Latter-day Saint Life

5 Short Videos Every Woman Needs to See to Realize How Beautiful She Is

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5 Short Videos Every Woman Needs to See to Realize How Beautiful She Is

When we watch Disney movies or cartoon fairy tales, it's often easy for us to distinguish reality from fantasy. Sure some false ideals of beauty might be sneaking into our subconscious as we watch these shows, but we realize no one's eyes can really be that big and no one's waist that small if they want to be able to breathe.

But what about the rest of it? What about the ads, the Instagram selfies, the movies and magazines that show people that look so close to reality it's hard to distinguish the fiction? What about all of the blemishes, the bad-hair days, the wrinkles and freckles that we see every time we look in the mirror that make us compare our worst to everyone else's best?

Dove has set out on a campaign to redefine beauty by releasing a series of videos that teach women about where true beauty and their sense of worth stem from.

As latter-day women, we are some of the harshest critics out there of ourselves. We strive for perfection in every way, setting up these fictional ideals and then getting discouraged when we fall short.

You'll also like: Beauty Redefined: Rejecting the Media's Impossible Standards

But, here are five short videos that will help you understand just how beautiful you are. Beauty is more than appearance. True beauty is a mindset, the way we treat others, and and how we act.

So the next time you look in the mirror, I hope you will focus less on what you don't like and more on how you will share your beauty with others. And I hope you remember these five truths:

You're more beautiful than you think.

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Video Companion
Dove Real Beauty Sketches | You’re more beautiful than you think (3mins)

“Makeup can only make you look pretty on the outside but it doesn’t help if you're ugly on the inside. Unless you eat the makeup.”
-Audrey Hepburn

Here's a secret: if everyone is worried about what others think of them, no one will have time to think about each other. Besides, no one has enough time on their hands to criticize you as much as you probably criticize yourself.

You'll also like: 5 Body Image Myths We Should Stop Believing

But what would happen if we started seeing ourselves more as our Heavenly Father sees us? How might that change our self-worth and ability to help others?

A girl's confidence starts with you.

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"I plead with you young women to please be more accepting of yourselves, including your body shape and style, with a little less longing to look like someone else. . . . Every young woman is a child of destiny and every adult woman a powerful force for good. I mention adult women because, sisters, you are our greatest examples and resource for these young women. And if you are obsessing over being a size 2, you won’t be very surprised when your daughter or the Mia Maid in your class does the same and makes herself physically ill trying to accomplish it."
-Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

When you say something negative about yourself, the instant effect is that you make everyone else around you feel self-conscious. Your comment might cause them to fixate on a similar thing they don't like about themselves or to feel awkward because they don't know how to respond or to start re-examining themselves because they didn't realize they should be self-conscious about something like that.

See how it spins into a vicious cycle of self-loathing? Nothing positive comes from speaking negatively about yourself or others, and other people learn from your behaviors.

It's best when you start the day off right.

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Jessica's "Daily Affirmation"

"Be someone who reaches out to know and serve others—throw away the mirrors and look through the window."
-Cheryl A. Esplin

What would happen if each person who looked in the mirror in the morning started their day like this? I imagine if we all told ourselves how much we love our life and ourselves every morning, we'd find the strength within to accomplish anything.

You can choose to be beautiful.

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“You can’t live your life worrying that the world is staring at you. When you let people’s opinions make you self-conscious, you give away your power… The key to feeling [confident] is to always listen to your inner self— [the real you.] And in the kingdom of God, the real you is ‘more precious than rubies.’”
-Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

You have the power to choose to be far more beautiful than the world’s standards. So do it.

The world's idea of beauty is fictional.

"One would truly need a great and spacious makeup kit to compete with beauty as portrayed in the media."
- Jeffrey R. Holland

When all else fails, remember this: you are a daughter of God, and you are beautiful to Him, because “[God] hath made everything Beautiful” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

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