Day 1: Make Peace with the Mirror

From November 4th-13th my blog is hosting the experiences of 10 different women through the BYU Women's Services and Resources Recapturing Beauty campaign. Go here or here to read more about the 10-day challenge.

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Day 1 is written by my roommate Ashley Mendoza! Ashley and I met at EFY this summer and became friends immediately. She's from Independence, MO and a huge KU Jayhawks fan. She's a junior applying for the advertising program at BYU next semester and she believes that a bad day can be made better with the right perfume.

I chose to do Challenge 1: Make Peace with the Mirror. 

My roommates and I covered our mirror with post-its of uplifting and complimentary phrases. They ranged from “Date that, marry that,” and “You shine like the light from the sun,” to “You are a daughter of god,” and “Your beauty is priceless.” In Utah my face does a pretty good job of not breaking out, but ironically that day a nice little beauty creeped up right in between my eyebrows. This zit was huge and the kind that was not going anywhere anytime soon. Because we were doing the challenge, I told myself I couldn’t be critical of my face or body (in this case specifically my face). This was hard as I obviously had something to be pretty critical about. I did not realize how critical I was of myself until this experience. 

So to counteract this, I told myself aside from the compliments on the mirror, I had to give myself one genuine compliment every time I looked at the mirror. I learned something very significant. Mirrors are not just for us to look at our physical beauty. Throughout the challenge I was able to look at myself and ask: who am I? What things have I accomplished? How have I grown? What are my goals and plans for the future?

 As I asked myself these things I realized how much more meaning looking in the mirror had. It was like taking a personal inventory every time! It’s not like a personal inventory of how many pink or blue shirts I have (which are a lot), but something that carries more weight. It isn’t about how many zits I had on my face or whether I had a couple hairs gone astray that needed to be plucked from my eyebrows. One of my favorite quotes are, “When you look in the mirror do you see who God sees?” I think this is what I got out of it. It wasn’t about beauty inside or outside anymore, but more of the bigger picture: who I am and who I am going to become.

I challenge everyone to take their own personal inventory when they look at the mirror. What attributes do you have that you like about yourself? How have you grown? What goals and plans are YOU making for your future?

When you look in the mirror, be confident. Find confidence that there is a God who loves you unconditionally. Find confidence that YOU have a purpose. Find confidence that YOU are beautiful.

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Tomorrow's Challenge: Making Peace with your Hair

We want to hear about your experiences as well!
Tweet or Instagram with the hashtag #RecapturingBeauty about your journey over the next 10 days! You can follow @wsrbyu on Instagram and @byuwsr on Twitter, or me at @kylieinthesky on both. Or leave a comment on this blog post.

If you're also blogging about the Body Image Challenge, we want to see it! Add your post below and link back to this one so we can all share this experience together!