Look at Yourself Through Others Eyes:The Eyes of Love

We are always hardest on ourselves, at least I am. I am never good enough, I am never satisfied with how I look. I envision myself looking like I did when I was young and pretty but then I look in the mirror and no longer see that person. I look at old pictures and see pretty but the ones that are taken in the present day make me want to cry and shy away from the camera. But people who love me tell me I am beautiful. I think to myself when they say that "are you blind?". But as I have been thinking about this lately I realize that they see me through the eyes of love.

When I was a young child and my grandma was not even as old as I am now I thought she was beautiful Of course she was "old" to me but always beautiful. As she aged, and I did too, I still saw her as beautiful. I still saw her in the same way at 80 as I did when she was in her 40's. She was beautiful to me, even in pictures when I look back she is beautiful. I remember her saying she looked old and ugly in pictures but she did not care. She smiled and she was happy and to those who loved her she was beautiful until the day she passed away.

It is the same with my own mom. When I was a kid I always thought she was one of the most beautiful women I knew. As she aged and said how old and ugly she looks I still saw, and still see, a beautiful woman. That is who I see when I look at my mom. She might see old and ugly but that is not who she is, it is not what those who love her see.

As I was saying how I wished I was pretty again I had a friend tell me that I was still beautiful. I told him that he was wrong and had not seen me in a while.He told me that it is not up to me to say whether or not I am beautiful.Others see me that way and I don't have the right to tell them they are wrong, that me beautiful is not what they see. That made so much sense because those who love me see me through different eyes. Those who love me see me through the eyes of love. This was comforting and made me realize that we are hardest on ourselves in every aspect of life even our appearance.

I finally realize that those who say I am still beautiful are not lying, they still see me that way. They look at me through eyes of love. So I am going to work hard on looking at myself through the eyes of those who love me. It will take some time to change my mindset but I need to be on my way, it may take some time but I need to look at myself through others eyes, to look at myself through the eyes of love.