Many times I wonder how we perceive each other. Surrounded by mirrors, captured by photo lenses, displayed on screens, we are constantly exposed to the world but mostly to our own eyes. We all experience comparison at some point in our life where we find something we don’t like about ourselves or we wished to change it for someone else’s body, face, character, lifestyle...
We sometimes compare each other so much that we end up judging ourselves, obsessing with looks and fighting for change, even if that means giving up on health, going through surgery, spending countless amounts of money on expensive creams or treatments and, in some occasions, even trying to defeat genetics!
By putting myself on Social Media I often experienced insecurities when posting a photo. Do my teeth look straight enough? Are my stretch marks too obvious? Is my nose a bit deformed?...
I tried to analyze how did I become so conscious about my looks, so judgmental and perfectionist to my genes...
I remembered the first time I realized I had stretch marks in the sides of my hips was when I was about 13 years old. It was during an afternoon by the beach when some of my friends pointed out that I had “something really weird” down there...
Heaps of almond oil tubs later, some of those friends also got them, and even tho it took years for me to overcome this shame of showing my hips in public, I’m now over it. I accept my marks, just like if they were war scars and I wish I’d never fought them... but what can I say? I was INFLUENCED.
A term we are very familiar in these last years... we follow “influencers” and we are “influenced” by them, but you don’t need over 20k followers on Instagram to be considered influential, we can become “influencers” at any time someone decides to give us the importance enough to follow our advice, consider our opinion or simply feel inspired by it (this last one doesn’t particularly apply to a positive nor negative inspiration at all)
Yes, back in the day where I only had Facebook to play “Pet Society” and I’d only share photos with those people I actually knew in person, my friends (at the time) were my biggest influencers. I now realized how if nobody would have told me about my stretch marks being weird or ugly I would probably have never realized it. Just like when someone laughed at my nose for the first time or a group of my ballet friends asked me about my unstraighted teeth.
I wonder if I would have never listened to these comments, would I ever felt so insecure?
Are insecurities learnt? Would we blame, shame, hate ourselves if we wouldn’t have an external influence that would drive us to do so?
In my opinion, looks are just looks, I want to be inspired and influenced to improve something more important in my life, such as my health, my dreams, my character and the way I communicate with others. There are so many ways to improve yourself without having to physically change or blame yourself.
So if whilst you were reading this you thought of some insecurities you may have and wondered where did they come from or maybe just like me, you discovered their belonging... my advice to you it’s to: let it go. Forgive those influencers. Be it your friends, family, TV, magazines, Internet, your ballet teacher, model agency, people from school... everyone! You are now conscious of this and you can move on. Accept your differences towards the rest of this world and work on those things that actually matter.
Of course this is just what I personally came up with at the end of this talk with myself, you are free to do whatever you feel like in the end. I personally choose to love and accept myself the way I am. I might not look like a Victoria’s Secret model, but you know what? that’s fine by me.
Written by Nurri Mollins
