When I was a fairly young child, I started having some major self-esteem issues. Most of them stemmed directly from my physical appearance. When I was around 12 or 13 I would make lists of all of the things I hated about myself. These lists would include things like having dark circles under my eyes, having freckles, having ugly teeth, and being flat chested (yes, at 13 I was worried that I would never be busty enough).
As I entered my teenage years, my self-esteem actually went up quite a bit. This may have been due to the fact that I moved when I was 15, and boys started paying attention to me. And when boys pay attention to you, it means you are pretty, right? (Please note the sarcasm.)
Through some maturation and definite spiritual growth, I learned to value myself for who I was, a daughter of God with infinite worth, and not by what I looked like. Nevertheless, there has always been one thing that makes me extremely uncomfortable.
I have an overbite.
There, I said it. I absolutely and completely detest my teeth. And I hate talking about them. In fact, I hate talking about teeth in general. The word “teeth” makes me cringe. Maybe because I am reminded of my own imperfect teeth, which have been a sore spot for as long as I can remember. If ever the topic of conversation comes to teeth, I immediately go quiet. I will not contribute, so as to ensure that not an ounce of attention is directed towards my mouth.
In fact, that paragraph right there was really hard for me to write. Seriously. Because now you are all looking at my teeth, right?
Well, the reason I have come out and made this public confession is because of this: it no longer bothers me. And I will not allow it to make me uncomfortable anymore.
The reason for this miraculous change comes from a talk that I was listening to a few weeks ago. It was given at a BYU devotional this past August by professor Kristen L. Matthews and is entitled, “The Worth of Souls is Great.”
In her talk, Matthews says the following,
“We have created categories such as nationality, race, ethnicity, sex, religious affiliation, political party, marital status, and so on to organize and make sense of humankind’s diversity. However, too often we use these seemingly descriptive systems to determine the worth of others. These human-made hierarchies of value can cause division, contention, and skewed understandings of self-worth.
One system of valuation that has negative consequences for feelings of individual worth is beauty. Human beings go to great lengths to achieve some ideal beauty—extreme workouts, plastic surgery, eating disorders, elaborate makeup rituals, extensive hair and nail treatments, and compulsive shopping. All of these behaviors stem from the desire to be beautiful because we are taught to believe that beautiful people are more valuable than others.
Remember: ideal beauty is a construction of this world. We can point to the usual suspects for this false system of value—the fashion industry, advertising, television, and so on. And yes, we are bombarded with images that say, “This is beautiful. If you are this, you will be popular, you will be important, you will be datable, you will be marriageable, you will be worth loving.”
The phrase “ideal beauty is a construction of this world” really stuck out to me. The moment she started to talk about beauty, I immediately thought of my overbite. But as soon as she said that “ideal beauty is a construction of this world,” I remember thinking, “So...who is it that says that my overbite makes me uglier?”
Maybe it’s because when you go to the dentist with “crooked” or “imperfect” teeth, they will offer to “fix” them for you. And the dentist's office doesn't seem like a place to promote superficial beauty. It would be for your health, right? Because the dentist is like a doctor.
This is not a post to antagonize dentists, but rather to come to grips with something myself. There is no “ideal beauty.”
The phrase “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is really true. We are conditioned from a very young age to be “beholders” who judge beauty according to standards brought to us by magazines and TV shows and movies.
Don’t let one (or many) of your physical characteristics hold you back or bring you down.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said this:
“In terms of preoccupation with self and a fixation on the physical, this is more than social insanity; it is spiritually destructive, and it accounts for much of the unhappiness women, including young women, face in the modern world. And if adults are preoccupied with appearance—tucking and nipping and implanting and remodeling everything that can be remodeled—those pressures and anxieties will certainly seep through to children.”
That goes for women and men. As a new mother of a beautiful baby girl, I want my daughter to know that if she doesn't look like the traditional supermodel on a magazine cover, that’s okay. Just because you don’t look like someone else doesn't detract at all from your own beauty and certainly not from your infinite worth.
I have an overbite. And I’m still beautiful.
References:
P.S.
If you happen to feel bad about some flaw or your teeth (like me), check out this photo gallery I found from MSN!
No comments:
Post a Comment