Self-acceptance

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'The only failure is not learning from experience.'
Sahara Rose, Discover Your Dharma

For longer than I'd like to admit, I didn't feel 'pretty.' Pretty can have such a superficial undertone but that is a popular term that is still nowadays ubiquitously used to define people's appearance, mostly women.
In all honesty, I used my physical appearance as a compass for beauty and though I wasn't a shallow person, I still couldn't fully embrace myself for who I was on the whole. For many years I felt different because of my many, unique physical qualities: ptosis on my left eyelid together with a different eye colour and excess pigmentation (all on the same eye!); plus uneven ears, 'bended' middle fingers (on both hands) and my hairy arms, legs and armpits due to my borderline anorexia back in my early teens. For years I felt less than and, definitely, not good enough and it was exhausting. 
Being bombarded by neverending, outer opinions and uncalled-for input, we tend to look down on ourselves and lose sight of what truly matters, we lose sight of how amazing we are and how we should perceive ourselves as holistic, divine beings and not fixate on rather superficial aspects that we are socially conditioned to pick apart and judge ourselves against. 
During years, I compared myself to so many people! Every aspect of my physical being was put against the light of someone else and I kept using others as a 'parametre' for what I thought I needed to reach, an outer goal. In the past I would have said that I wasted so much time on that but now, my older and wiser being sees those younger years as needed, as key in my development and evolution away from external influences that conditioned my physical appearance for years. 
I am still working on my self confidence but, more and more, I reinforce the idea that I am enough (daily work!), I was born just as I was supposed to be born, I am a unique combination of exquisite traits that I should celebrate and not diminish (thank you body!)
It doesn't matter what people say or think, but what definitely matters are the words I use with myself, how I love myself, how I choose to celebrate myself. 
And when I stray from this path, I kindly, lovingly bring myself back to my conscious breath, my anchor in this present moment to just ask myself to stop the toxic energy and be kind to myself. 
It is about being grateful for this human body, my body that is the vehicle through which I can experience and enjoy life, my body which is just a part of the body, mind and soul triad. We are so much more than our external canvas! 
Thank you body for everything you have done for me.
 I promise to continue being kind to you. 

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