body shapes, different facial features and different fashion styles and be equally beautiful. In the process of writing this article I took a break and coincidentally I came across this video of Gary Vanynerchuck, he is an entrepreneur, author, investor, speaker, and more. The video was about people's judgments on what are good investments. The video was relevant here because like I am trying to tell you, beauty isn't just this or that it can be equally both. He was saying there are different things people can invest in and all the investments can be good. It doesn't just have to be one thing. If you change the subject from business talk to different types of people and societal constructs of beauty it will reiterate what I am telling you. Your so-called flaws, or what I like to call it uniqueness, is what sets you apart and if you learn to accept it you may grow into it, or you could grow to like it and inspire someone with the same uniqueness to like themselves more. You can also work with it. For example, if you don't like your nose because you think it is too big, instead of surgery you can use makeup to contour it to make it look how you think it should be. You may get the look and realize it doesn't fit your face and you will be thankful you didn't figure it out after having surgery. Even though there is technology to help you see a preview of what the surgery will look like the end result could come out totally different. So, to avoid this you could work around your undesired feature by enhancing another feature you are fonder of and drawing more attention to that feature instead of the less desired one. For example, let's go back to the nose, make a Smokey eye with eyeshadow to draw attention to the eyes so when you look in the mirror at yourself and when other people look at you the attention will go to your enhanced eyes instead of your nose. What if you decided to have surgery on your nose instead of accepting what God gave you and five years from now people started getting surgery to get a nose that use to look like yours, and in the future your old nose is what is considered the standard of beauty in society, and now you wish you had your old nose back. What are you going to do; go get surgery again?  This may seem extreme but really, it's not. Trends go in and out. I remember people use to be teased for having big lips and they would call them duck lips now the duck lips are being imitated. People are having surgeries, fillers, and Botox to make their lips bigger. If you accept how, you were made it may one day work for you.

                                                          

Dumbo, was teased and his ears ended up working for him. Yes, I said Dumbo. You know the Disney movie and book with the elephant with the big ears who was teased and came to find out those big unique ears enabled him to be able to fly. So, your so-called flaws could be your advantage. If you have big ears and you want to go to a doctor to get them pinned back, I encourage you to rethink your decision. "Why", you may ask," I will never be able to fly?  Dumbo isn't real." I will tell you, why.  What if those ears would have been an inspiration for someone? What if a little girl, a teen or even a grown woman who hasn't accepted her ears, completely, looked at you and thought you were beautiful and thought to themselves, "she is beautiful and she has ears like me." so she decided that day to accept her full self. What if you were meant to grow up to be an actor or actress and your ears are like the character you are auditioning  to portray in the movie, and your ears are the one thing that set you apart when it was a close call between you and another actor and the casting director choose you because you looked the part more than the other equally qualified actor.  For example, what if you were destined to play Barack Obama in a movie and you got your ears pinned back and now you don't fit the part. God made you the way you are for a reason. God can use what you see as glitches, or flaws to your advantage. Those so-called flaws are what makes you special and unique. The one thing that makes you stand out. I know being different may be hard sometimes and people may talk about you, but sometimes it is those very people talking about you who want what you have and actually secretly think it is beautiful on you. But you walk around looking insecure about it and feeling insecure and you act on those insecurities by having a surgery to "fix it." Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not judging, I'm just trying to give you another perspective before you change something that is supposed to work for you in the grand scheme of things. Ask God before you move and change something He designed. What if you try to change something on yourself as a child and you will grow into it later and you would have liked it later if you would have steadfast and held on, and you went through that surgery for nothing? It would have worked itself out anyway. Stop trying to fix something that isn't broken. What if God allowed you to go through something so you could help someone else with it or be a counselor and you were supposed to tell them how to get through it, but now all you can offer is I had surgery on mine and I felt better rather than showing them to love and accept themselves.

Accepting yourself doesn't mean you don't have to do anything about it. Like if something is within your control without doing something drastic, do it. For example, if you have acne on your face, it is within your control to treat it. Look at Kenya Moore from Real Housewives of Atlanta. People on the show talked about her acne. What if some young lady wanted to model or enter a beauty pageant and felt discouraged because she had acne prone skin, but she noticed Kenya Moore and discovered she was in a beauty pageant and modeled for a living and decided to go for her dreams too? Look at Kendall Jenner. She had a Proactiv commercial for her acne prone skin. She made money off what she considered a flaw. Now I'm not telling you to not treat your acne because you may get a commercial or win a beauty competition. I'm telling you to be the best you and treat the acne but don't be discouraged when you have a sudden breakout, and don't let it prevent you from pursuing your dreams. In other words, be at peace with who you are and work with what you have while you treat the acne. I have acne prone skin and on top of that I can hardly wear makeup because I have hypersensitive skin. When I put makeup on, here comes the bumps and I have leftover scars on my face from the bumps when they go down. I have to constantly treat my face, and I don't have the luxury of using makeup as often as I would like because it will irritate my skin. 

In furtherance, remember when I was talking about duck lips earlier?  Well, I can relate because when I was younger, I was teased about my lips and people would laugh at me. Now people are into big lips. Instead of going the medical route try lip plumper, or line your lips for the illusion of bigger lips. Just think what if Kylie Jenner would have accepted her lips and not had anything done to them. Again, she is beautiful either way, but the impact she could have had on her generation and the little girls under her by having the platform she has and just embraced her lips by using her lip kit to enhance her lips by working with them instead of changing them through medical uses. I personally think she would have been the billionaire she is and she would have impacted young girls and young women to embrace their lips and work with what they have and play in makeup as an option instead of changing what they look like by having procedures done. Again, (I'm going to continuously say this) I'm not judging you or others I'm just asking you to consider not tampering with what God gave you and embracing what you have and working with what you have because it could just maybe cause you to make an impact on the world or just one person that comes across you and be like, "Oh she is like me", "he is like me. I'm not alone so I am going to be ok with who I am and what I have".

Look at Tyra Banks, the model, she is the epitome of accepting who she is and working with what she has. Today she is seen as one of the most beautiful women in the world, but she did not always feel that way and in her book, Perfect is Boring, according to her, as a kid other kids did not always see her as beautiful either. Matter of fact, she even said that a boy called her right out ugly. she was this self-proclaimed skinny awkward child and it ended up working for her because she became a supermodel and as she grew and her body grew with her she allowed that to work for her as well, by following her wise mother's advice and finding companies that embraced her body instead of trying to change her body with extreme dieting and surgery to fit  into the traditional model box. She also expanded her career and became a mogul by helping people accepting themselves with her T-zone camp for young girls and she helped young ladies and some young gents use their uniqueness to their advantage with America's Next Top Model. She also reached millions with her talk show teaching us to love ourselves and making us feel we can all be models by teaching us how to walk the runway, take fierce pictures, and the smize (smiling with the eyes) she also taught the smize on America's Next Top Model. Tyra calls her four head a five head, and most of us still consider her beautiful. 

So, consider yourself beautiful, because you are. 

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