I enrolled in a twenty-one day Self-Love challenge, because let’s face it, who doesn’t need more love? For today’s specific challenge I was asked to share a physical quality about myself that I love. I chose something that I haven’t always loved, or even liked for that matter.

Quite honestly, this is one thing I grew up hating about myself. The theme for the day was ’embrace’. Just the thought of this word sent my heart racing.

The Manifestation:

This has been a very long and tough journey for me to fully embrace myself as I am and love my qualities wholeheartedly. Growing up as a little girl, I started to develop lots of freckles and moles due to my genetics. I’m a fair skinned Irish/British gal so it made sense (now, not then though). I grew up hating them and I felt ugly, dirty, and nothing like a “girl”. At age eleven, I had to have one removed from my face due to a skin cancer risk and at the time it was the scariest thing to go through as a young girl. I remember crying during the procedure and my mother consoling me and telling me it will be over soon and I wouldn’t have to go through this ever again. What she didn’t realize, is that I would need to remove fourteen more moles as I grew older and some would be pre-cancerous. I remember feeling relieved after removing that first one because it meant that ugly spot was gone forever from my face.

The Impact:

I’ve been through multiple procedures since that first one at age eleven due to being at high risk for skin cancer. I used to always look at other girls and was envious of their mole-free porcelain complexions and always wondered “why me”. I had classmates make comments about them fairly regularly. I would cry for days on end and believed all their remarks as truth. I would research ways to get rid of them naturally and even talked to the doctor about removing all of them as I would have preferred having scars over moles. My friends and family would tell me they are “beauty marks” and I would respond by saying “it’s impossible for me to be that beautiful with the amount I have”.

I still receive comments today from people.

Recently, I was approached by someone while I was working and hosting a booth at a health and wellness event. This person identified himself as a “healer” and asked me my age and told me he could heal me from my moles and told me I am aging very fast.

My stomach sank and I felt nauseous. I felt embarrassed and humiliated. All those years of the little girl hating her skin rushed back like a huge ocean of emotion.

I thought the days of bullying about my appearance were over and here I was being of service at an event faced with it again. I was angry, actually I was enraged. I thought about all the years of self-work I had done that could be taken away from me in a single comment, in a mere ten seconds of time. That is, if I let it. It was in this exact moment I knew I was being tested and this was my moment to fully embrace myself in love to make up for all those silenced years of tears. I stood up, placed my hands over my heart and skin and asserted that I really love this quality about me and I wouldn’t change it for anything as it makes me who I am, and that is unique. He kept trying to persuade me otherwise.

And I again stood strong in my truth, looked him straight in the eyes and simply said “I love them”.

The Truth:

Over the years, I have learned to fully embrace the skin I am in and have learned to wholeheartedly love my moles and freckled skin as uniquely my own. They truly make me who I am and I would miss their presence with me if gone. Our markings are part of our journey and our story, each one with its own unique appearance and essence that has transformed us in some way and they serve to remind us how far we have come. It’s been a very long journey to get to this point with lots of self-love and self-work. My mantra often is a line from India Arie’s song….

“…every freckle on my face is where it’s suppose to be”.

By embracing our inner most authentic thoughts, emotions, and inner critic, we begin to create a space for and cultivate radical acceptance to what is, which is ultimately the very essence of truly healing and transforming ourselves and our lives.

In order to arrive at a place, we must first move through the very places we have already been.
@lauritagorman (Click to Tweet!)

What story does your skin tell? 

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Laurita Gorman is a holistic psychotherapist, yoga teacher, writer, speaker, mental health advocate, and global retreat leader.  She helps people around the globe transform their lives from places of pain and suffering to a journey’s of healing and growth, so they can live their best life and make meaningful impact in the world.  Through a unique blend of psychology + holistic and spiritual practices, she supports people in discovering what matters most to them and assists them in taking action towards those values so they can create the life they love, now! She is also the founder of Minds Out Loud, a global mental health movement dedicated to helping end the stigma surrounding mental health through the art of storytelling.  You can follow Laurita on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and sign up for her weekly newsletter at www.lauritagorman.com.

Image courtesy of Daniel Santalla.