Dug Up from the Drafts: Accepting Who We Are...and Aren't

Hello, dear readers,

I don't know about you, but I hate having drafts floating around my "Posts" box. Until just now, I had five of them polluting my Blogger profile, so I knew I had to take action.

Three of these blogs were promptly deleted, as they were incomplete and irrelevant or merely contained a title and no content. This is the first of the two that survived. Apparently, in one of my first few posts, I promised you that I'd be writing a self-esteem series. I now believe the reason for that was because the creation of this blog coincided with the beginning of a very difficult time in my life. I was doing this for myself more than anything, to reinforce what I knew was true but didn't fully believe. Not that there's anything wrong with self-esteem posts! I just don't actually plan to do a series on the subject unless I feel particularly inspired. In any case, here is the first in my previously planned self-esteem series posts. This is very brief and unfinished, but I think the last sentence is conclusive enough for what it's worth. I changed the font just now to make the separation between past and present painfully obvious. Enjoy this snippet from January 23, 2011:



For those of you who read my very first posts, you may remember that I promised a self-esteem series. Well, I'm finally getting to it! I hope you enjoy.




Let's all take a deep breath and admit it: We've all been guilty of looking at celebrities in magazines, the girl a few seats away on the train, or even our best friend and wondering, Why can't I look like that? Why am I not as skinny, fashionable, pretty? Why does everything always seem to work out for her and not me?


I'm bringing this up because I think it's important to recognize that part of building a healthy self-esteem and self-image is realizing who we aren't in order to focus on who we are.


Who we aren't? you ask. Why would we need to dwell on that? Well, we don't, and that's exactly the point. Let me explain: Focusing on someone else and wishing you could be like them actually prevents you from improving yourself. Becoming the best "you" possible is what you should be striving for.


It's absolutely fine to be inspired by other people, but it's important to recognize that we can each only be one person and no one else.



That's all I wrote. It's short, simple, and to the point, I suppose. Granted, I planned to finish this at some point but was apparently never motivated enough to do so.

I hope you liked this little blast from the past. I'll be posting the second of my drafts sometime this week. I did actually update and complete that one a few days ago. This one remains unchanged.

Wishing you a great week,

xEsther

Now That You've Pointed That Out...

No one cares!

For those of you who are wondering why I'm so incredibly heartless, please give me a moment to explain. I'm talking specifically about our "flaws" here. Why is flaws in quotes? you wonder as you consider closing this page altogether and reading about the Kardashian sisters instead.

Well, that's an easy answer: Things we consider to be flaws are often considered lovely by other people. I used to be extremely self-conscious of a birthmark above my eyebrow, so I didn't grow out my blunt bangs for years [yes, I had blunt bangs. My hair was stick straight then]. When I finally did, I still parted my hair so it was covered up.

I only ever had one comment on that birthmark, and I'm 99 percent sure it was only because I pointed it out. I mentioned something about not wanting to grow out my bangs because I didn't want my birthmark to show. And you know what? I really doubt my friend cared, seeing as if she did, I'd probably remember how she responded.

So, you see? No one actually cares about all your millions of self-perceived imperfections.

Then there's the other kind of imperfection: you put on a few pounds from eating an unhealthy diet or lacking in your exercise routine; you have a blemish that you're positive has a sign on it saying, "Look at me!"; you have some cellulite on your thighs from general growing up and naturally changing sizes.

I'm pretty sure this model doesn't even have a blemish!

Guess what? No one notices. Only the people that absolutely have serious self-esteem issues will notice all the negatives you might possess. Or perhaps a family member will carelessly ask, "Did you put on some weight?" Those are the people hardwired to notice because they're either tactless [as in the case of many family members; don't tell me you don't have any of the like] or feel validated by finding fault in others.

Honestly, we're all so concerned with how we look, act, and present ourselves, that we should know everyone else is doing the same. They're measuring their own flaws and not worrying about yours. If only we can stop worrying about what other people think, we'll be so much happier. However, for most people we'll never completely stop wondering what others think.

For now, the next time you feel an overwhelming desire to complain about the "enormous" zit on your forehead, resist the urge to point it out.

Because, truly, no one else sees it.

To a healthier point of view on you, by you, and for you [no one else!]!

xEsther

P.S. I apologize for posting less often. I blame work. And no sleep, which is another post topic altogether.

Images from:
http://www.123rf.com/photo_3112514_suprised-girl-pointing-at-copy-space--portrait-of-a-beautiful-young-business-woman-looking-up.html
http://www.acnescartreatmentsite.com/tag/acne-scarring/

Confidence...

Image from http://studentbranding.com/confidence-is-the-winning-strategy/

...It's a word that's been on my mind quite a lot lately. What exactly does it mean? We all know it means being secure with who you are and strong enough to live life with your head held high and several other cliche phrases that I'm sure you're all familiar with. I don't need to give you a dictionary definition, but I would like to speculate as to what it means to me, and to all of you. I think confidence comes naturally to some, but has to be learnt by others.

I believe confidence is something I have to learn. Lately I've been rather down and it got me thinking: What exactly do I have to do to bring myself up again? It occurred to me that there must be several things factoring into my relative discontent. Why can't I be confident? Sure confidence means not giving a damn what the Negative Nancys and Danny Downers have to say about you, but it has to come from within, and it has to radiate from some grain of truth in which you really believe that you are worth defending from the negative views of not only others, but of yourself.

For me, I think the barricade barring my way to success as a confident, radiant young woman is the fact that I don't allow myself to feel. I tend to ignore my feelings in order to accommodate others. If I were to say I've never been selfish, that would be a lie because selfishness tends to come naturally in humans. I'm lucky enough to be able to say that I've taught myself to look after and nurture others before myself. And that's exactly the problem. It's all well and good to want to help others as much as possible, but it's impossible to help them in the best way that you can without first becoming the best you possible.

Now I know this is all very cliche, and I do apologize for the utter mess that is my writing in this post, but I feel that sharing this with all of you may just be the helpful boost I need, and perhaps you can learn a thing or two yourself if you need it. I tend to neglect my feelings, force myself to push them away and pretend they don't exist. I put everyone else's needs in front of my own; I'm the go-to therapist for most of my friends and my immediate family members, simply because I'm good at rationalizing emotion. I can rationalize it for everyone else, but since I ignore my own emotions I don't even bother trying to sort myself out.

Why mention all this now? Well as you may know if you're a regular reader or happened to stumble upon my blog recently, you'll know that I've been on spring vacation this past week. Over my vacations at home, I tend to release my emotions onto my poor mother because I can't bear to show emotion in front of my friends. I don't know if I've been unintentionally conditioned to believe that showing emotions is a weakness, but that is a completely untrue statement.

Instead of sharing my feelings, I tend to comfort myself with food. Now, I'm a rather small person and by no means fat. I'm definitely petite, but I've definitely, let's say, harmed my figure with this habit. It's not that I don't love exercising or don't do it on a regular basis, but its effects are counteracted by this terrible way of dealing with emotions. In fact, I didn't even realize my eating was tied to my utter failure at controlling my emotions until I had a rather long chat about it this week.

So what is confidence? For me, it needs to be allowing myself to feel. Allowing myself to release the emotions that I know I have in here somewhere without caving in to comfort food as a way to deal. As a side effect, I now have iffy body image and so I have to fix that simply because my method of sorting out my emotions sabotaged it. See the cycle?

You're probably wondering what in Hades [please don't ask why I used that as an expression because I really couldn't tell you!] this has to do with anything, and why it's worth reading. I think that because this is mostly, for the time being at least, a beauty blog, that I should address inner beauty in a way that I haven't really thought about before. I don't think I can be as beautiful on the outside as I am on the inside if I don't allow myself to fully be myself to myself.

Ok, she must be crazy, you're saying. This is going nowhere, you think. I wonder where she's going to run off in this paragraph? Well I'm literally going to run off to pack for the trip back to university tomorrow, but I wanted to leave you with something, I suppose. And that is, whether you're the most confident girl in the world or your self-image leaves something to be desired, know that confidence means different things for everyone, regardless of the dictionary definition. I'm definitely in the process of building my own, and this is the first time I've really allowed myself to give my own emotions a chance at working their way into a permanent space in my consciousness. Maybe then I won't have to turn to chocolatey confections and cheesy goodness instead of facing my emotions.

And maybe, just maybe, I may become a better me to serve the people I love most.

I hope this helped at least one person reevaluate their approach at confidence if she [or he] needed an emotional pick-me-up.

Apologies for a long and predominantly incoherent speech.

xEsther