Self love

The Self Love Movement by Maddie Thoreson

Unconditional self love. To some of us, this may sound like an unattainable dream. With a world that is sought after external beauty now more than ever, it is amazing to also not being able to not notice this “self love” movement going on today, especially among the younger generations.

With the world most attractive celebrities and icons having more and more ways than ever to enhance their natural faces, the rest of us feel like we cant keep up! Why is this something mass media has tried to drill into our brains so much? What is it about our external beauty that is so bloody important? I bet most of us would love to wake up each morning and not even have a slight urge to look in the mirror because we know, that no matter what you, yourself, and everyone who is around you is going to think you are beautiful. Sounds like a dream if you ask me.

Being a woman (and I’m sure this applies to men as well) being beautiful would sure save me lots of money on makeup, hair products, face masks, tanning products and the list goes on. Of course we don’t have to do these things and sometimes it feels nice when we do take that extra care of ourselves or have a special occasion that we want to look more jazzed up than our everyday selves.

There is no problem for this at all and I think rather normal to want to try things out, express yourself through a new hair style or makeup trend, its fun and I think very healthy for us to have these desires.

However, the problem of all of these artificial things is when they start to define how you feel about your own true natural beauty and perceive the way you start to look at yourself. When you start to rely on these material things to define your beauty because you think your natural beauty isn’t good enough anymore. That’s when all this “stuff” starts to become a problem. Personally my mother started letting me wear makeup on an everyday basis (after begging her to death) when I was 12 years old and I think all of the girls in America started around the same age from 12-16. Even though it wasn’t much, just a simple mascara, it was enough to change how I saw myself on a daily basis and made me like myself more with just that little bit of makeup and changed the way I perceived myself. I didn’t think my bare face was my “normal face” now, I was so used to seeing myself with makeup on that “that” face became my new “normal face”. For that matter everyone else around you who sees you everyday with makeup on will start to think that is how your “normal face” is also. Once it becomes a habit it becomes a very hard cycle to break free from.

To feel ok with your natural beauty once again. So there sparks my first question, how can we change our mindsets back to how they were? In quarantine is no better time to do that hard work for yourself and to give yourself those positive affirmations you deserve and have been craving .

“You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there’s still go- ing to be somebody who hates peaches.”

Dita Von Teese.

Change Your Mindset

The truth is, the thing about beauty is that it’s not external at all, or the reason something is externally beauty is either seen by your societies expectations of beauty or because the inner core of that person or thing is healthy and well from the inside. Once your inner core is happy, healthy and thriving it will show externally. Haven’t you ever met someone who’s entire aura and energy was extremely attractive and shined so brightly that their whole external appearance took a back burned to what you thought of them? Its so refreshing to know that it’s possible to have such an amazing personality that makes people forget all about our outer appearance to the point that their whole perception of you is based around who you truly are. Now to not care at all about your outward appearance isn’t the exact point I’m trying to make here. Of course its nice to shower, groom yourself in a presentable way to put your best foot forward so that people don’t get a completely wrong impression of you at first sight. If you’r going in for a job interview, look accordingly. If you’r going on a date maybe put on a nice red lipstick, or don’t! The point of all of this is that you should feel comfortable and confident enough with who you really are inside that you know your appearance soon will take the high way when it comes to how that person sees you. Say if you don’t get the job you interviewed for or your first date doesn’t go as planned. You need to have enough self esteem and a strong inner core that you value of your self worth never decreases or increases with whatever life may throw at you. I think if we all spent the same amount of time as we do on our outer appearance to our inner core and your mental health, we would all be much more stable people and handle good and bad situations with ease. Instead of spending countless hours finding solutions on how to make your curly hair sit straight or how to cover it up, spend the time learning to love it and embrace it! In the long run this is a much more effective solution and

you will be happier in the long run. If you fix external things for temporary amount of time, you will always know that naturally you don’t look like that and be always very conscious of this. Getting a permenant procedure will always leave a shame of knowing that something externally defeated you and have a bit of shame over that and knowing that this new feature, is not really you. According to deccanchronicle.com 65% of women regret their cosmetic surgery afterwards. Of course with cosmetic surgery being so popular among the young celebrities and surgeries are starting to look more and more natural its hard to tell whats real and what isn’t. To be quite honestly it’s shit for the rest of normal people in our natural body’s to see these girls flaunting their “natural beauty” around when they themselves don’t look like that. Thus, causing the effect of the normal people feeling like we aren’t normal. The reality is its all lies! We are the normal ones, born from our mothers and growing into who we were destined to be since day one. Not a reformed edited version of ourselves with lip fillers, the highest cheekbones possible, and the smallest nose we can imagine. It’s high time we stop praising those who are lying to us.

Take Action

Now I know it’s one thing to say you are beautiful and actually feel like it, believe me. The problem is, is that everyone is basing their beauty only from their physical appearance. That’s why loving yourself isn’t working. Your not going to wake up one day and all the sudden, you love your giant nose or the mole on your forehead. You need to love yourself deeper than that. On a personal level. Think about your best friend, why do you love her/him. Your first thing that comes to mind isn’t gonna be “his big muscles” or “her small waist”. You’r most likely going to be commenting on their character, personality traits, how that person makes you feel. Same rules apply for breakups. Have you ever got dumped because your jawline wasn’t sharp enough? Again, everything comes back to who you actually are as a person not as a beautiful object with no life or depth to them. So take care of your soul first when looking to be the best possible version of yourself. Allow yourself enjoy the wonders of life. Nourish your body with foods your body loves. Move your body everyday with a nice walk around your neighborhood, don’t bring your phone and just reflect, talk to yourself. Dance and laugh with your friends, let loose and don’t take yourself too serious. Drink water, think of yourself as a beautiful flower that needs the proper nutrients to grow and grow. Give your body the rest it needs, know when you’ve done so much that your body is telling you it needs a break. Learn how to say no to people when you’r well-being is at stake.

I know it sounds a bit silly or even weird but imagine you had a baby. Wouldn’t you want to care for it the best you possibly can so that when he/she grows up they will be the best possible person they can be? So why aren’t we doing that for ourselves? Taking care of ourselves as a mother would. With its best interest in mind. Why are putting our well being on the back burner? Set goals for yourself and how you are going to accomplish those goals and set deadlines for those goals. You, are not something you should be sacrificing for anyone or anything else. Put you first.

Quarantines hidden gem

For many of us, the world wide quarantine can feel like it has just ruined your huge 2020 plans, but think of this quarantine from a different point of view. Is this lock down just what we needed? When will you ever get another time to stay home so much and spend time with yourself? This is the time to learn to fall in love with yourself, to start accepting who you are. Of all the things that have been taken away from us during this quarantine, time for ourselves is what we have gained. Start to meditate, journal, create art work that represents something to you. If your schedule in to your day just 15-30 minutes of time where you do something that will make you feel good about yourself after, this can tremendously change your inner core value. To do something only for your enjoyment and that you feel proud after doing, might leave you feeling good about yourself and wanting to do things for yourself more often. Think of self love as doing practices to honor you. Honoring yourself can come in endless forms, it’s up to you to choose something you would love to do for yourself. It can be cooking yourself your favorite meal. It can writing your future self a letter. It can be as simple as cleaning your room because you deserve a nice living environment. You can literally choose from so many ways of what you want to do as a form as self love. Now as a time with so much time on our hands we need to try to make this a routine in our everyday lives.

Quarantines hidden gem

For many of us, the world wide quarantine can feel like it has just ruined your huge 2020 plans, but think of this quarantine from a different point of view.

Is this lock down just what we needed? When will you ever get another time to stay home so much and spend time with yourself?

This is the time to learn to fall in love with yourself, to start accepting who you are. Of all the things that have been taken away from us during this quarantine, time for ourselves is what we have gained.

Start to meditate, journal, create art work that represents something to you.

If your schedule in to your day just 15-30 minutes of time where you do something that will make you feel good about yourself after, this can tremendously change your inner core value.

To do something only for your enjoyment and that you feel proud after doing, might leave you feeling good about yourself and wanting to do things for yourself more often.

Think of self love as doing practices to honor you. Honoring yourself can come in endless forms, it’s up to you to choose something you would love to do for yourself. It can be cooking yourself your favorite meal. It can writing your future self a letter. It can be as simple as cleaning your room because you deserve a nice living environment.

You can literally choose from so many ways of what you want to do as a form as self love. Now as a time with so much time on our hands we need to try to make this a routine in our everyday lives.