Your Imperfections Are Beautiful

You dress in beautiful and fashionable clothes, comb your hair, go on a diet to try to get thinner, use creams to hide your imperfections, wear high heels to look taller, and put on makeup to emphasize your beauty. But what’s really beautiful is everything that’s beneath all of that: you, with all the infinite beauty and imperfection that comes with being a woman.

Who decides what is beautiful? Nobody else can tell you what beauty means, or whether you’re beautiful or not, so you should appreciate who you are and know that your beauty is reflected in all aspects of your life, of your existence.

Perfection is exhausting

If you think about all the cosmetic surgery and the anti-aging treatments that people go through, it seems like we reject anything that’s old, broken, or imperfect. Our current consumer society, which values tall, thin, and perfect women, has left behind other values, like what it means to be feminine, or the beauty of a real woman.

It’s exhausting to constantly be thinking about how to look attractive, how to satisfy the ideal of beauty that has been imposed upon us since we were young, that we see on television and in magazines. We try to achieve an ideal that’s impossible because it’s not real, and it prevents us from seeing how beautiful we already are.

The beauty and strength of imperfections

The Japanese repair broken ceramic with a strong adhesive and gold dust, which highlights the imperfection instead of trying to hide it. They believe that when something is damaged or broken, it has a story to tell, which makes it more beautiful. This traditional art is called Kintsugi.

If we were to transfer this idea to humans, we’d learn to appreciate imperfections and aging, with all of their wisdom and strength. We’d learn to accept ourselves the way we are, without trying to prevent the passage of time, and that would make us beautiful, wise, and strong.

Let your fragility show

It’s a common belief that perfect people don’t cry, or fail, or have a body that doesn’t fulfill society’s standards of beauty, or appear vulnerable, or be afraid. How can this kind of person be happy? It’s necessary to learn how to let your fragility show. The things that make us feel fragile can also bring us closer to other people.

We might be afraid of showing our vulnerability, but if we don’t do it, we won’t be ourselves. We won’t learn how to let others see us for who we are. It might hurt, but it’s a risk that we should take so that we can live according to our own identity.

Imperfect beauty

Little by little, the idea is starting to break through that beauty is not just a very young, very thin model; beauty is real, imperfect, and revealed through the passage of time. It is trying to assert values like self-esteem, feeling good, and being different.

But it’s complicated to try and change one’s understanding of beauty, especially because beauty is subjective. It means something different to everyone. Beauty is imperfect, natural, and it doesn’t cover up or try to be something it’s not. It doesn’t hide signs of aging, but rather appreciates its wisdom and history and shows it to the world.

Let your imperfections show and learn to be beautiful

Your beauty is revealed when you show yourself the way you are, when your natural self comes to light, when you don’t hide, when you laugh and cry, when you’re afraid and you show it, when you feel vulnerable and you let other people see that, when you dare to love and open your heart. That’s when you are beautiful.

Is there anything more beautiful than being yourself? We’re taught to hide ourselves, to wear makeup, to cover ourselves up, but we must get out there, spread our wings, and fly, because showing our true beauty is an act of bravery.