Learning to Love Your Face Without Makeup
Freedom from negative self-talk starts with embracig habits of celebration.
Photo by Janelle Pol
I’m learning to love my face without makeup.
This has been a struggle. For a long time, each morning I looked in the mirror, I was less than thrilled to see my face. I only felt presentable after filling in my eyebrows and adding mascara to my lashes. I even said aloud to my girlfriends, “I look like an alien without makeup.”
WE BELIEVE WHAT WE SAY ABOUT OURSELVES
I constantly felt like I didn’t measure up to the “standard of beauty” enforced by the myriad of billboards in Times Square. And although some beauty companies are finally embracing a more body-positive approach to advertising, I had already developed a deep sense of inadequacy about my figure and features because I grew up internalizing messages that were not affirming of the way I looked.
Despite the shift we are finally seeing toward being confident however we look, the script in my head kept replaying, “You are ugly without X , Y, or Z.” “You are not skinny enough.” “Your skin isn’t radiant enough.”
We hear our own thoughts on a regular basis more than we hear any other voice, so I began to accept this incessant stream of consciousness as truth.
THE FIRST WOMAN TO CELEBRATE IS YOURSELF
Three statements over the last four years have changed my way of thinking about body-image and self-love. They have helped me interrupt the barrage of negative self-talk.
“You need to learn how to take a compliment.”
While living in Vegas, I had a no-nonsense friend who was quick to call out my irrational thinking. I admired her: I often complimented her on how she put together outfits, did her makeup, and wore her hair. But here’s the irony: whenever she complimented me, I found ways to deflect or negate the compliment with some self-deprecating comment. Although quick to affirm someone else, I blocked myself from receiving affirmation about my own beauty.
This realization made me determined to learn how to receive compliments. Now, I’m working on simply saying “thank you” and letting the compliment sink in. I even write some of them down and meditate on the flattering remarks as a way to add them to my thought life. With this practice implemented over time, it’s been easier to replace some of the negative self-talk with phrases linked to compliments grounded in reality.
“You are sacred, worthy, and luminous.”
My therapist had said this phrase before. But this time she repeatedly declared the poetic affirmation to me over the phone as I sat crying on the floor of my apartment. Barely able to walk after spending a week in the hospital, I had crawled to this spot in my bedroom and finally admitted out loud to her that I had an eating disorder.
Her response: “You are sacred, worthy, and luminous. When you start to truly believe that, the way you treat your body will change.”
Something in me shifted when she made that statement. I had been believing I was “unworthy, defective, and dull.” Thus, I did everything in my power to change that belief by forcing my body into an impossible ideal of perfection through deprivation. The result was that I found myself farther from my goal; I was weak and seriously ill.
I added this affirmation to my self-talk and, eventually, it helped me make different decisions about eating and fitness in order to celebrate and appreciate my body. I learned, over time, to see self-care as a way to support and enhance the health of the body I’ve been blessed with, which is inherently “sacred, worthy, and luminous.”
“Love your friend in the same way you love yourself.”
Jesus said this. During his time on earth, he taught many ideas that are foundational to our modern understanding of morality, human rights, and social justice. He summed up the famous ten commandments with two primary instructions: love the Lord your God... love your friend in the same way you love yourself. With this revolutionary thought, he called people to love others the same way they loved themselves, which implies that our capacity to love ourselves directly affects our capacity to love others.
What, you may be asking, does this have to do with celebrating our bodies and having a positive self-image?
If we want to see the flourishing of femininity in women around us and across the globe, then we have to be honest with ourselves. Are we doing that for ourselves? For instance, if I offered the same strategy and self-talk I used on myself three years ago to empower my 8-year-old niece today, I would not be loving my niece well at all. Rather, I’d be harming her.
In other words, the way I love myself determines how I will love other women. When I’m harsh and critical of myself, I tend to be harsh and critical of other women. If I celebrate my body type, I am more likely to celebrate my friend’s body type. If I can love my face with or without makeup, I will help my roommate learn to love her face, with or without makeup. My ability to love others starts with my ability to love myself.
CREATE A LIFESTYLE OF CELEBRATION ONE DAY AT A TIME
Whenever negative self-talk leads me to believe I’m unworthy, these three phrases help me interrupt those thoughts and choose to celebrate myself instead. This isn’t always easy. There are still many days when I don’t feel lovely, radiant, or beautiful. I wrote this article in direct response to the dread I felt one Saturday morning. I got worked up over going out to grab coffee without first putting some blush and mascara on! The struggle is still real. But I’m determined to spend more of my days overcoming that dread and learning to love the woman that I am, both for the sake of my health and to encourage other women to do so as well. (For more tips, read more about Radiant healthy self talk here)
Part of creating a lifestyle and culture of celebration is looking at myself in the mirror every morning and saying “You are radiant” until I believe it. What could that on-going celebration look like for you?
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For more insight on practicing self-love, check out this article.