Loving yourself.

Keke Motaung: Assistant Editor - Ambition Magazine.

I recently participated in a beauty pageant and it’s amazing how much I learnt from being surrounded by eleven girls in one room for almost 24 hours. Loving yourself first goes a  long way .Truth be told-women have a hard time accepting themselves for who they are especially if they are faced with someone who seems to be oozing with confidence, self-love, what seems like the perfect outfit, hairstyle or whatever else we women need to “qualify” for perfect womanhood. All of us in that room were there to compete yet we put on a smile and deviously pretended we want to share combs, and make up and all else when in actual fact we were thinking about who looks perfect and who would be most likely to take the crown .well for most it was pretence even if for some it was genuine kindness.

Being around women as or possibly more  gorgeous, talented and educated than yourself for more than just a few hours and behaving to be utterly amusing all at the same time takes will power, a sturdy self-esteem as well as acceptance and love of who you are. A lot of women out there who are absolutely gorgeous stand in front of the mirror once in a while and point out the wrongs on their bodies-the wrongs that another woman would see as perfect. This is so unhealthy at times that you’ll find certain women withdrawing from society while floundering in self pity and low confidence.

And then men wonder why women shop so much?
We always strive to look better and hotter. No matter how much we hear that beauty starts on the inside-physical beauty somehow triggers something within us that gives us that priceless(not really) confidence-which by the way lasts only until the new item seems outdated or  just plain ancient and boring. There is something about a new thing that’s therapeutic to women. When we look good, we feel good. And when we feel good we do good too. This is why most women feel downcast when they have to wear something old instead of ‘the new dress I saw and could not afford’ to an old friend’s party. We love appreciation, we love compliments- it’s not wrong.

Keke Motaung with her good friend Nthabiseng Ngwato!

The only thing that is wrong is when as a woman, you begin to have self- hate because you think you are not as good as the next person or as pretty or as sexy and that stops you from succeeding in whatever you do. How? at the pageant as soon as I saw the other girls-I thought to myself ‘ wow they are gorgeous’, they have good hair ,some even have experience. But that didn’t stop me cause a voice inside me said: ‘HEY-you are just as gorgeous and you deserve to be here’.  And that’s when I realised that I could never BE like any one of them no matter hard I tried. And that not one of them could ever be me no matter how hard they tried too.

Miss Keke aka Kuddles.

 You are the only you there is and when you no longer exist there will never be another you. And if that does not make you feel special –know that as much as you admire others-there is someone out there who admires you for something-no matter how old they are. Most mothers know that feeling. So next time someone appreciates you-accept it like the queen you are.

Relevant Quote: Why be a second rate version of someone else when you can be a first rate version of yourself?

Article by: Keke Motaung