Me and Taylor Swift’s Take on the F’d Up Standards of Beauty in our Society…
Many of us are grasping to attain our ideal of beauty with the belief that if we could just lose ten pounds, look younger, have the perfect guy, perfect kids, perfect house, everything else in our lives would fall into place.
To make matters worse, we compare ourselves to others in our lives or in the media and think that whatever look or life they have is the perfect one and if we can just look like that, we’d be happy.
We all compare ourselves to others that is totally natural. It is also totally normal to want to be better or improve ourselves. But chasing perfection, which isn’t real, definitely won’t give you a fair chance at feeling good about being you.
As a celebrity makeup artist working with some of the world’s most “beautiful” and “successful” people in the world, I can tell you firsthand that they are not “perfect” and without a team of stylists who put them together before they appear on camera, they wouldn’t look anything like they do on camera.
To top that off, once they get in front of the camera; lighting, camera shading, and digital enhancements take place to create an even more perfect image.
Not to mention, celebs are not without their fears, struggles, and obstacles. None of us are immune to stress, personal issues, and feeling not good enough.
Rick and I recently watched Miss Americana on Netflix. A documentary about Taylor Swift’s intimate journey to stardom. In this film, Taylor shares her personal struggles of feeling not good enough, a battle she had with an eating disorder, and feelings of never being able to live up to our society’s standards of beauty.
Taylor openly talked about how she had to deconstruct an entire belief system…toss it out and reject it and turn the negative self-talk and beliefs around to positives. She is now living a more authentic, healthy, and happy life because she has chosen to live according to what is right for her, no matter what the cost of her career, and to eat to be healthy …not starve herself to be a size 00!
Taylor has also decided to use her voice to make a difference in our world, not just through her music, by speaking out and standing up for what she believes in, even if it makes waves. She is being heard and making a difference!
It’s amazing how much we fear being true to ourselves. We fear rejection. We fear not being loved. We fear so much of what others think, that we lose ourselves and wonder why we are never happy and always feeling some level of not good enough.
We will never feel good enough if we always strive to live up to the standards of others.
The important thing to know deep down is that the voices in our heads are not real. We were born perfect and were programmed through time and life experience to believe otherwise.
The key is to reprogram those thoughts as they come up and keep our spirits playing beautiful thoughts.
Here are some ways to begin reprogramming limiting beliefs when they come up…
Take out a journal and write down the following:
1. What are the negative voices running in your head? Some examples may be “I am not pretty”, “I am not thin enough”, “I’m not smart enough”. Write them down.
2. Next, write down where you first learned the limiting beliefs. Did someone tell you were not pretty, not capable? Did you begin to feel this way after comparing yourself to others?
3. Now turn your negative beliefs around to positives. When self-doubt arises it’s important to remind yourself of all that is good and beautiful about you! If you struggle coming up with positive thoughts about yourself, call your best friend. Ask her to help you come up with what’s beautiful about you!
4. Focus on what is right about your life! List everything you can think of. Your life, your health, your friends, your family. When you focus on your positives you will begin to shift your focus off of the negative.
How nice would it be to live your life authentically? Seriously. What if you let go of comparing yourself to others and be the trend setter of your own life? Would you feel less pressure? Worry? Doubt? If there is no one to measure up to but yourself, you’d be accountable to yourself.
The point here is that all of the negative voices in our heads are false and only rob us of our self-confidence. What we think of ourselves can easily be turned around once we take charge of our thoughts, which will lead to better decisions, which will lead to better lives.
Every day we are faced with important choices and actions that we will take as a result of those choices. The most important choice of all though is the one we make to see the beauty in ourselves and others and take action to appreciate it.
If you get a chance, check out Taylor Swift’s Documentary on Netflix. My husband and I watched it and she inspired us both, even more, to live authentically and not give a shit what others think! Trust me, it’s worth it!
In love and gratitude for you~
Michelle