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I love working with brides who are confident in who they are and how they look, and they invest in themselves, holistically, for the long-term. They love embracing and enhancing their features.
Being in the beauty industry, I’ve learned that everyone- LITERALLY everyone- has something they dislike about themselves. It might be their freckles, or nose, jawline or eyebrows, or maybe they always wanted to lose those few extra pounds. Once I lose 5 pounds, I’ll love my body, is something you might have thought. Then, maybe you did lose that weight, and you still continued pointing out your “flaws.” We might “fix” that one thing, but then soon after, we get obsessed about another issue about our face. Then, the cycle starts again— it’s an exhausting process!!
When brides come to me saying they want their eyes to be bigger because their eyes look “too Asian,” or when people say they want all their freckles and beauty marks covered, it makes me sad because I wish it was something they loved and would want to show.
You are beautiful just the way you are!
But that is it! You are ALWAYS enough. Everyone who sits in my chair is literally SOOO stunning just the way they are in their own unique ways, and I wish they just knew it! I had one client sit in my chair who shared about how her lips always looked so big and her cupid’s bow is too pronounced. She asked me to line her lips so that it wasn’t as visible. The next person—I kid you not— said she hated her thin lips and wanted me overline her lips, especially the top. Something you hate about yourself is something another person wishes they had. Another reminder— you are beautiful just the way you are!
After working with hundreds of women, I eventually came to conclusion, that with this “fixing” mindset, we will probably never be happy with how we look. For example, I always viewed myself as fat. Whether I was 50 pounds heavier or 30 pounds lighter, I still always thought of myself as fat. That’s when I realized, I will never be happy with myself with the mindset I had. I started changing my perspective about how I viewed myself.
My journey to self-acceptance.
I’ve definitely come a long way with growing in my self-love and acceptance. This was something I struggled with as an adolescent and young adult as well. For me, it was always my acne scars and my round nose. Seeing photos of people with super clear skin or people who got nose jobs made me self-conscious of my own features. Additionally, being Asian in a predominantly white community, I always wanted bigger eyes, or curlier, longer lashes because this was what I interpreted as “pretty” based on the magazines I kept up with. It wasn’t until I started working in beauty that I am understanding that everyone— even the most gorgeous models— have something they dislike about themselves.
I’m slowly trying to shift my mindset to that of self-love and self-acceptance. Instead of looking at a photo of myself and responding, “Wow my nose looks huge,” I am reframing my thoughts to, “That’s how I look and I'm able to see with that feature and smell with my nose. How lucky I am!” It’s small, but small steps make big impacts.
Another thing that has helped me grow in self-love is working out. A positive mindset is a cyclical. When I work out, I feel strong, which helps me feel good about the things around me, which helps me stay motivated to keep working out.
Anyway, enough of me rambling lol. I hope you were able to take at least one thing away from this very scatter-minded blog post about self-love and self-acceptance!
xoxo,
Olivia
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