What do you see when you look into the mirror? Do you see someone who is smart, kind, beautiful, compassionate, and brave? Or do you see someone who is ugly, rude, insecure, and a bully? Beauty is all defined upon a perception, a single perception that we let dictate how we feel about ourselves and what we see in the mirror. Most of our perceptions is based upon how other view us, or at least how they say they view us. When they call you ugly, you start to believe you are ugly. When they say you are beautiful, you start to believe you are beautiful. But why are we letting them dictate how we view OURSELVES? Let’s take back that power and find beauty in ourselves when we look into the mirror.
My trip to Vietnam opened my eyes to see that I let other people decide how I felt about myself and my appearance. All throughout middle school, I was surrounded by girls obsessing about how pretty their friends were. Never once did I hear a single comment about my looks or being beautiful. I knew deep down that I was beautiful, I mean we all are. But never hearing that about me but hearing it all around me really hurt. Even to this day, the girls that I was “friends” with will post lengthy comments on Instagram posts about how beautiful the other one looks and I receive nothing, not even a like. I told myself that it didn’t get to me and that I wasn’t affected, but I was lying. It hurt and I started to feel like maybe I really wasn’t pretty. Maybe I would never be as pretty as the other girls. So I went into Vietnam thinking I had average looks and walked out thinking that I was beautiful. And to this day, I still wonder how all that happened. I do think that some of it had to do with still letting someone’s perception dictate how I viewed myself. In Vietnam, many of the women would say that I was beautiful or had a great body. Or the men would say hello or take pictures of me. When I asked a male tour guide why they did this, he said it was because I was beautiful. It boosts your self-esteem so much to hear that other people think you are beautiful. But the other half was internal. It was as if I stopped caring what other people thought of people and just believed that I was hot and beautiful and pretty. So I am going to tell you, you are beautiful. You are hot. You are gorgeous. You are pretty. Don’t ever let anyone else tell you differently because every time you look into that mirror, you can see beauty. You may not think so, but someone out there thinks you are beautiful. And that someone is me, Isabel. I know that you are beautiful and hot and pretty.
