08/07/2026
Ever since my kids were little, I’ve always told them, “You are beautiful, but that is not the most interesting thing about you.”
I wanted them to know that beauty standards change. They evolve. If you build your self-worth on other people’s opinions, you’ll spend your whole life chasing something that keeps moving.
You can be considered unattractive in one place, then get on a plane to another country and suddenly people are telling you how beautiful you are (yes, this happened to me.) So… which one is true?
I remember someone once told me my hands weren’t pretty. It was such a strange thing to hear because I had never once looked at my hands and thought there was something wrong with them. I’m glad I paid them no mind, but it did sting just a little at the time. These are the same hands that allow me to create. The same hands that feed my family, do what I love, hold my babies, and that my husband still reaches for. My hands are magnificent.
It’s fascinating how easily we let other people decide what’s beautiful, as if they’re the authority on it.
Maybe beauty was never meant to be something someone else gets to assign to us. Maybe it’s something we recognize for ourselves, not just because of how we look, but because of the life we’ve lived, the things we’ve created, and the people we’ve loved.
I hope you decide for yourself. I hope you choose your own definition of beauty instead of borrowing someone else’s.
