The other day a friend told me that when she was younger she would look at her mom’s fashion magazines and wish that she looked like the women in those magazines. Who hasn’t felt that way, even today? Why do we put so much value on “looks” instead of happiness or achievement?

I feel like all of us ask this question, but still buy into the perception of what the media thinks is “beauty.” I feel like beauty is someone who’s lived their life to the fullest. A person who has accepted themselves for who they are, and are not scared to stand in a crowded place and be vulnerable. This is beauty. This is power.

I have twin girls who may grow up struggling with self-acceptance. I can encourage them to be themselves and love everything about themselves, but they may still have to deal with rejection, ridicule and hate. I will do my best to guide them if this happens to them.

My first way of helping them with self-acceptance will be to NOT have the fashion magazines of the world laying around my house with their airbrushed “super” models and their articles on how to seduce a man. Every time I look at these magazines, I feel like I am not good enough, rich enough, beautiful enough and bitchy enough to be cool in today’s society.

I know that belief of inferiority is a lie, but these magazines open the door in my brain to let that lie in.

So I say f’ that. I choose to believe something else.

I love Brandi Carlile’s lyrics:

“All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I’ve been
And how I got to where I am”

Lines are the beauty of life. They are the road map of your journey and the proof that you are alive!

Let’s start being thankful for who we are and to love everyone else for who they are. Like this woman in the video, she proved that people want to accept and love each other.

It starts with you and me. Let’s change the paradigm of human consciousness to acceptance… Not blame, not pity, but pure love.