At the end of my junior year of high school, I won a glamour photo shoot.
My camera-shy, awkward high school self was excited to have some nice pictures taken,
but part of me felt highly self-conscious as the photographer coached me on how to pose and how to smile. The teal rubber-bands on my braces caused me to smile unnaturally in an effort to disguise them and at one point during the photo shoot the photographer told me with some exasperation to "put some attitude into it!"
I was relieved when the last outfit change was complete and she was finally done taking pictures. I followed the photographer into a small room in the studio and she plugged the camera in. We went through the images, weeding them out until we were left with the one I decided I wanted edited and printed.
And then I sat in the chair and watched as she magnified my face to about 10 times its normal size and zapped out every imperfection. As she edited away the smattering of acne she looked at me and said, "Too bad we can't do this in real life, huh?"
I was further demoralized as she darkened my lips, increased my eye-makeup, whitened my eyes and teeth to meet a disgustingly artificial standard, and ultimately pushed the "magic button," as she called it, that gave me a flawless glow.
I walked out of that studio feeling ugly, incompetent, and objectified.
Seeing myself manipulated into some kind of Barbie-doll ideal--distorted until I conformed to the world's standard of beauty--was disheartening.
And it only added to the self-image struggle I had dealt with for years.
For some reason, as I had approached my teenage years, any youthful confidence I had in myself withered away and an attitude of self-loathing became rooted within me.
I looked in the mirror and saw only imperfections.
My struggles to make friends and fit in contributed to feelings of insecurity about my personality and I became uncomfortable in social settings.
My perfectionistic attitude caused me to focus on my faults, and my self-esteem plummeted.
I knew I was of infinite worth and didn't question my divine nature as a child of God.
But I doubted that which I had to offer in my mortal realm and earthly capacity.
And for a while, those feelings of self-loathing were dominant in my mind and halted progress in many areas of my life.
And then, due to a variety of factors, I started to recognize my erroneous thinking.
Thanks in large part to loving, supportive parents and leaders, I started to see how this self-obsession was unhealthy and spiritually damaging, and I started to leave it behind.
But not really.
More accurately, I began to bury my feelings of self-hatred and send them to the back of my mind. I hated myself but was convinced that a focus on self was wrong and tried to direct my thoughts elsewhere.
As I looked in the mirror I thought,
"I hate who I am, but it doesn't matter. I need to not dwell on myself."
And this mindset did help.
My confidence grew and I developed some deep and lasting friendships in college.
I had the opportunity to date a fair amount and met my husband early in my college days.
My marriage boosted my confidence. Knowing that someone had sought me out of his own accord, loved me unconditionally, and saw enough good in me to want to be with me forever was a rock I could fall back on when I encountered self-doubt.
I was happy as a new bride and young mother, and every time those feelings of insecurity tried to surface I would again push them to the back of my mind, bury them deep, and forbid myself to focus on them.
But recently those feelings of insecurity resurfaced and refused to be ignored.
Try as I might, if my mind wasn't occupied with something else it was kept busy criticizing everything about me.
And ultimately I stopped trying to bury them once again and acknowledged them.
And with that acknowledgment came a moment of profound realization:
It's not enough to ignore self-hatred. We have to develop a true love of self.
As I analyzed my many insecurities more closely, I realized that negative thoughts about myself actually prevented me from loving and serving others fully.
If I saw someone who was sitting alone, my feeling that I was an annoying person stopped me from sitting with them because I didn't want to bother them.
I had a hard time befriending people I classified as "beautiful," because my association with them brought to the surface feelings of self-criticism I had tried to bury.
I even had trouble accepting the compliments my husband gave me and occasionally wondered if he was actually genuine because I couldn't fathom how he could appreciate me.
Attitudes such as these were impacting my behavior in ways I had never before realized.
And it was then that I saw that a big change was needed...
a change that would lead to a sense of security and love of self
yet simultaneously increase humility as I recognized the divine Source of any good trait.
I realized that my self-hatred was a manifestation of ingratitude for the gifts and traits with which I have been blessed.
And while I have a long way to go in the journey of loving myself,
I feel that recognizing the problem means the battle is more than half won.
I can look in the mirror and see not imperfections, but the miraculous gift of a healthy body that can heal itself and nurture children in and out of the womb.
I can recognize that it's impossible for my personality to jive with everyone in the world but also acknowledge the fact that God has given me unique gifts that may help someone in need.
I can choose to accept the love of others and thereby love them more fully.
The Savior said, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you."
(Matthew 5:44)
Let us follow His counsel and love
all of God's children--
including ourselves.