When I wake up these days, I see a lot of things that are changing on my face: puffy eyes with a bit of a 'hood' and lines deepening across my forehead.
On the eve of my 32nd birthday, I'm learning to accept age as beauty; even though I'm about to get botox for the first time, I figure there's a space for this to exist alongside self love and acceptance.
I run an underwear brand that centers itself on these values, and I feel totally consumed and passionate about helping women to achieve this pinnacle. I personally have been training myself to see age through the lens of beauty rather than decay.
And in doing so, it's brought up a lot of questions for me -- what is beauty and how does it exist in my world? How can we maintain a beauty regime without becoming totally obsessed by it, how can we value our personal maintenance without under valuing our personal growth?
For quite a while, I became totally consumed by running my business that I lost touch with my preparedness for the world. I stopped allowing myself my morning beauty routine, and instead filled that time with more work. And coffee.
And yes, for a moment I thought to myself 'I'd rather work than look good.'
But what I found over time is that showing up to the office, to meetings, and to my life without the level of self care I'd normally expect of myself left me feeling unprepared. And even un-worthy. And perhaps jam-packing my time and my life with as much work as possible doesn't mean more success or progress, long-term. Perhaps this is just the perfect recipe for burnout.
Side note: burnout is an inevitable reality of work-life imbalance, regardless of how much you love your work.
So as of recently, I've started reconsidering the meaning of self-love.
As women, there's a lot of pressure to look good, age gracefully, and in these modern times, be an equal contributor to the household. Whether menstruating or on an off-cycle, struggling to show up to work looking 'glowing' each day, it's a task that at times can feel impossible to achieve.
I think what I've realized is that the key to self love really comes down to how you talk to yourself, and the sentiment of your own thoughts towards yourself. Loving, kind thoughts contribute to self love. Even if you're about to get preventative botox, work done on yourself in some way, a new outfit to uplift your spirits, or makeup to cover up some impurities.
You don't have to 'bear all' to the world to show it that you love yourself. You just have to speak kindly to yourself, accept that you are not perfect, and love yourself unconditionally anyways.
Today, I want to thank our amazing customers for not only supporting my mission to help women love and accept themselves, but for also helping me to do the same for myself.
I wanted to provide a little something special to you all - from Jul 29 to Aug 1st you can shop my faves and get 1 item free when you buy 3.
Much love,
xo Alexa
