I was out walking yesterday with Ayla strapped to me in her Ergo carrier (which we love, btw)…and she was just bouncing along in front of me, looking around, cooing her approval every once in a while. I kept leaning down to kiss the top of her head or tickling her feet or holding her little hands, and I just felt so overwhelmed with the preciousness of this little girl. I always felt that I wouldn’t make a very good mama to girls, and I would have said that I would much rather have a house full of boys than a house full of girls…but now? A house full of girls sounds just fine with me. I never knew I could love having a daughter like I do.

As we were walking, I whispered this into her ear:: I hope you always know that you are beautiful.

Tell me this…why does it feel so difficult and even wrong to believe that we are beautiful? Like, for me to actually think and believe that I am a beautiful woman just feels…wrong. Is it just me? Maybe you can easily believe in the truth about yourself, and honestly, I hope that you do believe in your beauty and worth as a woman. But I think most of us struggle with this. Most of us live in a place where we feel so negative and derogatory about ourselves that to think anything else feels foreign and just wrong.

WHY IS THIS?!?

I actually don’t really know the answer to that…you could say it’s because of the media and images that are endlessly photoshopped and cultural expectations and Victoria Secret models…and maybe that’s partly true. But maybe it also has a lot to do with the war that the enemy of our souls has waged on our hearts. Maybe it’s because he knows that if he can get us to believe the ugly lies that are constantly bombarding our minds, then we lose our essence as a woman. If we believe we are beautiful, then we walk in confidence, power, and authority. If we believe anything else, then we walk in insecurity and weakness.

When you believe that you are beautiful, your eyes sparkle and you feel alive and you want to kiss your husband and you get creative ideas and you want to wear pretty things and you want to love people more and your life is just better, fuller, happier because of what you believe. We need more woman whose eyes sparkle in this world, right?

So, dears, it’s ok to believe that you are beautiful.
You’re actually supposed to believe it.
It’ll make your eyes sparkle.

What about you: what do you think blocks us as woman from believing that we are beautiful?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

 

It happened on Sunday.

We were out on a fun little family outing to Rochester, having lunch at my favorite cafe with three of my favorite people. It was a gorgeous day and I was wearing something I felt cute in and I had taken time to do a good curl job on my hair that morning and I was sipping my favorite maple latte that I ordered for the ride home. As we drove away from the cafe, I reached for my camera and started scrolling through the photos Ben had taken of Ayla and me that morning. We had went outside on the deck right before we left and the lighting was nice and Ayla was cooperative and hey, I felt pretty cute in my curls and dress. I just knew that for once I was going to look good in a photo. These were going to be great!

But as I scrolled through them, I felt myself sinking. And all these thoughts starting whirling through my head:

I look ridiculous.
My arms are so fat!
My face is so puffy!
My hair is so weird!
I am so not beautiful.

Suddenly, my whole day started to feel sour. These lies and accusations started pouring into my soul and it made me want to retreat from all that was going on around me. In that moment, I let myself start to internalize all these thoughts…because honestly they are so familiar that it feels strange to shove them away when they do come. I’ve learned a lot in the past two years about beauty and body image and the true source of identity…and most times the lies bounce right off. But then some days, I fall down really hard too.

As we drove, I just sat there in the passenger seat…pretending to be engaged in the conversation and fun. But inside, all I could think about was this:

…how can I make myself beautiful?

I started thinking of the ways that I should eat differently or watch more YouTube tutorials on hair and makeup or figure out how to dress more stylishly or start exercising obsessively. Somehow I had to change myself! I had to DO something, figure out that magic formula that would finally give me the beauty that I was craving and seemingly lacking. I found myself wanting to even get upset at Ben because he took the pictures and why didn’t he tell me that I was standing the wrong way and that my “good side” was facing away from the camera and if he would only use different angles when he’s shooting, I wouldn’t look so bad. But see, it didn’t have actually have anything to do with the angles…it was about my heart and the lies and faulty sense of identity.

This negative thought train lasted for twenty minutes before I suddenly realized what was happening…I was doing it again. I was believing the lie again that I was the one that could make me beautiful…that I was the one that controlled my beauty. But I was forgetting this truth…

…that I am made beautiful and nothing that I do or don’t do will make more or less so.

Beautiful is something a woman is.

No matter what kind of bodily imperfections or frizzy/weird hair or sense of style we have…it doesn’t change anything about who we are:: beautiful. stunning. lovely. Even if we don’t believe it, we are still:: beautiful. stunning. lovely.

So I sat in the car that afternoon and yelled ALICIA ROSE LAPP STOP IT RIGHT NOW to myself in my mind, and it helped. I stopped that negative train and turned my heart back to what is true and unchangeable. And the whole day turned gorgeous and bright again.

PS. I purposely picked the photos at the top of this post from the ones we took on Sunday. I also purposely picked ones that I didn’t think were good enough to be seen…ones with my “bad side,” my double chin, and strange hair part showing. I did that because it seemed like a good way to slap those silly lies in the face and to tell perfectionism that it doesn’t belong here anymore.

PPS. Read this. Just please read this.

PPPS. I’m also really sorry for the awful Britney Spears song reference…it just seemed like the right title for this post, ha!

What about you: do you find it easy to jump on that negative train about yourself? How do you help yourself jump off of it?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!