Chances Are, You're Beautiful!

In case you didn’t know, the woman in the photo is actress Lupita Nyong’o. She won a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her role in the film 12 Years a Slave.
 
This is not a celebrity musing but I did want to use Lupita and some interesting comments she made to Glamour about growing up in Kenya to, perhaps, teach us a little something about ourselves.
 
As a young girl in Kenya, Lupita has stated that she felt anything but attractive—again, look at that photo-the reason for her belief was her dark skin.
She says, “European standards of beauty plague the entire world-the idea that darker skin is not beautiful, that light skin is the key to success and love. Africa is no exception. When I was in the second grade, one of my teachers said, ‘Where are you going to find a husband? How are going to find someone darker than you?’ I was mortified.”
 
She recalls that she often saw skin-lightening cream commercials on television, “I remember a commercial where a woman goes for an interview and doesn’t get the job. Then she puts a cream on her face to lighten the skin and gets the job! This is the message: dark skin is unacceptable.”
 
Again, look at Lupita’s photo.
 
Now, replace dark skin with any word that currently makes you think less of your appearance: weight, the size of your thighs, your butt, your breasts, your smile, your nose, your whatever.
 
Chances are, like Lupita, you are just fine. Admittedly many of us may not possess a classical beauty in the realm of Lupita’s but let’s ponder the fact that even a beautiful woman can get inside her own head to such a degree that she can play the comparison game and render a portion of her life less than happy.
 
Lupita’s antidote to her categorizing herself as less than beautiful was “Until I saw people who looked like me, doing the things that I wanted to do, I wasn’t so sure it was a possibility.”
 
That is a prescription that can work for all of us as well. There is no necessity to change who we are before we start living our lives, we should live right now being who we are and embracing what we look like. Follow in Lupita’s footsteps, find women, and images of women who look like you doing the things you want to do, and remind yourself that beauty comes in all shapes, sizes, and colors.
 
Use these women who resemble you as your comparison group, not some cadre of ladies who look nothing like you. If you are down on your size find yourself some gorgeous, so-called plus-size models, look at them reveling in their beauty learn something from their aspect.
 
I guarantee you that there are others out there who look very much like you who are unapologetically embracing who they are living fulfilling lives, look to them and learn to look at yourself with that same appreciative eye.