How “Pretty” Became Toxic Because I Was Such A People Pleaser
Guest Prompt By Simão Cunha Week 2, Day 3: “If the time machine was invented today, what would you do?”
“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection” - Buddha
When I was 18, I won a minor beauty pageant complete with a glittering tiara and a huge bouquet of flowers. It was indeed a crowning moment of my life. What I didn’t realize then was that being declared most beautiful for one fleeting moment and the resulting attention in no way meant that this was how the rest of my life was going to look like.
My experience has been that in spite of a crown, life has a heartbreaking way of exposing some hard truths which can completely change the way you view yourself.
A prolonged tryst with depression and fibromyalgia showed me how fickle perceptions of beauty can be. The painful ending of a long term relationship that traced its beginnings to when I was at the peak of my glory cured me of any delusions I had that it might have been based on something more tangible.
At the age when girls transitioned from children to young women I underwent a drastic metamorphosis from an extremely shy duckling into a bewildered swan within a span of a few months. My parents were proud of producing a pretty daughter. I suspect my mother used to live vicariously through me, especially when people would stop and comment about how pretty her daughter was. I can see now that I must have been a reflection of her youth.
It is not a surprise therefore that my young mind started to equate being pretty to being loved and accepted.
In other words I started to believe that I was only lovable based on how I looked. My self esteem and self worth were tied to that misconception and everything else took a backseat.
The Lead Like Jesus blog puts it this way “Our self-esteem and self-worth can either be rooted in our God-given identity, knowing and embracing who He says we are, or in our own perceptions of ourselves which is often rooted in present or past hurts, moments of perceived failure, our performance, mistakes or the standards others have created.”
It doesn’t help that we live in a world with ever changing conceptions of how beauty should look like. Sometimes it gives rise to the falsehood that in order to be loved and accepted we have to present a different version of ourselves. We transform into someone who is not at all a reflection of who we are inside.
Did doing so make me happy?
Not at all.
On the contrary it made me miserable and I often felt like I wasn’t enough.
“Nobody can make you happy until you’re happy with yourself first.”
In hindsight I was just cheating myself and others of getting to know the real me rather than just an inauthentic version of myself that I thought to be the best to “ get noticed’ version.
Talk about the amount of work and effort that goes into maintaining said image!
It especially became a problem in the context of romantic relationships not only due to the uncertainty as to whether the other person liked me solely for the visual appeal but also wondering if they would still continue to like me if I happened to lose my looks.
That need not have been the case if I had been more aware of the other wonderful qualities I have been blessed with: honesty, a sense of humor, empathy…
Hardly a surprise therefore when I discovered the hard way that this is not how healthy, lasting relationships are built.
Over the years, my idea of beauty has undergone a major overhaul and I attribute this to my faith. Surrendering my broken heart, self hate and bleakness with which I viewed my existence to God was as if a tremendous weight lifted off my shoulders.
So when I saw Simão’s prompt, it got me thinking about how wonderful it would be if I could go back in time and have a heart to heart conversation with my younger self.
I would hold her tight and tell her “Sweetheart, I understand how you are feeling and it’s going to be alright. Remember you are deeply loved — and worthy of your own love — because you are precious in God’s eyes. Be secure in this confidence and there will be no room for self doubt and no more trying to settle for crumbs when you deserve the whole cake”.
Thank you Diana C. Thanks Simão Cunha for the lovely prompt & your support. Thanks Spyder for being there. Shout out to Assumpta Nalubowa for her inspiring articles.
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