Warts and all.

You know those life changing moments when everything gets very quiet--so much so that you may have gone deaf for a minute--and you get very still and it seems like the whole world slows down to allow the change that is happening inside of you and you are anxious because you want to hold onto this feeling and share it with everyone you know but you're not sure how because it's too powerful for you to release?

I just had one of those. I just had a wake-up call. I read a blog post that a friend re-posted on FB and then I read the post that inspired the first. It made me really look at myself and I don't like some of what I see.

I think it's obvious to everyone that I'm not perfect. I don't even really try to be because I believe it's futile, but despite that, sometimes I really wish I was. And it's in those moments of hating myself for something--almost always about some aspect of the way I look: my skin has broken out or I feel fat or my hair doesn't look like I want it too--that I start comparing myself to other people. And it makes me feel worse.

Sometimes I feel worse because when I compare myself to someone else, I find myself lacking. I'm not as pretty or as thin or my skin/hair/posture isn't as good as hers. But it's when I start thinking "my ____ is better than hers" that I really start feeling bad. What right do I have to judge anyone on the way they look? The Universe has a way of reminding me of this. As soon as I judge a girl to have bad skin, my face breaks out. As soon as I judge someone to be too heavy, I'll have an attack of insecurity about my body.

Like the post I linked says, all this happens because I don't love myself enough to love other people. I've heard that said for years, but I've never really thought about it so much. I judge people for the flaws I find in myself. I knew this when I was a small child--when I was mad at my brother for something he did. I knew that I was mad because I was hating the thing in me that I saw in him. I may have been 10, probably younger. And over 20 years later, I'm still doing the same thing.

It's a continuous journey. The first step is realization. The next step is action. I don't know how to make myself love myself over night but I do know that being nice to people makes me feel better about myself so I'm going to give that a try. Instead of being envious of someone tonight, I'm going to pay them a compliment.

From one imperfect person to another: you're beautiful the way you are, warts and all.