How Beauty Standards Are Affecting the Way We See Ourselves
Hi my girls,
This post feels a little heavier to write… and if I’m being honest, a little scary too.
I’ve been sitting with it for a while, going back and forth on how to even say it… because it’s not something I’ve fully figured out or moved past.
It’s something I’m still walking through in real time.
But maybe that’s exactly why I need to talk about it.
Because if I’ve felt this… I know I’m not the only one.
I’ve been thinking a lot about beauty lately.
Not in a fun, “get ready with me” or “outfit of the day” kind of way… but in that deeper way that kind of sits underneath everything we’re doing and consuming as women.
Like… the thoughts you don’t always say out loud, but they’re there.
It makes you look in the mirror a little longer than usual…
and start questioning things you never used to even notice.
There’s always this little voice that creeps in like,
“you could fix that.”
And the truth is… we’re living in a time where we actually can.
Like at any moment.
If we’re unhappy with something, there’s a solution. A procedure. A tweak. A quick fix.
It’s made out to be subtle, small, and “harmless.”
And I think that’s where it starts to get really complicated.
Because it’s not always coming from a place of confidence or empowerment like we tell ourselves it is.
A lot of the time… it’s coming from comparison.
I don’t think we talk enough about how much we’re consuming every single day.
Like really think about it…
We scroll past hundreds of faces.
Perfect lighting. Perfect angles. Perfect bodies. Perfect features.
It starts to feel like that’s the new normal.
And even when we know it’s curated…
even when we know there are filters, edits, angles, and things we’ll never see behind the scenes…
it still gets in our heads.
Little by little.
You start noticing things about yourself you never noticed before.
Your face starts to feel like something to analyze…
instead of something that just is.
Maybe at first it’s not that noticeable.
But then one day you catch yourself thinking,
“I wish I looked more like that.”
And then it turns into,
“I could change this.”
And then suddenly… you’re not seeing yourself the same way anymore.
You’re just standing there, wishing something about you was different.
I’ve felt this more than I’d like to admit… and honestly, I hate even saying that out loud.
There have been moments where I’ve picked myself apart in ways that don’t even feel like me.
Moments where I’ve looked at pictures of myself and felt disconnected… like, is that really me?
Moments where I’ve thought about how easy it would be to just fix something and move on… because it’s “subtle,” “small,” and “harmless”… and everyone else is doing it.
And that’s the part that scared me.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to look your best.
Trust me… I love feeling good, putting outfits together, doing my makeup, all of it.
But it’s scary how quickly that can turn into feeling like you’re never enough as you are.
Because if your confidence is built on what you can change…
it’s always going to feel a little unstable.
There will always be something else.
And what makes this feel so heavy… is that it doesn’t just stay surface-level.
It starts to affect the way you move through your life.
The way you show up in rooms.
The way you take pictures… or avoid them (umm hello… guilty).
The way you get dressed.
The way you talk to yourself when no one else is around.
Sometimes it even makes you feel like you need to become a different version of yourself just to feel accepted.
More this. Less that.
Fix this. Hide that.
And without even realizing it… you start drifting away from the girl you actually are.
I’ve had moments where I didn’t feel fully like myself.
Where I felt hyper-aware of how I looked, how I was perceived, how I compared to others.
And it’s exhausting.
Like mentally, emotionally… all of it.
Because deep down, I don’t think any of us actually want to become someone else.
We just want to feel enough.
Without overthinking it.
Without earning it.
Without fixing something first.
We want to feel beautiful without questioning it.
We want to feel confident without having to prove it.
We want to feel at home in our own skin.
And I’ve realized something that’s been really important in my journey:
The world benefits from you feeling like you’re not enough.
Because if you feel like you’re lacking… you’ll keep searching.
You’ll keep buying.
You’ll keep changing.
You’ll keep trying to become someone else.
But God…
He doesn’t work like that.
He’s not asking you to become someone else to be worthy.
He’s asking you to come back to who you already are.
There’s a verse I keep coming back to:
“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” (Psalm 139:14)
And I used to read that without really sitting with it.
But now I do.
Fearfully and wonderfully made.
That means you were created with intention.
That means nothing about you is accidental.
And this one too:
“Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)
Which honestly brings so much peace.
Because the things we fixate on the most…
aren’t even the things that matter most to Him.
At some point I had to ask myself a hard question:
Where is this actually coming from?
Is it truly me?
Or is it everything I’ve been seeing, comparing, absorbing, and measuring myself against?
Because when I really sat with it…
I realized a lot of it wasn’t mine.
It was learned.
Shaped by what I was consuming.
Formed in moments of comparison I didn’t even notice at the time.
And this is where my faith started to come back into the conversation in a deeper way.
I was reminded that I was created on purpose.
That the way I look isn’t random.
That God wasn’t careless when He made me.
And maybe the goal was never to become someone else entirely…
but to fully become who I already am.
I think one of the hardest things about being a woman right now…
is that we’re constantly being shown new versions of what “better” looks like.
And it’s exhausting.
Because you can never fully get there… or stay there.
There’s always a new standard.
A new trend.
Something else to fix.
And I just don’t think we were made to live like that.
Trust me… I’m not saying any of this from a place of having it all together.
I still have days where I feel it.
Days where I have to catch my thoughts and remind myself what’s actually true.
Days where I need to put my phone down and reconnect with myself again.
Sometimes I even find myself venting to Jack about how heavy it can feel…
and how it starts to affect everything.
But I think that’s the work.
And it’s good work.
Choosing, over and over again, not to lose yourself in something that was never meant to define you in the first place.
I want to be a girl who stands confidently in the way God created me.
Who actually embodies Christ-centered confidence.
I still have insecure thoughts sometimes.
I still feel it.
But they don’t get to control me.
Comparison doesn’t get to decide how I see myself.
And I don’t want to spend my life chasing a version of beauty that keeps moving further away.
There’s so much freedom in coming back to yourself.
Recognizing your face again and actually loving it for what it is.
Seeing your features without immediately thinking about how to change them.
Letting yourself just be exactly as you are.
That’s what I’m learning right now.
Confidence isn’t found in fixing everything about yourself until you feel good enough.
It’s found in coming home to who you already are.
And trusting that God knew exactly what He was doing when He made you that way.
You are so beautiful exactly the way you are.
You don’t need to change a thing.
Not to be loved. Not to be chosen. Not to be enough. Not to step out in purpose.
I know how it feels to constantly feel like you’re falling short…
but you were never meant to fit a standard of the world.
You were meant to be you.
And that is already more than enough.
