“Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.” -1 Peter 3:3-4
Welcome to my very first “Thoughts with T“ post! I am excited to try out this new series on the blog where I can talk about not so bloggery topics that randomly cross my mind during important times where I am supposed to be paying attention (like class…and work…) #sorrymom. Anyway, idk what I am ever doing on here so let me know in the comments if you like this idea!
Why are we so quick to put ourselves down? (I think I just did it in the sentence prior to the one you just read.) No really, think about it. Every time we see a super poppin’ girl on Instagram, we automatically bombard our already stressed out minds with questions like “Why can’t I look like her,” “Why aren’t I as smart as her,” and “Why can’t I cook like her?” We dedicate way too many hours trying to get the perfect selfie that we post anyway even though we think it isn’t half as good as that other girl’s one from two hours ago and continue the cycle of making ourselves something that we’re not so we can hit our PR of instalikes on our most recent photo.
We’re taught not to judge people because we probably have no idea who they are and what they could be going through. But, we don’t put that same focus on judging ourselves. We too should be conscious of the way we judge our own selves because when we don’t, we lose ourselves in this world driven by socio-normative sameness.
I feel like being a young adult in the age of constant media consumption can be really detrimental to the way that we see ourselves in the mirror. Although there is nothing wrong with pushing yourself to be the best you that you can be, it can get to a point of unknown self-depreciation when we are so focused on trying to be like everybody else that we can’t even recognize ourselves anymore.
I had this problem with my blog.
So when you first enter the blogosphere, it is completely saturated with an immense amount of monotony. All the best bloggers look the same (not, like me…), blog about the same things, and have this odd sense of competitiveness amongst themselves as if the world is going to run out of web space.
I found myself trying to be someone I wasn’t because I was consuming myself with those burning questions that I first talked about. It made me really not want to do it anymore because I didn’t feel genuine. Even my writing was starting to deteriorate even though I study writing at one of the top’s university in the northeast. I was forgetting why I started my blog and I was loosing myself trying to be like every other blogger on the web.
After spending some time with God, I really found this inner sense of peace in myself that I was going to be okay just being me. I feel like that is where a lot of self-deprecation comes from, especially as young women. We are afraid that if we truly start being ourselves, someone might notice. (As if it was a bad thing.)
I just think that maybe if we all started channeling that energy we have into wanting to be perfect little, filtered and edited Instagram goddesses into having the courage to wipe away the masks that hide those things about us that are really real, and quite frankly, really beautiful, we can start teaching those who come after us the true meaning of being blessed, brilliant, and beautiful.
I challenge you this week to start off each day being your truest self. It’s okay if during the day you start reverting back. Be gentle with yourself and choose to be your truest self longer and longer each and every day. When you look at your truest self in the mirror, who do you see? Comment down below and let me know! I would love to hear!
Thanks for reading blessed, brilliant, beauties! Don’t forget to subscribe by scrolling down below!
<3 TD
This came right on time for me. I’ve been blogging for YEARS and only recently have I started comparing my blog to the success of others who have started after me. Then I started trying to come up with different strategies and methods that would lead to sponsorships, etc. and it created a burn out for me. I almost walked completely away after almost 20 years of blogging.
But then I remembered why I got started — it was never about monetization, although that isn’t a bad thing. But it was because I really loved connecting with people and writing altogether. And that’s what I’ve decided to get back to. If sponsored posts come, then I’ll consider it. But it’s not my sole focus and I’m no longer using that as a unit of measurement.