I am Unique and loving it #YourBeautifulSeries

October 26, 2015

Welcome to the second story in the #YourBeautifulSeries, I hope you enjoy and maybe even identify with Vongai Bhelebana‘s experience and how she found HerBeautiful. Please continue to comment and share the series.

I am unique and loving it by Vongai Bhelebana

I have heard a lot of people say that real beauty comes from the inside. I always wondered what that really meant. I do not doubt that many of the #YourBeautifulSeries will focus on this beauty on the inside. I am all happy with that… I guess

Let’s look at reality for a second, if you do not mind. No woman is going to win the beauty pageant, if they do not look a certain way. Would Beyoncé be Beyoncé if she looked like Precious? Why do the women on the annual most beautiful list look nothing like me? When they came up with that list, how did they determine that their pancreas was prettier than mine?

I think when magazines, tv and billboards all sell this version of the definition of beauty, it makes it so much harder to believe what beauty really is. I feel sorry for women and girls who are not able to sieve through all the information and realise it’s all a ploy to get you to buy into the most impossible definition of beauty.

They make money feeding off women’s insecurities – lipstick, foundation, eye shadow, weaves, skin lighteners, laser lipo… the list is endless. The beauty industry is a multi-billion dollar industry after all. Magazines do not focus on this mysterious inner beauty simply because it does not make good business sense. That’s the reality

The Journey

What is inner beauty then? Is inner beauty something that ugly people say to themselves to feel better? What makes me beautiful? When have I looked at the girl on the cover, acknowledged I looked nothing like her and realise it did not bother me at all?

It certainly wasn’t when I tried on the makeup and weaves. It did help though but somehow, I didn’t quite look like the women in the magazines. It certainly wasn’t when I lost some weight. Though that did help too in a way. It was not even the first time someone called me beautiful or even the hundredth time they said that either. Again it did help in a way. Somehow these helpful aids… fell short. They fell short because the beautiful feeling was temporary. When I washed off the makeup, removed the weaves, gained some weight, forgot the sweet words…. it was back to ugly.

I do not know about you, but I need something a bit more permanent. This misnomer – inner beauty. I searched high and low, just to see where I could get it. How I could access this beautiful soul and character, that is visible and all can see. Oh my! What a journey!

For me, inner beauty came when I started accepting love especially from myself. The world can be unbelievably cold and life can easily turn into a war against heartbreak.

Finding my beautiful

Buildings walls around our hearts so that we can protect ourselves from rejection. For me it was a process both long and hard. Breaking down those walls and learning to love myself and accept unconditional commitment to my own happiness. When I accepted love I felt whole. The most natural response for me was not only feel beautiful but to be beautiful.

It was like a switched turned on when I discovered my beauty. Now I am aware that there is only one me in all of time. If I spend my life trying to mimic someone else’s definition of beauty, I would have robbed the world of my unique expression. No one else has lived and will ever live the exact life I am living right now. This world needs the special beauty only I, can give.