This morning my mom made an innocent comment that the way my daughter was wearing her hair made her look like Audrey Hepburn. I felt uncomfortable with this, because growing up and to this day I struggle with social comparison, including with celebrities. I still remember learning in my late teens that magazines are photoshopped. “Great,” I thought, “my negative self-image is due in large part to comparing myself to FAKE images of others.” Didn’t matter if they were fake or not—my feelings of self-doubt and inferiority were very REAL.
Instead of saying my daughter’s hairstyle makes her look like Audrey Hepburn, I would say, “My daughter’s hairstyle makes her look like Audrey Hepburn did after a lot of stylists and make-up artists worked on her.”
I’m not saying Audrey Hepburn wasn’t naturally beautiful, but I AM saying, we have to be transparent about who a celebrity is—they are not common people, their images are worked on by a multitude of professionals and I think we need to keep that in mind when we are browsing through magazines, blogs, etc—I know I do!
Mindful Nuggets 