Why your flaws are really assets

We women seem to spend a ridiculous amount of time focusing on what’s “wrong” with our bodies, and what we can do to hide our flaws or erase them completely. (Just read the cover lines on any women’s magazine, just about any month.)

But where does that get us, other to further internalize feelings of insufficiency?

This is a call to change your thinking, to change our thinking.

What if you stopped thinking about the attributes of your body that make you uniquely yourself as flaws?

What if you not only accepted them, but saw them as assets?

What if your “minuses” were pluses?

It’s not just positive thinking. There is plenty of historical and personal precedent, if you only stop to think about it.

Marilyn Monroe turned the mole on her upper lip into a signature beauty mark–and so did Cindy Crawford, years later.

Lauren Hutton refused to fix the space between her front teeth and graced countless magazine covers.

Brooke Shields made thick eyebrows the height of fashion–and Arizona Muse has brought them back.

For every girl who’s “too tall,” there’s another who stalks the catwalks at 5’10” or the basketball court at 6’2”.

For every girl who was called “chicken legs” in elementary school, there’s another who’s glad to have slender legs today.

For every girl who takes a straightening iron to her curly locks, there’s another subjecting her hair to hot rollers or perms.

Everything about your body that makes you unique on the outside is no more a flaw than the things that make you unique on the inside: your sense of humor, the way you write or draw or sing or dance, the way you’re there for your friends and family.

Confession #1: I’m the “chicken legs” girl (5th grade classmate to me: “Are those your legs or are you riding on a chicken?”). And I’m not always good about practicing what I preach.

Confession #2: I have an 8-year-old daughter and I struggle to find the right words when she criticizes some part of her appearance–and, even worse, when she reports that some other girl has done so.

So maybe this is a better headline for this post: Love yourself the way you want your daughter to.

Your turn

• What have you learned to love about your body?
• What would you say to a young girl to help her love herself just the way she is?

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Other working mom style advice you might like:

1. How to buy a T-shirt for the apple (inverted triangle) shape
2. Personal Style Dilemmas: I don’t know what looks good on me