Happy Holidays Sparklers!
I hope you all have enjoyed our holiday
season this year! For this post I wanted to take time and tell you
about an experience I had a few months ago. My old roommate, Lindsay,
asked if she could photograph and interview me for her senior project
titled “Your First Home.” She describes it as “a social
commentary, made up of photos and interviews that examine the complex
relationship between perception and reality in the media and how it
affects the way we perceive ourselves.”
For part of her project she interviews
different women, and photographs them with projected images of other
women they wish they looked like, while being all natural (meaning
make-up free). When it was my turn, she asked me who I wish I look
liked. I was pleasantly surprised by how much this question stumped
me. There are physical aspects of myself I wish I could change or
improve on, but I do not think I have ever looked at a celebrity and
been like, “wow I really aspire to look like her.” I believe
Lindsay was a little taken off guard by how hard it was for me to
think of women I wish I looked like.
I could think of women who I thought
were beautiful and who I wished I had certain physical traits of,
but no one I wish I could fully look like. I named people like Zooey
Deschanel (New Girl), Meghan Trainor (pop singer), and Whitney
Thompson (first plus size winner of America’s Next Top Model). Then
my current “women crush” Christina Hendricks came to mind,
because since my obsession with Mad Men I have tried so many times to
dye my hair to be like hers and just find her beautiful!
Yet, I don’t wish I looked like any
of these women. I wanted either their hair, or their eyes, but not to
be them. I thought about it more in depth, and I cannot remember a
time where I ever truly wished I looked like somebody else! This
realization brought to comfort to me, and made me realize that maybe
my body image is better than I have thought over the years. Coming to
terms that I am okay with me, and the physical characteristics that I
am born with, has led to such a peaceful mind set, and I wish I would
have realized this sooner!
For this upcoming
New Year I want to challenge all sparklers to transition their
mindset to not wanting to look like or be like anyone else but
themselves. It is normal for there to be certain aspects we want to
change or improve on, but I do not want you wishing you saw somebody
else when you look at yourself in the mirror. I promise when this
happens, you will be so much happier with yourself.
To see more of the images Lindsay took
of me, read my interview, and explore more of her project, please
follow the link to her website. It is pretty awesome and definitely earns
the Shimmer Sparkle Shine Project’s stamp of approval!
With Love,
Ciara
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