Self-Improvement
Ashley Graham and her story will change your perception about your own body
Not one human being is perfect. We are freckled, pigmented, fat, thin, bit-too-fair, bit-too-dark or whatever. There is no ideal human form.
But that is what people forget, thanks to a certain kind of body image showcased on television and film.
Models with zero figures, fair skin and blonde hair make our heads tilt and our jaws drop, and over the years they have cultivated a sense of perfection in our minds.
We rarely end up deviating too much from this faux ideal.
But what if I told you, someone who has been called ‘pretty for a big girl’, despite being a model herself, says that ideal means jack?
Well, Ashley Graham, a professional model herself, besides being a motivational speaker, says: there is no ideal human form!
But she did not get there so easy. Growing up in Nebraska was not easy for her, with her body-type and image. She embarked on her first modelling assignment at the age of 13.
We teach our children to be beautiful like the actresses they see, and end up making them hate themselves, and their perfect-in-their-own-way bodies more than anything.
Well, having faced that herself throughout her childhood and teenage years, Graham now speaks at TED talks and various universities, and tries to eradicate this notion from parents and kids both: your body is yours and the value of it is priceless, to you and the world!
Notions of beauty are ones that are fragile and topical. They are there because a bunch of people end up making a lot of money by selling you a certain kind of body image, and making you dream of becoming that particular kind of person.
It doesn’t matter if someone fits the bill or does not.
What matters more than anything, is the human virtue of loving yourself and not beating yourself up about something you are not to blame for: your body and how you look.
What matters is the person you are. If you learn to accept what you are inside, as evidenced by the success of someone like Graham, it is only natural that you will learn to say to yourself “you are beautiful”.
Graham inspires hundreds by her talks, but the real secret has to come out from within yourself.
Learn to accept your own beauty, your own body. Only then can you truly love someone else; only then can you be truly happy.
Thanks to Coalition for the Homeless for this amazing video:
Visit Ashley Graham on her Facebook Page!
