The entire weekend seemed to focus about beauty and loving ourselves.

I mean, isn’t that just selfish? On the surface, it most likely is. Why would we spend so much time trying to love ourselves? Why focus too much on “me” instead of helping the world?

If you’re around me, you probably have been victimized about my debates and surrogate thoughts on the beauty industry and how models and Barbie dolls inflict the young minds of girls everywhere and thus responsible for the twisted morale on beauty.

But, as I’ve dug deeper into the issue, I’ve learned to separate the superficiality of “loving ourselves” and truly loving ourselves.

A good friend of mine sent this quote to me over the weekend and I think I heard this on Mean Girls, “The thing you dislike in other people is the one that you hate about yourself” or something like that. I think that’s the premise of this entry and I hope I get the message through.
I mean, for women everywhere, the world is one big high school. There are cliques everywhere and there’s that certain definition of beauty which has gotten tougher over the past years.

As I rack my brain trying to decipher what beauty was for the generations before me and for my eleven year old self, I don’t think it got this bad. I mean, Alicia Silverstone was an icon after all!
So, why the sudden obsessions about becoming stick thin? I really don’t know. I know that most girls think that becoming a size zero equates to being healthy and well-loved.

I know that feeling exactly, a few entries back, I’ve been complaining about people constantly commenting about my weight and how I look healthy primarily because when I was in pre-school when people commented about my weight, it always meant that I was left in the kitchen far longer than I should have been.

14 years later, I still feel the exact same way. But as I watched The Tyra Banks show last Friday which featured the powerful Arian Huffington and her daughter, whose name I forgot, I’ve come to realize that loving ourselves truly begins with us and must not be confused with being accepted by other people as an assurance of our worth.

The politically savvy, Ariana Huffington spoke about the obnoxious roommate that we didn’t even know we had. You know that person very well, she’s the person who tells us that our butts look fat in those new pair of jeans, that person who says that our new haircuts don’t frame our face well and just makes us look fat and that person who says we don’t deserve any better.
Yes, my dear girlfriends, she is that obnoxious roommate whom we just can’t seem to shut off no matter how we try.

There’s good news though, we do have a choice. We can choose to shut her out and listen instead to the good roommate in our minds. There’s truly nothing we can get out of listening to that roommate. It would just spawn a million and one negative thoughts which are probably not even close to the truth.

Without being selfish, let us consider the fact that without us loving ourselves, who else would? If we can’t look at ourselves in the mirror, who would? If we can’t pick ourselves up from every fall, who would? Without our own inner strength, who would fuel us?

It’s about stomping the fear brought about by the obnoxious roommate and facing the realities of this world. Most of the time, we often over think (guilty!) certain things that we distort the picture of the world. I’m not saying that the ugly world we often complain about isn’t real, in fact it is very real, but we make it worse by telling ourselves that “we can’t do face it!”

Getting rid of the obnoxious roommate is the first step into self-acceptance (ahem, goes to show I’m watching way toooo much Oprah).

Another thing that that’s so ugly about the obnoxious roommate is the threat of being infected by the LA disease that it carries around.

The LA disease infects girls who constantly worry about their weight even if they haven’t gained an inch and is not as grotesque as they make themselves appear. It’s how Tyra Banks describes the crazy way girls look at themselves, seriously you don’t even have to live in LA to be in contact with that disease.

I do believe that there’s this Obnoxious Roommate operational system everywhere and it’s meant to destroy. So girls, please stop and think of your selves and stop being battered by other people’s verbal abuse of how we look or how much we weigh.

I do believe that a much more desired outcome would be cultivated once we start loving ourselves and stop hating ourselves. It’s the first step into changing the world because as Michael Scofield said, we must be the change that we want the world to see.

Come on, do you seriously think that we can change the world when we don’t have happiness within us? I doubt it.

And another thing, I don’t think loving ourselves would make our flaws disappear, it would only make us appreciate them instead of despise them every single time we look at our bodies.

Love every inch of it, easier said than done, I know. But anyone successful who got where they are must have begun somewhere, so chin up and have faith.

Have a great week ahead, gorgeous!

1. Never put yourself last.
2. When you extend a helping hand to one person, be careful not to kick someone else in the teeth.
3. Always own a pair of old, faded jeans.
4. Count your blessings every day.
5. Acknowledge your successes along with your downfalls.
6. Burn the candle that has been instorage for the last two years.
7. Strive for progress, not perfection.
8. Remember, the voice telling you that you cannot do something is always lying.
9. At least once a day sit and do nothing.
10. Don’t close your heart so tightly against life’s pain that you shut out life’s blessings.
11. Celebrate all your birthdays no matter how old you get.
12. Examine your life for limitations and ask yourself why you put them there.
13. Plant a tree, pull weeds, or get your hands dirty.
14. Diminish your wants instead of increasing your needs.
15. Cry when you feel like it.
16. Rejoice in other people’striumphs.
17. Don’t wait for someone else to laugh or express joy.
18. Forgive yourself for any mistake you make, no matter how big or small.
19. Keep good company.
20. Never take a pill for a pain you need to feel.
21. Use your enthusiasm to put yourself in forward gear and give yourself a spark to move ahead.
22. Look in the eyes of the ones you love when you are talking to them.
23. Remember that one is a whole number.
24. Walk in a summer rain showerwithout an umbrella.
25. Do a kind deed for someone else.
26. Keep your eyes and ears open to get the messages you need from people and events in your daily life.
27. Be patient.
28. Eat something green.
29. Change what you can and leave the rest alone.
30. Walk hand and hand with truth.
31. Make laughter and joy a greater part of your life than anger and grief.
32. Embrace solitude instead of running from it.
33. Be zealous, not jealous.
34. Forgive anyone you’ve been holding a grudge against.
35. Slow down and enjoy the present.
36. Walk in others’ shoes before judging them.
37. Send yourself a kind message.
38. Remind yourself that the company you keep is a reflection of what you think of yourself.
39. Go on a picnic.
40. Accept your fears, no matter how crazy they seem.
41. Don’t let other people’s opinions shape who you are.
42. Say a prayer.
43. Never attribute your accomplishments to luck or chance.
44. Know when to say no.
45. Look at the positive side of a negative situation.
46. Remember that you are a spiritual being in a physical body.
47. Avoid seeking out other people for constant approval, because it makes them the master and you the slave.
48. Go fly a kite.
49. Avoid fads and bandwagons.
50. Accept the things you cannot change.