I would be lying if I said I didn’t think about how I’m going to look on my wedding day.
When I think about how I want to look on my wedding day, there is a part of me that feels this pressure to be beautiful. Because everyone expects a bride to be beautiful. I get this feeling like I need to live up to this standard to be beautiful. What if I’m not what people expect? What if I don’t look beautiful? The fact that my mind goes to these thoughts is irrational because they are based on irrational fears. These thoughts reveal a lot about myself, and I want to share them with you because there are many other people out there who have similar thoughts about not being good enough. Lies grow in the darkness, so by sharing my thoughts with you, I am no longer giving them power over me! So first, these thoughts reveal my fear of failure. I have a fear of failing. Aren’t we all a little bit afraid of failure? Afraid of saying the wrong answer out loud, losing, or attempting something and falling flat on your face. Failing can be stressful and scary because it means you did not succeed in reaching a goal or an expectation you set for yourself. I have to reassess this “expectation” of beauty I place on myself. I have to remind myself that my beauty is who I am not what I look like! Secondly, these thoughts reveal that I have made assumptions of the people who will be at my wedding. Tom and I invited the people who are closest to us to our wedding. Therefore, if I assume that someone would think less of us for how we appear, I am making a huge judgment on those people’s characters. If I honestly think that someone at my wedding would tear me down for how I look, then that person shouldn’t be at our wedding because they don’t love us for us. Thirdly, I am a people pleaser. This is part of my personality. I am the compromiser in those conflict management style tests who wants to make everyone happy. However, there are many drawbacks to being a people pleaser one of which is the inclination to vanity. If you care more about what other people’s opinions than what is true then that is vanity. True beauty comes from within. True beauty comes from what you do with your body not what it looks like. I know that my self-worth is in who I am as a woman. Each person has sacredness in their soul. This is not something that can be changed or taken away. My self-worth cannot be measured in appearances. My self-worth is in my identity as a human. As a Catholic Christian, I believe that being human means that we were created out of love by a God who made us – not because He needs us – but so that we could experience Him, Love. When I scroll across something that says “lose 10 pounds for your wedding now”, I get sick to my stomach because there is a diet industry exploiting women like me into second guessing their self-worth is defined by a number on the scale and the sexual appeal of their body. So to you – fellow woman - you are already beautiful. You are already perfect. Just the way you are. Right now. In your current state. Your perfection is who you are. You always have been flawless, and you always will be beautiful. The only true standard of beauty is you being unapologetically feminine in your own unique way and living a life of love.
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Thanks for stopping by! I'm Madeleine, and I write about how I think and why I do the things I do as a Catholic. Archives
October 2018
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