Watching my daughter struggle with self-love is far more painful for me than my lack of it. It makes me wonder how the hell this happens to us? How can I fix it? How can I force her to see how perfect she is, just like her dad and I made her? I wouldn’t change a single cell of her magical existence.

And that goes for everyone I love; their physical beings anyway; behaviors? Well, that’s another story; because I know what is best for everyone. When will they get that through their beautiful thick skulls? 😉

I’m half a century years old, and I’m finally treating my body with kindness, sort of. It used to be that at any given moment, I compared myself to anyone in the room that had been born with or acquired what I considered beautiful.

My perception of beauty changed from moment to moment, place to place, situation to situation–a woman’s eyelashes, her shiny new car, her electric pink handbag, the perfect slope of her nose & cute nose-ring, cool pants, high-heels, flip-flops, flat stomach, curvy hips, bangs, no bangs, a brown belt, a white belt, her baby, her freedom.

None of it made sense, ever, but if I felt a longing for it, it was because I was constantly and dreadfully inadequate.

Suppose I got everyone’s physical attribute that I wanted in the ’90s and early 2000s. In that case, this is what I’d have: Elle Mcpherson’s long legs, Kate Moss’s thigh gap & widespread eyes, Pamela Anderson’s boobs, the arms and hair of the model I saw in the Guess ad, and the ribcage of the woman who had one removed. I’d look like a Picasso drawing. Not only that, but it would mean that genetically speaking, Diane and George could never have been my parents. And that I know for sure is not what I want.

The crazier thing is that these beautiful features we seek and compare ourselves to do not satisfy their beholders with happiness. I know this because my daughter was born the mold of a fashion model. Whether she likes it or not, she has what the high fashion industry wants. She is one of the people we compare ourselves to. My daughter became acquainted with many others with loving and vulnerable souls who had the same characteristics, and you know what? They feel the same way we all do–inferior, inadequate, fat, too skinny, ugly, too beautiful, too tall, & then too short, too old, too young, missing a gap between their teeth and no gap all simultaneously.

Our ability to situationally sabotage our self-love is catastrophic in pandemic proportion. And not only that, the fact that it’s 100% impossible to have every single physical feature of this make-believe beauty doesn’t quell our hopes that we can obtain it.

There are times when every one of us is or has something that’s the object of someone else’s desire. There isn’t an immediate injection of self-love that cures us of this ridiculous obsession when it happens. Instead, we continue to seek it. In fact, for me, compliments fail at making me feel better. If I seek outward praise and get it, I don’t believe it anyway. So what’s the point?

I’ve found no worldly wisdom to overcome this ridiculous phenomenon.

Lately, I’ve realized how impossible it is, which helps stop the urge to do it pretty quickly. I also say the word “Me” a lot. I repeat it when I’m picking out clothes, taking a shower, or figuring out how to spend my day. Saying, “Me, me, me, me,” isn’t intended for me to be self-absorbed; in fact, when I say it, I am actually saying, “My happiness, my daughter’s wellbeing, my husband’s love, the life I adore & this is all that matters because other’s opinions of me are irrelevant and always wrong anyway.”

So my happiness is really all about me and what I behold as daily offerings for me and those I love. No one else on this planet can live my life. Nor do I want them to. The best I can do is grow, learn, and show myself what I am capable of. And what you or I am capable of is way more important, and impressive, than getting rid of cellulite.

I don’t have the answers to this, but I needed to share my thoughts. In my fifty-one years of life, I have finally come to a place where I can appreciate the beautiful differences in all of us without seeking to acquire the said beauty and make it mine. After all, that would be pretty selfish of me.

Tina L. Hendricks