For the longest period of time when I thought about my flaws I always felt that I need to fix something in myself. I need to lose weight I need to get my teeth with a speak in a certain way I have this big insecurity about myself.
To me everyone else seems perfect and complete and that created a lot of self doubt in me leading me to become underconfident. I am sure you all must have encounter something similar. For me, it reach to a point where I was trying hard to be someone else instead of pushing the authentic myself out there. I was trying to seek the validation of the world.
For instance, I am still sometimes being mocked for my short height and weight. So I tried all sorts of slimming and height increasing products and ended wasting a lot of money. All I was trying is to become the person I was not. In this process I failed miserably because that was not me and all the products were fake.
When I look back today the more and more I try to be myself the more people started relating to who I was. The biggest Revelation happen to me when I came across an app called HealthifyMe. Through HealthifyMe I got the opportunity to my find myself a good trainer who kept on encouraging me to be myself and work for myself rather than pretending not to be myself and I try all sorts of nonsense things and in return harming myself.
After interacting with my coach I realized that I was not gaining weight but was gaining layers of what I actually am not as a person. Help me realized that not always the grass is greener on the other side. We all go through the same problems in life and keep accumulating layer the other people’s judgement of opinions and become the person we are not. I realized that we all have flaws deep within and no matter what image we try to put out to the world we may not be looking good by the society standards.
From there on I moved from not accepting myself to accepting myself and slowly things started changing. I have started owning my flaws with pride. The whole process of going my flaws has taught me some really valuable lessons which I would like to tell you all
The first lesson that I learnt was The first lesson that I learnt was self-acceptance. Yes that is true. I started accepting the fact that every person that I meet has their own set of flaws. This started making me more comfortable about myself. This has made me realized that we all are broken people full of flaws. When did understanding came about it took away from me the pressure of impressing others. All of a sudden I felt that I don’t have to pretend as someone else and try to fit in and I can be just meet with my own set of laws.
This has not only helped me regain myself, but also with self acceptance. One self-acceptance kicks in no one opinion about myself matter to me anymore. This was not an easy it took time to break the shell and set myself free and is an ongoing process.
The second lesson I learnt is humanity. You are humble when you know that you are no better than the other person. When I am aware that we all have flaws there’s no question of feeling superior than anyone else. When you embrace your flaws your moving towards humanity from arrogance.
The third lesson I learnt is empathy. Once I acknowledge my in securities I started being Kinder to myself. My self talk changed completely. It is the ability to see things from someone else’s perspective and my flaws taught me to do exactly that. Instead of passing judgement to someone for their flowers I am willing to understand their part of the story. Because I want people to hear my story before they pass judgement about my flaws. This is a constant reminder to me that it ok for me to be with my flaws it’s ok for others to be with their flaws as well.
In the last lesson is to remain happy. B why happy you may wonder. When you face your insecurities and flaws you become happy because you don’t feel the need to fit in and become someone else and that liberates you so that you can become the West authentic self. This has made my life much easier. I don’t have to act as if I am the smartest Person. I don’t have to act as if I am the smartest person. I am sure to be me and that I can do the best. No one can beat me there. And I don’t have to take my life too seriously. I can laugh some of the flaws off. I know that I am made peace with my insecurities and I am not ashamed of it anymore I can laugh about it.
These were some of the lessons I’ve learnt from the flaws and insecurities I have. I hope that was the of some value to you. Do comment and let me know from you what are the lessons you’ve learnt from your flaws and insecurity.
2 Responses
Dear Keen Writer,
I heart you for writing this. What I have learnt is that it’s not our fault that we feel we need to fix ourselves – in fact, the society and vested capitalistic interests gain to profit by we not feeling good enough (just think about the ulterior motives of more than half of advertising, be it cosmetic/textile/fitness industries) and everyone and their aunties constantly feed us this idea. We women are particularly reduced to appearance, that too narrow standards of beauty, to rate our desirability, attractiveness, market value, and most importantly our worth.
Wisdom is in unlearning all those lies and standing up for our natural body and inherent worth. We don’t need to achieve, do or prove, in order to be worthy of love and joy and fulfilment. We are worthy just because we are.
I applaud you for accepting and embracing yourself as you are. I also want you to know that at some point, you’ll realise that the so-called flaws and insecurities are actually your greatest strengths and blessings. Our body does so much for us on a daily basis. Make it a habit to learn to think and speak highly and kindly about our body. One of my friends wrote, ‘feeling beautiful is a journey’. I like to look in the mirror, find my eyes and say ‘thank you’ to my body. Over time, we’ll become our greatest fan and lover.
Much love to you!
You are a powerful woman, no doubt about that. That power you exude from within, the strong sense of self you have, is your original beauty. You’ll never lose it.. I believe in you.
In appreciation of your spirit,
Your friend,
Harshitha
Dear Harshi,
Thanks for such a lovely comment on my post.
This is such a motivational message for me and will always remind me to thank myself for the person I’m.