This is what beautiful looks like.

Originally published at oh my seven.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this subject lately… so many women have issues with their bodies, myself included. And you girls all know all the usual suspects… billboards, magazines, movies, television, romance novels (would you really want a heaving bosom anyway? I don’t get that.) and the like. I love this Dove commercial that’s been floating around on YouTube, because it displays an important truth: Advertisements lie to women. They say that you have to be This Thin and have beautiful flowing hair and sultry, smoky eyes and full, pouty lips and be a 32D… but most people don’t look like that! It’s telling that models even have to be Photoshopped, because they’re not good enough! Girls, why are we buying this lie? It sucks.

I read in a book recently that you can’t give what you don’t have. We’re taught that loving ourselves is just vanity and pride, but can you really love other people if you don’t know how to love yourself? Even the Bible says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18) So if that’s the case, obviously we are to love ourselves. Otherwise we’ll go around saying, “You’re fat, and you’re ugly, and whoa! Look at that bird’s nest of hair. Looks like you could use a shower. You’re a lazy bum, and you’ll never amount to anything. You can never do anything right… you always just screw everything up.”

I want to kick that habit, so that someday when I have children, they won’t grow up thinking poisonous thoughts about themselves that will only cause them hurt and not growth.