I remember the first time I looked in the mirror and thought to myself…..’ I am ugly.’

These thoughts kept lingering in my mind like a whisper that echoed through my being every time I went in front of a mirror. I could barely meet my own eyes. I looked at myself and all I saw was a body that was not supposed to be mine. I would tell myself, “This is not how a woman should look like…..I can’t love someone like this” With every sight of me, I felt a wave of shame wash through me. There was too much involved. ….. More than I knew how to carry myself with confidence.

Looking in the mirror made me see my flaws, my blemishes, my imperfections, every bag of fries I have ever eaten, every scoop of ice cream I have taken in, every time a guy I liked looked past me and every negative comment both guys I knew and guys I didn’t laid out for me to hear.

Sometimes when I met a guy I liked, I would turn into a totally different person. I would crawl into a cave…into a state of complete silence out of the low self esteem I had and I would come out as a boring person. (We all know that boring is not cute) during these few minutes of hibernation, I would think to myself, “he would like me better if I was slimmer….. Maybe I am just not pretty enough…..”and would leave with a conclusion that if I was beautiful, I wouldn’t be alone….maybe I would have more friends the voices in my head got louder and louder and the more they did, the more I felt worthless.

It broke me. I would cry all the time. I cried for the body I thought I should have had. I believed that there was absolutely no beauty in me. Every time I heard someone say that time heals wounds I would roll my eyes over the overly used cliché.

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Years later….as I write this, I can only feel the truth in those words….because one day, I took the broken pieces of my heart and soul and stitched them back together with a loving hand. One day I discovered that perfection is not beauty and attraction is not love. One day, I looked at my body and smiled at what I saw. One day, I realized that I am unequivocally, intrinsically, imperfectly beautiful. I am beautiful for all my flaws and I am allowed to love myself for very one of them.

I had to grow to love myself. I did not have a good self image at first but finally it occurred to me that I am either going to love me or hate me. I chose to love myself and everything else fell in place..it all sprung from there.

If you look closely at a tree, you will notice its knots and dead branches, just like our bodies. What I have learnt is that beauty and imperfection go together wonderfully.

I remember the old me and the bunch of lies I told her, the pain I caused her…I remember her puffy eyes, her wet cheeks from all the tears she shed and her runny nose. She was gorgeous. She was lovely and she deserved to be blissful. Because even as she sat there broken and alone, she was worth living.

In the world we are living today, everyone will always have something to say about your shape, your hair and all. You need to know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder.

So today, I want to let you know what I could not tell myself during those years…you are beautiful, you are lovely, you are gorgeous, and you are enough.  The world is brighter and better because of you. Look in the mirror and know, without doubt you are worth living. So never, ever look at yourself and believe that you are anything less than the amazing creation you are. Nothing makes a woman more beautiful more beautiful than the belief that she is beautiful. I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being.

And finally, do not dare, for one more second surround yourself with people who are not aware of the greatness that you are.

Always remember that we accept the love we think we deserve.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Yours,

                                                                                                                                                   Cece J