Recapturing Beauty Challenge

...hello?
anybody there?

oh, hey! it's been awhile!

But I finally have something motivating enough to put blogging higher on my list of priorities!

I want to talk about something really special and important that you may or may not have heard about before.

It's the

 BYU Women's Resources Recapturing Beauty Challenge.

This is a 10-day challenge that BYU Women's Resources puts on every year about helping women to discover their personal beauty. This year's theme is all about making peace.

A few weeks ago, my friend Kylie asked me to participate in this challenge as part of a feature she wanted to do for her blog.

A word on Kylie:

Kylie is one lovely lady who you should all blog-stalk on the regular.

We met in Women's Chorus freshman year and luckily for my ears, she sat right behind me.

She just told me that she was a little in love with me but was scared to talk to me a lot that year. I remember a lot of mutual outfit-complimenting. 

The secret lady-crush was mutual, Kylie.

So how lucky was I that she showed up in my ward this year? Luckier than that song by Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat. 

For the next ten days, Kylie is featuring a guest post daily from ten wonderful women about each of the challenges on her blog.

I was beyond excited and honored when she asked me to participate.

I'm going to do some posts of my own throughout the challenge, but day number seven will be over on her adorable page.

So here is why I am participating, and why I think you should, too:

I have rarely, rarely felt like a "beautiful" girl. And rarely even pretty. And I have a terrible inferiority complex that tells me my personality isn't enough to make up for the lack in the aesthetics department.

That feeling has been reinforced by a lot of things.

There were the years of petty girls all the way through high school (and even a handful now).

An impossible cultural and societal standard of beauty to live up to.

When I was a late bloomer in the relationship department, I had always convinced myself that somehow it was because I wasn't good-looking enough for boys to pay attention to me.

Terrible tagged photos on the internet.

And let's not forget those changing-room mirrors.

As I was thinking about participating in this challenge, I realized that I had never taken the time to feel beautiful for myself.

The time when I was most happy with the way I looked and felt as a person, was when there was a very nice boy to reassure me of those things on a daily basis. Which is not a bad thing, but that boy is on the other side of the world now, and I have realized that my entire life,

I have relied on the opinions of others to determine my view of my own beauty.

Which is really a shame, because I also noticed that I hold myself to a double-standard. I think of others as being beautiful people and I admire a lot of things about them. And when I think of the beautiful women I know, although they are all gorgeous, I think of them as more than that.

So why can't I see myself as more than that?

Everyday I feel insecure about the way I look. Every. Day. And it is something that I feel guilty about, for not truly believing in my worth as a daughter of my Heavenly Father. I decided that I don't want to feel this way anymore, and this challenge is a good starting spot.

Let's stop rating ourselves on scales from 1-10. Let's stop trying to fit into pants that are too small because we care so much about that number on the tag. Let's stop comparing ourselves to each other. Let's stop making fake faces in our social media photos just to get a few more likes. Let's appreciate the wonderful bodies we've been given and all the good we can do with them.

Take the challenge.

Today was day one: making peace with the mirror.

This was my experience:

Writing these was surprisingly hard. I had a tough time coming up with meaningful things that I actually would benefit from reading every day of this challenge. I was surprised at how hard it was for me to come up with genuine statements or questions about myself that would make me feel empowered, because so often my self-talk is negative.

I recently dated a boy who said that he noticed "I was kind of shy."

I was taken aback by that comment, because although I consider myself an introvert (an extreme introvert), I don't consider myself to be shy.

But he said that one of his reasons behind that thought was that when I laughed, I would cover my mouth with my hand.

It got me thinking about how I sometimes refrain myself because I don't want to stand out; I don't want the attention on me. Even laughing loudly happens only when I'm around people I'm comfortable with.

I wanted this to be a focus of my day, and I think I did a pretty good job.

In fact, I participated in a dance party tonight with my favorite pseudo-roommates and some friends in the ward, and I danced ridiculously and laughed loudly and sang at the top of my lungs. And it felt good to let it go.

Tomorrow: Making peace with your hair.