The Inside AND Outside: "Making Friends With The Mirror."

Embrace everything about yourself. Stop worrying about what people think about you. Stop looking in the mirror and think to yourself, "I wish I ______." It's not healthy. You have crazy curly hair? Awesome. Embrace it. You have acne-prone skin? Sweet. So does every other teen on this planet.  You wish you had blue eyes? Well guess what. I'm sure those people with blue eyes want another eye color too.

I lead a small group at my church and I was focusing on self-image. I did an activity where I had each girl come up and write one thing they think makes the perfect girl on a mirror. It was a HUGE mirror. And by the end of the activity, the whole thing was filled. 

Thin. Blond. Popular. Beautiful. Athletic.  Personality everyone loves.. Big boobs. Has a boyfriend. Confident. Straight white teeth. Has own car. Doesn't have zits. Has loads of cute clothes... The list went on forever.

I held up the mirror to them to they could see the image of who they are-- and what the world says they need to be.  I continued on with my lesson and told them this... 

• Nobody can fit this image. There is not one girl on this earth that could fit that image. 
• Beauty will fade. We're gonna get old. We're gonna get wrinkly and have snow white hair. So instead of obsessing over what we look like on the OUTSIDE-- we need to focus more on the INSIDE. Because that's the only thing that will last. Don't we all know of a person who has her "Outside" image looking perfect but on the inside she's nasty? She has her appearance all figured out perfectly but when it comes to her personality, it couldn't get any worse.  She makes fun of people all the time, and she's constantly in drama. This is just an example of how much more important the inside is than the out. You can look good, but if you aren't pretty on the inside, it's a turn off to many people.
• Even the people we may think is the most beautiful person out there has insecurities.  That girl at school who seems to have it all figured out-- I promise you is struggling to.  Don't think that looking like another person will make it all better. I have a lot of friends who are GORGEOUS inside AND out but they still have really low self esteem-- its unbelievable sometimes how such an amazing person could still think they're anything but beautiful.
• We were made different for a reason. Nobody is going to be the same! You were born an original-- don't die a copy.
  
  At the end, I told them one last final thing.  There's only one possible way you could be every single thing that you listed on that mirror. And as they listened closer and got more excited to hear the secret, I took out a huge picture and slapped it over the mirror.

The key to beauty is learning to embrace everything about yourself-- even the 'bad,' and learning to be worried more about our personality [ex. how we treat people] than our appearance. Don't be a Barbie. Besides, how many clones of Barbie to those factories make a day?

**I'm not trying to tell you guys that I'm perfect and have life all figured out. I struggle with everything I post about just as much as anyone else sometimes!