Pain at the Hand of Beauty

How do you see yourself? 

When you wake up fresh from a dream and carry yourself to the mirror in the morning, who do you see? 

I know we all wish we could wake up powdered faces, sin circles under the eyes, hair combed. Who do I see? See I am the type of person who looks like someone beats her up in her sleep. I am not kidding either, ask my friends, somehow, my hair manages to literally stick in every single direction when I wake up in the morning. Usually the dark circles are mixed with some makeup that didn't come off in the wash the night before, skin looks clean but blotchy. What if we woke up in the morning and started our day believing that fresh awoken, sleepy face that slowly awakening body, was beautiful?

How different would our day be if we saw perfection in the imperfections of an image so pure, and so fresh, and so untouched as the image we see first thing in the morning. Can you imagine where each step in getting ready would take us? And more than that can you imagine the confidence we would inevitably carry ourselves with were we to begin our day with a simple thought?

I am beautiful.

I know more than most how it feels to want to change everything about yourself. I've always been the taller one, the bigger one, the different one. I never allowed myself to hear the words that described the beauty I felt like I possessed. The words that invested themselves in me as confidence took a long time to develop into something that was cognizant to my everyday being.

I know that I have a long way to go, but look at how far I've come. 

Unless you see beauty within yourself, no one will ever see that beauty. Unless you commit to the likelihood that your confidence will carry you, you will continue to hide behind the aspects in your life you feel define you. Unless you choose to let your own words, your own thoughts, your own beliefs, and your own actions be the direct representation and the ultimate definition of your being? You are not going to be free from the binds that will continue to hold you back.

So how did I build this confidence? I began by taking out judgment, criticism, and the absolute insane idea of perfection and more than that, what society teaches us is perfection. 

I looked at myself and I forced myself to be inspired by the person staring back at me.

I looked at my love handles as something to love, and my smile as something to cherish, 

I looked at my eyes as a token of peace and my height and strength as a sign of perseverance.

 I looked at the softness of my features as a channel of youth and innocence, 

my hands as a channel of motivation. 

I saw my mouth as a channel of dedication, and my heart as a channel of hope. 

I saw a potential in each imperfection as an intimate relationship with progression towards becoming a better person. I don't look at my weight as an obstacle anymore, but rather an opportunity. To find an abstract idea in which I can thrive in, a future I can work for, health which I can live vivaciously through.

I stand upon this box, which I have built despite hardships. I watch the threatening hands of the world attempt to break me. And sometimes I fall, I look at my knees, and the skin which holds me together? Broken. 

Pain by the hand of Beauty. 

I retrieve my composure by reassurance, and step up again with a weary soul. Waiting for the next judgment, the next whisper, the next stare. I refuse to be enslaved by the ideas meant to tear me down. I look up, into that morning bathroom mirror, and I tell myself; 

You have a beautiful body. You have a beautiful soul. 

Your confidence can change the world.

Out with the old, In with the new

New Year, New You.

 

We all have those years. You know the years that feel as though they couldn't come to an end fast enough. The years that you anticipate January 1st as if it day by day time is moving slower and slower. That, was my year.

 

So why reflect? Why make the decision to turn your life around because of a few hours, and few days, a moment?

 

There is something about the societal demands of the holiday. There is something very special about our opportunity to create the possibility of new and improved goals, plans, and approaches. We spend so much time on the fast pace taking in our daily lives on a big picture. We don't pick apart the situations to develop an insight for ourselves on how the situations became so complicated, or how we became so bitter in the process.The reflection process is our ability to key into those areas. Find the points in time where positive thinking and zen could have completely sent the situation in a different direction.

 

I am not one to bathe in regret or even allow myself to be consumed by it on a small scale. However I think there is a positivity to allowing ourselves to realize regret and learn from it.

 

I look at all of my experiences from the last year with a hardened heart. I believe that these experiences truly had the ability to break me. The unforgivable actions of others towards me, the disrespect, the incoherency of feelings that lead to an ultimate demise. I see the periods of time where I shut down completely staring into space without a thought in my head, and pain consuming me from every angle.

 

There is always positivity in pain.

 

Heading into the new year I felt a strong pull towards preparing myself with a helmet as I hit the wall of another year gone, and as I ran full speed into the wall separating, I left my bags of uncherished relationships, regretful actions, and painful memories on a side to which I cannot retrieve them.

 

Knocking down the wall the pain was welcomed as I entered the new year letting go of the love that nearly broke me, the words that brought me so much pain, and the anxiety caused by uncertainty, and I looked forward to the possibility of regaining my control, reinventing my strength, and finding myself.   

 

So New Year, New Me? Yeah, I would like to think so. But I challenge you this much. Make your resolutions and stick to them. But on the off chance that you find more possibility in the day, resolve to making yourself better every single day.

 

Happy 2014!!