How to feel beautiful.

Being the one who is either rejected or to afraid to be accepted for fear of rejection, life got a bit maddening for me. Being the ugly duckling growing up has never really allowed me to understand myself as anything other than a poor girl no one would sit by.

  Yes the ugly duckling was a swan once grown, I personally didnt feel any different though. No matter the attention or the one giving the compliment.... I just didnt understand what beauty meant. I honestly felt shy and uncomfortable being acknowledged by others and seen as "Gorgeous."

  The pressure became so overwhelming that sooner than later I was looking in a mirror more than at my own family. I had become concieted and shallow to boot.

  I posted selfie after selfie, they looked perfect and the more like's I recieved the more I felt a rush of acceptance from other's that I had never felt before. The idea that I was desired, seen as the all american hottie was baffling.

  Though I rarely went out and when I did I was so shy that when some one especially an attractive man asked me my name... I became the ugly duckling and couldn't bare the socially anxious feeling that comes with unexpected appreciation.

  No matter what I went through somehow I couldn't get rid of feeling of less than average. I'm thankfu or my disagreement with the superficial standards of media and peers, Because it made me question the real purpose of life. My life changed the moment I looked deeper than circumstance and loved through and to the core of each heart.... Starting with my own. .

  I chose to take a new approach to beauty. The face will sag as well as the body, but a beautiful heart..... That shit lives forever. The realization that I didnt even know who I was as a human because I had been aiming for outeextrior beauty or daydreaming about being acceted. I chose to begin learning what I was made of.

  I cut my hair off, threw away make up and put on the least favorite items in my wardrobe. I had never imagined leaving the house like that either. Rejection had no power over my will to know the depth of my search for true beauty. The world kept spinning around me. That was the moment I met the real Teresa Lee Landreth. I stopped believing in the attention from others and relied on my own ability of perspective that is proactive and positive. Gave away anything I had and bought roses for strangers with the small amount of money I had to my name. I was alone but I had never felt so much comfort and enjoyment from my own company. Finally I was looking at myself and without permission from society.

  Ladies and gentlemen.... If you are struggling to find the beauty that you already feel you are, try removing all that you are not. If you can love yourself for best or for worst.... Than you my friend have found grace. This means You can show this planet and those on it how to do it to. So SMILE be SILLY and enjoy yourself before giving the gem you are to a society that hasnt evolved yet to understand THE RARE AND PRECIOUS ONE OF A KIND BEAUTIFUL YOU ARE.

From 0 to Hero.

Teresa Lee Landreth.

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Stay you.