Confidence in yourself ~ young ladies

We interviewed hundreds of women and documented the secret to inner beauty. You will not want to miss this one! This classroom is especially beneficial for emerging pre-teen girls, but bring grandma and mom along to watch this special film.

Comparing is not always bad. A friend once said, "dare to compare," especially when you are noticing high standards, kindness, strong effort, resilience shown by one of your heroes, etc. Some people take our breath away... and women need to see examples of other women. Some people inspire us, and this is when comparing is okay. Dare to compare when you feel "divine discontent."

Definition of divine discontent:

A spiritual or profound inner restlessness and dissatisfaction with the status quo, stemming from recognizing a gap between who you are and who you have the potential to become, or seeing imperfections in the world, motivating a yearning for growth, improvement, and alignment with a higher purpose or God.

When you know there is a new spiritual level of growth deep inside you, look to the beautiful examples laced and hidden throughout the Bible of amazing women.

Comparing becomes a problem when we "compare the flare" or compare our looks, styles, and talent levels. Perhaps your aunt has an effortlessly elegant style, and you find yourself wanting to channel her energy — especially when a job interview is on the horizon. That is not only understandable, it is smart. But there is a subtle line between inspired and obsessed, and it is worth knowing where it lives. When you begin scanning your friends at school — their outfits, their makeup, their hair — and the quiet question creeping into your mind is Am I the prettiest? Am I the best? — that is the moment you have stepped out of inspiration and into the territory of pride and ego. This kind of comparing is deeply human. We have all done it a time or two. But when it becomes a constant hum in the background of your thoughts, a relentless mental scoreboard, it stops being human and starts being harmful.

And then there is the mirror. You catch your reflection, and instead of simply seeing yourself, you begin editing yourself. You wish your eyes were blue. You wish your shape were different, your hair another color, your skin something other than what it is. This is what I call "compare the flare" — and it is a dangerous arena to wander into. Because here is what is true: your eye color, your curves, your complexion, the texture of your hair — none of these were accidents. They were given to you. You were gifted a human body for this lifetime, and every feature you are tempted to erase is, in fact, a signature. When women begin measuring their worth by how they look — stacking themselves up against an endless digital parade of images — it is called self-objectification. It is not a small thing. It is rampant, it is dangerous, and in our "phone pic"culture, it has never been more seductive or more suffocating. You are not a picture. You are a person. And that distinction is everything.

The Definition of Self-objectification is:

The mental process of when someone looks at themselves from the outside, like an object, and worries more about appearance than about who they are or what they can do, which can hurt their confidence and mental health.

You step into your power when you radiate love, clarity, understanding, empathy. You lose your power when you feel judgment, shame, or doubt. Social scientists have confirmed that you can not focus on two things at once. So if you are worried about how you look, while you go about working on building something, you really rob the world of the gifts you have to offer.

If you find it difficult to recognize your value as a cherished daughter of Heavenly Parents and rely on your external appearance for confidence, you are at risk of self-objectification, which means treating yourself as an object. Objects get acted upon, they don't do the acting in their life. You are also giving the opportunity for others to treat you as an object.

“Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking, there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest.

Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone" - C.S. Lewis

We interviewed hundreds of women on inner beauty. We have a documentary to share here that I created years ago but still holds its power. The following documentary is not perfect, but it was created by real women, real moms, real daughters, with real emotions and fears in my local city that I lived when I filmed it. The voices will sometimes sound muffled because each girl took the time to record and send their vulnerabilities. The voice memos that were recorded by real women, are not all lapsed on top of the women in the video. Some women are kindly playing the model over the voice memos because friends wanted to stay discreet. The truth is, sometimes it is just hard for women to get in front of a screen, so please show grace for the brave actors! The story just unfolds, and gets stronger as it goes so please stay in and take 15 minutes of your time to really take in the beautiful message of inner beauty. I created this with a wonderful friend, Randi Holmes, years ago. She helped guide this documentary journey and this video deserves to be shared with the world.

A HUGE thankyou to all my brave friends and neighbors, who came on screen and shared their smiles. It's not always easy, and some of you are eternal heroes for showing such vulnerability. We love you, and we are grateful to your generosity, and authentic vulnerability! All of you shine a bright inner light. It is so fun to look back and remember you all in this stage when we created this film. Thank you!

Here it is! We hope you talk about what inner beauty really means with your family after watching this and visit more classrooms.

A silly but memorable little poem for your girlies:

Compare The Flare

 -written by Steph Gardner, for her daughters

We hope you visit more classrooms here! We have classrooms on building resilience, losing fear, growing a vision of your future, tools for a growth mindset, etc.