LISA'S STORY
From her elegant, expressive style, to being incredibly smart, to even having her own blog, it's not hard to understand why so many girls look up to Lisa. But like every confident girl, Lisa recognized that embracing her insecurities and loving herself was a long and tough journey to take.
" A lot of my insecurities were stemmed by the portrayal of women in media. Each actress that I saw was a stick skinny model, and my younger teenager self began to believe that was the only acceptable body type," Lisa tells me as we we begin to talk about where her insecurities began. No one had ever said anything to Lisa regarding weight, but her own constant comparison to those stick skinny model completely changed how she viewed herself.
" I began to perceive myself differently. The more I compared myself, the more I realized how different I was from those models, and how much I wanted to "fit in" and be like them. But I knew that it was an unobtainable goal, and so it made me feel bad about myself." And the more Lisa tried to be like them, the lower her self esteem got. It got to the point where she had a fear of raising her hand in class and she became extremely self consciousness when people asked her questions regarding herself.
" A lot of my insecurities were stemmed by the portrayal of women in media. Each actress that I saw was a stick skinny model, and my younger teenager self began to believe that was the only acceptable body type," Lisa tells me as we we begin to talk about where her insecurities began. No one had ever said anything to Lisa regarding weight, but her own constant comparison to those stick skinny model completely changed how she viewed herself.
" I began to perceive myself differently. The more I compared myself, the more I realized how different I was from those models, and how much I wanted to "fit in" and be like them. But I knew that it was an unobtainable goal, and so it made me feel bad about myself." And the more Lisa tried to be like them, the lower her self esteem got. It got to the point where she had a fear of raising her hand in class and she became extremely self consciousness when people asked her questions regarding herself.
When I see Lisa today, it's clearly evident she is no longer the girl she use to be. She radiates confidence and class in everything she does, from walking tall to raising her hand in class to even bravely telling me about her difficult past. Lisa truly has transformed into a beautiful and confident leader and role model.
When I asked her what brought upon this change, she told me one thing. She stopped comparing herself to other people. " I stopped comparing myself to everyone. I began to realize that I was letting myself feel the way I did, and it made no sense at all because I could never be that stick skinny model. And I noticed that when I stopped comparing myself, I began to embrace all my good qualities rather than force the once I didn't have." Lisa went so much beyond just accepting it; she advocated it. She created a successful blog called Truly Undefined where Lisa went on to express how she was proud to not be defined by the norm of media. |