Valentine’s Day is probably the only holiday I can think of that’s truly damaging to a girl’s self-esteem. As soon as February 1 rolls around, Twitter gets flooded with pictures of giant teddy bears, Tiffany and Co. jewelry boxes, and red rose bouquets captioned “goals.” Instagram bombards us with date night photos and gushy love confessions. Everywhere we go, shops, grocery stores, and even pharmacies pressure us into feeling that something is wrong with us if we aren’t drowning in a pile of heart-shaped gifts on February 14. Unless you have a Valentine, you’re not good enough. You’re unlovable.
Photo Credits: Courtney Bailey
The purpose of this blog is to document my own journey towards embracing a healthy approach to beauty while inspiring women everywhere to do the same. But I don’t think we can really begin talking about that until we learn to combat the negative messages society constantly sends us about our self-worth. Valentine’s Day is only one example of how societal pressure makes us think that our value is based in superficial things, like how many boys ask us out, how many likes our selfie gets, or how popular we are. We are constantly told by commercials, advertisements, and pop culture that if our hair is perfect and our clothes are name-brand, we’ll be more attractive and more desirable. And over time, as we are saturated with these messages more and more, we actually start to believe them.
The famous saying “true beauty comes from within” often gets over-quoted in a half-hearted way, causing its truth and poignancy to be completely overlooked. The reality is, perfect hair and likes on Instagram may fill you with confidence for a day, but if those are the only things you base your self-esteem in, you’re going to feel pretty worthless the next time you have a bad hair day or get a negative comment on your photo. The reason so many of us feel so depressed and down on ourselves around Valentine’s Day is that we forget to let our beauty and confidence come from within. We cave in to society’s peer pressure and base how we view ourselves on how other people view us. And if those other people (i.e., our would-be Valentines) don’t love us the way we want them to, we don’t love ourselves either.
Photo Credits: Courtney Bailey
This Valentine’s Day, I want to challenge us all to really focus on separating our self-esteem from the opinions of other people. True, healthy beauty begins with completely loving and accepting yourself, whether you’re single or taken. And no matter how pressuring the Twitter posts and Target aisles get this weekend, determine to fully love and accept yourself despite them.
Get yourself a box of chocolates.
Go shopping and buy yourself whatever you want.
Take yourself on a date to see your favorite movie.
Look in the mirror and tell yourself you’re beautiful… Because you are.
Naturally and Beautifully Me 