#ChooseBeautiful

He's told my every day for the past multiple weeks, watching me with that crooked smile and when I ask him what he's thinking I already know.
You're beautiful, He says.
He says he'll keep telling me until I believe him and I think I'm starting to believe him.
...
I know it’s hard to accept compliments as anything other than lies. but when somebody blurts, “you’re beautiful,” take a breath. think of your dog, panting happily and covered in mud. think of your mother in her bathrobe with her hair in tinfoil while the dye sets. think of your best friend with her face streaked with tears and makeup. think of your little brother when he was sick and his face was a red puffy mess. think of how, even then, your heart swelled up with love of them. this is I think where compliments come from: when they look at you, no matter what, they see somebody beautiful, not some body, beautiful.
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My friend sat across from me today telling me about her breakup. Tears filled her eyes and I wrapped her in my arms and held her as tight as I could and told her she did the right thing. Sometimes leaving, however hard and seemingly impossible it is, is the right thing.
And I feel that way as the final days at PRBI roll into one another and I'm forced to pack up this room I spent 8 months living in and say goodbye to the people I never expected to find myself loving and enter into the great uncertainty which is the next 4 months.
I am afraid of the future, of the unknown, of separation and saying goodbye.
As my friend and I sat together, crying and accepting the inevitable as it washed over us in waves, I decided that sometimes this kind of bravery is beautiful.
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I think you become beautiful when someone loves you. At least that's how it was for me. Or maybe I was beautiful before but I never began to understand the words until recently.
I'm not beautiful when I have it all together. The hair and the makeup and the clothes don't make me beautiful.
I've been thinking for a while now of the moments when I feel most beautiful, when I feel the happiest.
I feel the most beautiful when I make him smile, or when he watches me like I'm magic
I feel the most beautiful when I'm sitting in care groups with these amazing girls reflecting back to me all the beauty and honesty and love
I feel most beautiful when I'm feeling authentically and living boldly and going on brave, new adventures
I feel most beautiful when I'm laughing, or taking time to be grateful, or when I'm creating something I'm proud of
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Dove has a new campaign called choosing beautiful.
In the video, women are forced to choose whether they want to walk through a door labeled beautiful or one labeled average
I was thinking about which door I would pick.
A while ago I would have walked through the door called average without hesitation. I'm nothing special.
But now... now I see the doors and I think of all the people who love me, and the moments that make me feel most fully alive, and how all of these things make me beautiful
And I think the door I would choose has changed