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Loving yourself

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We were walking in the mall the other day and your father made a comment about girls dressing too provocative for their age. He said he was worried that you might try to do the same. He asked me how do we prevent that. I don't have a very specific answer for this "problem". You are probably going to rebel at some point in your life and choose things that we don't necessarily agree with, I can see the headaches ahead, but hopefully we would have taught you to love yourself and respect yourself.
In today's world appearances are very important, almost more than the actual truth behind them. It is very important for me that you understand that your worth doesn't come from your looks and actual beautiful people are the ones that are kind and noble. All I can give you is my wisdom. I have struggled with my own body issues during my whole life; in Mexico the lighter your skin is the better it is, I am "morena" (brown) and my sister and my mom have a lighter color skin. I apologize if someone gets offended or thinks I am not been politically correct, as a girl I did notice the difference in the way people treat you. Now that I live in Canada and there is so much more diversity I don't think my skin color really matters. I have thought of myself as an ugly, fat and unattractive woman, but over the years I have come to accept myself and love myself as I am. I have days though that I don't think I am that hot, and days when I think I look amazing. 
The important thing to remember while discussing self image is that your mind and your feelings make you beautiful and interesting and that is where confidence comes from. 
If you accept yourself and like yourself other people will too and if you don't treat yourself with respect, people will learn to treat you the same way. I have never had problems telling people to stay away from me if they are not good to me and make me feel like I am less than them or that I don't deserve them. I do like to be liked but I love myself even more. 
It will be my job as a parent, a mom and a woman to let you know you are perfect, you are smart and you are beautiful. Hopefully my words will stay in your heart and mind and you will learn that you deserve nothing but the best and that you don't have to prove you are worthy of anybody's love and affection. People that care for you will stick around and see the value that you bring to their lives. You haven't even been born yet and you make my life so much better, you make me a better person, just the thought of you. I do wish you accept you have flaws and that it is ok to be like that.
It is fun and nice to worry about outer beauty but it is also shallow and this kind of beauty vanishes really quickly. It is not only kinder but also smarter to not focus too much in this kind of beauty that fades.
It is also important to remember that people will see you with their own lenses and it is exhausting trying to keep up with a fake level of perfection. In my experience the less masks you have to put on every morning, the happier you will be.
During your school years you will experience this weird phenomenon called "been popular". I honestly don't know what is the key to becoming popular, it was never a concern of mine to be honest. You may be one of the popular kids or one of the unpopular kids, whatever it is, it is a temporary label that won't matter much once school is over. Please don't sacrifice your values for the sake of this game, because popularity will stop been a factor in your life really quickly but the scars you leave behind will hunt the people your hurt for the rest of their lives and karma is a bitch (yes your mom just said bitch).
Over the years you will learn to let go of things and to accept yourself for everything you are. Always come back to the people that have seen you grow into this marvelous butterfly; like your parents.



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