You know how some people are always saying "Keep it real"? Well, I think there is something to be said about keeping it natural. Natural is as real as it gets.
There are so many things in our lives that are fake or made up or enhanced or lifted or tucked.
Is it any wonder we don't know who we really are anymore? Or that so many suffer from depression or identity crises? We've all grown up reading magazines, watching television and have been constantly preached at on a daily basis about what we have to "be" in order to be considered "beautiful" or "sexy" or "hot".
When I was growing up I was a chubby kid, I still am chubby. I've gained weight and lost weight so many times I lost count of how many different diets my mother put me on. My mother would even tell me at the table when she had cooked my favorite meal, that I didn't "need" a second helping. Yet she would force feed me tomatoes, which I detested. She even went so far as to recite "Chubby, chubby, two-by-four, couldn't get through the bathroom door" to me in front of my younger sisters who in turn threw fat jokes at me mercilessly. Way to lead by example Mom!
Yet now, when I look back on pictures of myself as a child, I really wasn't "FAT"! Kudos to Mom for plunging my self-esteem into the fricking gutter during my most influential years for no reason.
Well, I grew up and now I have a daughter of my own who is a little on the chubby side herself. Now is this a problem for me, one might ask? My answer is "no", and here's why...My job as a parent, a mother, a confidante, and a role model is to lead by example. All I ask of my daughter is that she take care of her body and eat healthy when I am not around. Will I put her on a "diet", no I won't because diets don't work.
Your diet is what you should be eating to remain in good health on a daily basis and as truth would have it, no one's diet is foolproof nutritious and even if it were, in the end we're all going to die anyway so....isn't that what a diet is anyway? DIE with a T on the end LOL!
In reality what really needs to happen is that we need to change the way we think, we need new perspective. Change is good and it starts in our own backyard.
My new perspective is this ---> "If it is to be, it is up to me." Here's what I've learned:
a. I don't need someone to tell me I am acceptable, I need to accept me.
b. Makeup does not make me beautiful, I am beautiful because of who I am.
c. I am still beautiful, even when my hair is wet and I have no makeup on. YES!
d. If I love me, then others will too.
e. If someone doesn't like me, it's still okay for me to like me.
f. Just because someone doesn't agree with me, doesn't mean I am unimportant.
g. I can't spell SUCCESS without U (YOU). Your success is my success.
h. It's okay for me to be me.
i. I should always lead by example.
j. Communication is essential to growth.
k. Compliments are a gift and I should accept them graciously.
l. Criticism is a learning tool.
m. I should never be so set in my ways that I cannot accept change.
n. Change is good.
It's okay to feel beautiful, sexy and hot even though by the media world's standards you may not be. What do they know? Who are THEY anyways?
Ya know...I just love how little Susie Hollywood critic sets the standard for what makes me beautiful and sexy and hot.
Hellooooooooooooooooooooooooo SOMEBODY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't think so! -- So anyway, I'll leave y'all with this last little tidbit...You're beautiful and you know it, so why wouldn't you want to show it?
Hold your head up high, smile like you mean it, blow the world a kiss, wink and let 'em know your sexy!
I'm serious, if you believe it, so will everyone else around you.
Beauty and confidence are soooooooo sexy!
Yah so go on wit ur HOT self! That was my inner Queen Latifa speaking! Heh!
KEEP IT NATURAL!
