Monday, September 22, 2014

Be Real, Don't Conceal: Rule Breaking

Okay so I cheated a little, but it’s okay because this is my challenge so I make my own rules ;) Since July 9, I have worn makeup one time. I had a breakout rash on my face due to an allergic reaction to a product. I didn’t want to deal with people asking me about it so I dabbed one a tiny bit of concealer. I’m sharing this just because I’m honest, but because I learned something from it that I would love to share. I almost didn’t do it. I asked my husbands opinion. Am I breaking my commitment? I asked.  “Well technically… Yes.” He replied. I sighed in frustration and said that I didn’t want to go to the event because I didn’t want to deal with people, and also because I was having an emotional week (fill in blanks for reason).  My confidence that week was not in a happy state(I had a meltdown about my shorts being too short, my friends will attest to that)

I said to Joe,
 “Well great. I guess I have to go like this!! I thought I didn’t care what people thought of me anymore, but I just don’t want to walk around feeling like people are wondering what is happening to the side of my face. But then I don’t want people to judge me for not following through with my commitment!” I said as I dramatically flung myself onto our bed face first, and sighed in my pillow. He looked at me calmly and said these words that changed my whole world, as he tended to do, he said,
“Wait a second. Are you doing this for you, or for other people.” I peeked at him and said,
“For me, of course. You know that! ” He looked at me skeptically and said, “Well if you wore some concealer, would you feel guilty about it? Would you feel like you were failing your challenge?”
 “Of course not! I wouldn’t even think of doing it if I felt that way. I would probably just throw on another day at the end of the year, but I would feel fine about it because I’m still learning all the same lessons from this experience. Putting on a little concealer one day doesn’t change that for me.”
“Well there’s your answer” he said.
 “You don’t get it, If I just secretly wear concealer then I’m not being real or having integrity.”
 “Well then tell people you are wearing concealer.”
“But then people will judge me.”
“I thought you were doing this for you.” I pondered his words and sighed again. He kissed me on the forehead and stared my straight in the eyes.
“Look, if you want to wear makeup, wear makeup. It’s pretty simple.”

You see, the whole entire point of this challenge is to feel okay to be natural and beautiful me. It’s to feel confident, flaw and all. It’s to look in the mirror and like what I see. It’s to be real and be authentic. I need to make sure that I am not just learning not to care about what people think about me when i’m my simple, beautiful self, but I need to learn to not worry about what people think of me in general. I do care about what people think to some extent. I write this blog because I want to challenge people and I want to inspire people, but I also want to be real. Having a rash on my face when I was feeling especially emotional and insecure wasn’t something that made me feel confident. It didn’t make me feel like I was my natural beautiful self.  I’m not sure if it was the technical right choice, and maybe it does mean that I did break my challenge. But that day I wanted to wear makeup, so I wore makeup and it was pretty simple.

The Day of the concealer and short shorts meltdown.

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