NORMALIZE LOVING YOUR BODY!

Everywhere I look lately, I see the same overly filled lips, lifted faces, and perfectly sculpted features. It’s overwhelming. It's as if uniqueness is being erased, replaced with a single standard of beauty that feels artificial and unattainable. It’s not just sad, it’s strange. We’re slowly starting to all look the same, and in that sameness, something deeply human is being lost.

I understand the desire to enhance what we have. Changing your hair, updating your style, those can be fun, expressive, and empowering. Some procedures, too, make sense in very personal and meaningful ways. I’ve broken my nose multiple times, and the bump it left behind has always bothered me. One day, I might choose to have it corrected. I also understand the deep yearning some women feel to have the bodies they were never given, like wanting breasts that help them feel more like themselves. These choices come from a place of wholeness, of wanting to feel more like who we are, not less.

But this obsession with achieving a flawless outside at any cost, spending thousands chasing an image that keeps shifting, it feels desperate, and honestly, heartbreaking. We’re told we’re not enough so often, we start to believe it. And we forget that the beauty in our individuality, the lines, the quirks, the asymmetry, is what makes us real. What makes us us.

Even the basic upkeep of beauty routines has started to feel exhausting. The appointments, the products, the pressure—it’s relentless. That’s why it feels so refreshing when I see someone embracing their natural self. There’s something grounding and beautiful about it. So why don’t we normalize that? Why has simply being ourselves become something rare or even shameful?

Even I, with my fair features, often feel strangely exposed—like a “naked mole rat in the sun”—when I leave the house without mascara. People assume I’m tired, sad, or unwell just because I’m not polished. Isn’t that wild? That our natural face can be mistaken for something being wrong?

We need to shift this narrative. There is nothing wrong with being barefaced, undone, or imperfect. In fact, there’s a quiet confidence in it. Pamela Anderson? Although I don't condon her past activities, how absolutely amazing it is to see her natural face and see how gorgeous she is. The confidence radiates!

Joy doesn’t come from flawless skin or curled lashes—it comes from feeling at home in our bodies. From loosening the grip of impossible standards, many of which we’ve absorbed without even realizing it.

It’s time we start celebrating authenticity and letting go of the pressure to be perfect. Because real beauty doesn’t demand maintenance—it simply exists.

Learning to Love How We Look – For Ourselves and Our Children

As women, and especially as mothers, we carry a silent weight on our shoulders every single day: the pressure to look a certain way. We're told we should be thinner, curvier, smoother, younger, trendier—always something else. And if we're not careful, we start to believe those voices more than our own.

I’ve caught myself before—sighing in the mirror, tugging at my skin, criticizing parts of me that have carried babies, weathered storms, and held so much life. And then I catch a smaller pair of eyes watching me. My daughter. My sons. Absorbing the way I speak about myself. Learning, quietly and deeply, that maybe they should be unhappy with the way they look too. It stops me in my tracks every time.

Because here’s the truth: when we change ourselves to meet unrealistic standards, our children don’t just see the new hair, the different body, or the smoothed-out skin. They see the message: “Who I was wasn’t good enough.” And that message is louder than we think.

What we model becomes their inner voice.

When we criticize our own reflection, we teach our daughters to do the same. When we obsess over our flaws, we show our sons that women's worth lies in perfection, not in character or strength. When we spend so much energy fixing, changing, and shrinking ourselves, we send the message that our value is conditional—that individuality is something to correct, not celebrate.

This mindset doesn’t just affect self-esteem—it chips away at the beautiful, wild variety that makes humanity vibrant. When we all strive to look the same, dress the same, age the same, we're erasing our uniqueness. And we are teaching our children to do the same. Our future becomes filled with carbon copies instead of confident, radiant individuals who know they are enough as they are.

So maybe the real revolution starts here—in the mirror. In saying, “I’m okay with how I look today.” In wearing the swimsuit. In putting down the contour stick. In speaking about ourselves with gentleness instead of judgment.

Loving how we look isn’t about arrogance. It’s about acceptance. It’s about showing our children that beauty isn’t a narrow box to fit into, but a wide-open field where everyone is free to shine.

We owe that to them. And to ourselves.

Teach them to love themselves by loving ourselves.