You Don't Know You're Beautiful

A few weeks ago I heard a commercial that seriously disturbed me. There I was, getting opening things done at work, rocking out to pandora as I usually do before work, when I hear a commercial for a tanning salon that I couldn't even believe. I wasn't really paying a whole lot of attention, because let's be real here, I obviously don't give a rip about tanning salons. Anyway, I caught part of the commercial and the part I caught said something along the lines of, "When you're tan, you'll feel better about how you look and the outside. And when you like what you see on the outside, you'll like what's on the inside better." So what I took from that was that in order to feel good about myself as a human being, I need to focus on my outward appearance first. Because how could you have any problem with you if you look pretty? After all, that's what's important, right? What we look like on the outside. Why take the time to learn to love yourself no matter what and focus on what your inner voice is saying to you about you when you can simply lay in the tanning bed and make yourself prettier?

It amazes me a little bit that we as a society seem to understand what's so very wrong here, but it continues to happen. We continue to tell generation after generation that they aren't pretty enough so they must not be good enough. We continue to create an unrealistic ideal that turns into nothing more than a general dissatisfaction with how we look. And sometimes general dissatisfaction turns into something so much worse. People's lives are ripped apart because they learn to hate themselves because they will never be as pretty or as skinny or as perfect as society tells them to be. It simply isn't acceptable that this is a reality.

In thinking about all of this, I found something I wrote a few years back and it fits rather well:

 Today in my writing 1 class we watched the Dove Evolution video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U) and were asked to analyze it. When asked what claim Dove was trying to make this old man in my class had the audacity to raise his hand and say that because the girl wasn't really pretty to begin with, Dove was saying that using their products will make you beautiful. This seriously pissed me off...first of all the freaking video says that it's pointing out why our standard of beauty is so unrealistic. He was seriously trying to argue that this girl was ugly and Dove was trying to pimp their products. Guys like him are the reason girls hate themselves and develop eating disorders! I grew up watching my mom ruin her own body by being anorexic because she has an unrealistic view of what it takes for her to be beautiful. Trust me, it's not pretty. I think guys like the one in my class and also the beauty industry as a whole should be ashamed for pushing such unrealistic standards on women. Little girls see advertisements or even hear adults talking and think they have to look like models for people to think they are pretty...I applaud Dove for trying to change this. Yeah, they're a business and are trying to make money, but they are also trying to make the world a little better for women everywhere and give little girls a positive start and the self-esteem they so desperately need.

And to all of the girls reading this...You are all beautiful ♥

I still stand by everything I said that day. But what will make this better? That Dove video was new 4 years ago and today I don't see anything changing. I think we as women perpetuate the problem at times. We buy into it. We turn to the right clothes and the right way to do our makeup and best way to get a bikini body to make us feel better. But is there a real solution in any of that? Isn't all of that just fleeting? What about when you wash that makeup off and change into your sweats? Do you still love you? Or do you only love the you that you allow people to see out in the world? If that's the case, how terribly tragic.

In my mind, change will happen only when we all learn to look within. When we train our inner voice to speak with kindness. When we learn to be more gentle with our selves. As much as this is a societal ill, I think there is a problem that lies within each of us as well, one that won't go away until we can truly learn to accept ourselves and love ourselves each and every day no matter what. On bad days, guess what, you're still living! And just living can be hard enough sometimes. Why make it any harder on yourself?

One of my yoga instructors said something in class somewhat recently that has stuck with me ever since...she said, "Practicing non-violence with others is usually second nature to us, but we often forget to practice non-violence with ourselves."

Moral of the story today? Um, I'm kind of all over the place I suppose. But as a society, we have got to stop telling people that their worth is only skin deep. And as humans, we have got to stop believing that our worth is only skin deep. Then and only then will positive change happen.

My two cents on the matter...

I've been trying to decide if writing this was worth the waves it would inevitably make. Trying to decide if I wanted to potentially put myself at odds with the church and, most unfortunately, members of my own family. I don't like to speak up, I prefer to fade into the background and let people do their thing while I do mine. But this time, I decided that I would be doing some people who I love very much a disservice if I just stayed quiet. So I shan't. Be warned, many of you probably won't like what I'm about to say, you might want to leave now. Though if you know me at all, you likely already know where I stand.

While I am not really surprised in the least, I am ashamed of my community today. Honestly, I don't understand why in 2015 we need laws to tell us to treat other human beings like human beings...and I REALLY don't understand why anyone would fight to take such a law away. Oh, that's right, it's totally ok for you to be an ass to other people in the name of your religious freedom, but it's not ok for people to be gay. And heaven forbid those gay people expect you to treat them with the same decency that you treat straight people, that's asking too much of you! After all, you don't agree with their life style so you shouldn't be forced to treat them like other people.

Let me just start in on this whole "religious freedom" argument that I've heard. I'm really not sure what to say besides that it's utter nonsense. First of all, you do realize that by law no one can be discriminated against based on their religion, right? You can't be fired or denied housing just because you're a Christian. So why would you want to deny anyone else those same protections? Oh, right, because they're gay. How dare they! It's not your religious freedom you're afraid of losing, it's the right to be an ass and claim that it's because of your religious convictions that you're afraid of. Because if it isn't a religion issue, that would just mean that you're a crummy person who wants to treat people as less than because they're different than you. Furthermore, if this truly was a religious freedom issue (it's NOT), why should your "rights" as a Christian trump some else's as a human being? Please, do tell.

And here's another question for you: why is this what we're fighting against so hard? Why have we picked homosexuality as the sin that we want to attack? See, I've heard this scenario about how it isn't fair to expect a Christian owned bakery to bake wedding cakes for a gay wedding...but what if an unwed mother wanted to get a cake for her kid's birthday? Would people be clinging to their religious conviction then? She made a choice to have sex before marriage so shouldn't you deny her business just as you would the business of that gay couple? What about that employee that just cheated on his wife? You should probably fire him because he's making choices that you don't agree with. Read that Bible that's clutched so tightly in your hand, you'll find out that ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That doesn't make someone else's sin worse than yours or mine.

And can we PLEASE stop saying that we "love the sinner but hate the sin" because trying to deny someone a job or a home is not loving them. Telling them that you should get to decide to treat them like you treat everyone or turn them away is not loving them. Seeing them as anything other than human beings is not loving them, because once you've lumped someone into a group that you hold preconceived notions about, that's all you see.

What this comes down to for me is the fact that human beings are human beings, point blank. That's all there is to it. To be fair, I realize that I'm hating on people for hating on other people. BUT let me assure you that I don't think you should have any rights taken from you just because you don't agree with me.

This is a subject that hits home with me so it's hard not to rage about it. Because it affects people that I love, it says that in Springfield, Missouri my cousin, great aunt, and many friends don't have the same rights as me. You see, my cousin Ashley is one of my favorite people in the whole world and I have looked up to her my whole life...she is super smart and she moved out to Boston from small town Iowa after high school to pursue her dream of becoming an architect. These days, she is indeed an architect and is also taking flying lessons and has plans to buy and renovate properties around the Boston area so she can get into the rental business. Then one day she wants to spend some time living in Europe, and I have no doubt that she'll actually do it. And in October I finally got the opportunity to meet Ashley's wife, Jamie. And you know what? She's awesome! They are amazing human beings who opened their home to me and my best friend and were more than hospitable to us.
But I saw the pain on my cousin's face when the conversation came back to our family, most of which has decided to pretend she no longer exists. It was awful. No one should have to say that their grandmother has gotten better because she actually calls on their birthday now rather than just ignoring it. And let me just tell you, if anyone ever tried to deny Ashley and Jamie jobs or housing just because they love each other, I would lose my shit.

Human beings...not a general label of "gays or homosexuals or whatever else you may come up with"...but someone's brother, sister, daughter, grandkid, son, best friend, cousin, aunt, uncle, mother, father, etc, etc.

Human beings are human beings, end of story. Let love win, guys, that's what it's all about.