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“You'd Be Beautiful If You Didn't Look So Broken”

I'll never forget the moment a complete stranger looked me dead in the eye and told me I'd be beautiful if I didn't look so broken.

I was out with my girlfriends at a bar, having what had been a perfectly normal night until this guy approached our group. He was one of those overly confident types who thought he was doing us all a favor by gracing us with his attention. He went around the circle, delivering what he probably thought were charming compliments to each of my friends. "You have gorgeous eyes." "Love your smile." Standard pickup lines, but harmless enough.

Then he got to me.

I froze. Completely fucking froze. The words hit me like a physical blow, and I couldn't even process what I was hearing. My friends were also shocked, unable to address what the fuck actually just happened. They were already pulling me away to the other side of the bar, but his words had already cut deep inside my chest.

Now, most of you reading this know this, but incase you are new to my story, I was born with a giant nevus that covered the right side of my face—essentially a massive birthmark that required 17 surgeries to remove over the course of my life. What remains now is extensive facial scarring that tells the story of every procedure, every attempt to "fix" what others saw as broken. This random stranger had looked at me and seen exactly what I had feared my entire life: that I looked damaged. That the evidence of my deepest most painful scars was written across my face for everyone to see and judge.

But here's what that asshole didn't know—and what I didn't know at the time either—his inability to see my beauty had absolutely nothing to do with me, and everything to do with him.

The REAL Fear Beneath the Surface

That moment has been seared in my mind because it touched the deepest insecurity I'd been carrying around for years. My biggest fear wasn't actually about how I looked—it was about being seen as broken on the inside. I had spent so much of my life worried that people would look at my scars and assume they knew something about who I was as a person. That they'd see damage where I saw strength. That they'd see broken where I saw survived. Or that, god forbid, they would pity me for what I had been through.

The thing is, I had been trying for years to hid from the reality of the way that I look: I used plenty of makeup to cover, always stood on the left side in pictures to get my good side, would try to trick my mind into believing people didn’t notice, even if deep down I knew they did.

But by hiding from my scars, I was hiding from myself and my unique beauty, and by hiding from my unique beauty, I was far too reliant on the opinions of others as to whether or not I was beautiful.

But here's the thing about other people's opinions of our appearance: they reveal far more about the person giving them than they do about us.

When Others Can't See Your Beauty

That guy at the bar? He was operating from such a limited, superficial understanding of beauty that he literally couldn't see past the surface. He had been so conditioned to believe that beauty equals perfection, that anything that deviated from some narrow standard was automatically less than. His comment wasn't an assessment of my worth—it was a revelation of his own inability to recognize strength, resilience, and real beauty when it was standing right in front of him.

Not everyone will know how to see your beauty. Not everyone has developed the emotional depth, the life experience, or the wisdom to recognize that our scars…whether they're physical, emotional, or spiritual…are actually evidence of our strength, not our brokenness.

Some people will look at you and only see what they think is missing. They'll focus on your struggles instead of your resilience. They'll see your differences as defects rather than as the unique fingerprint of your journey. They'll project their own fears and limitations onto you and call it truth.

But their inability to see you clearly doesn't make you any less beautiful, any less whole, or any less worthy of love and respect.

The Only Opinion That Matters

It took me years to understand this, but the most important relationship you'll ever have with beauty is the one you have with yourself. Because at the end of the day, you're the one who has to live in your skin. You're the one who has to look in the mirror every morning and decide how you're going to see yourself. You're the one who gets to define what beauty means in your life.

I had to learn to look at my scars and see them as evidence of my courage, not my brokenness. I had to learn to see the story they tell—of seventeen surgeries I survived, of a medical journey I navigated, of a little girl who grew into a woman despite facing challenges that would have broken others. I had to learn to see my face not as damaged goods, but as proof of my resilience.

When I finally got to that place—when I could look in the mirror and genuinely see my own beauty—something magical happened. Other people's opinions stopped having the power to destroy me. Because when you truly see and love yourself, when you recognize your own worth and beauty, it becomes impossible for someone else's limited perspective to define you..

You Are Not What Others Cannot See

If you're reading this and you've ever had someone make you feel like you're somehow broken, damaged, or less than because of how you look, I need you to hear this: their inability to see your beauty is their limitation, not your reality.

Maybe you have scars like I do. Maybe you don't fit into society's narrow definition of conventional attractiveness. Maybe you've been made to feel like something about your appearance makes you less worthy of love, respect, or belonging. Maybe you've internalized those voices so deeply that you've started to believe them yourself.

But here's what I know now that I wish I had known that night at the bar: you are not broken. You are not damaged goods. You are not less beautiful because someone else lacks the vision or ability to see your worth.

Your beauty-- your real, authentic, unshakable beauty-- exists whether or not anyone else has the capacity to recognize it. It exists in your strength, in your resilience, in the way you've survived whatever life has thrown at you. It exists in your laugh, in your kindness, in the light that shines from your eyes when you talk about something you love. It exists in the thousand ways you show up in this world as exactly who you are.

Learning to See Yourself Clearly

So how do you get to that place where your own opinion of your beauty matters more than anyone else's? How do you develop that unshakeable sense of self-worth that can't be destroyed by someone else's thoughtless words?

• Start by changing the story you tell yourself. Instead of focusing on what you think is "wrong" with how you look, start looking for evidence of your strength. Look for the stories your body tells about what you've survived, what you've overcome, what you've endured. Your stretch marks are evidence of growth. Your wrinkles are evidence of laughter and worry and the full experience of being human. Your scars are evidence of battles fought and won.
• Practice seeing yourself through loving eyes. We are often our own harshest critics, noticing every flaw while completely overlooking our beauty. Start each day by looking in the mirror and finding one thing you genuinely appreciate about yourself. It might feel forced at first, but over time, you'll start to train your brain to see yourself more compassionately.
• Surround yourself with people who see you clearly. Not everyone deserves access to your energy, and that includes people who consistently make you feel less than beautiful. Seek out relationships with people who celebrate you as you are, who see your whole self, who recognize your beauty in all its forms.
• Remember that beauty is not a prerequisite for worth. Even as you work on seeing your own beauty, remember that your value as a human being has never been dependent on how you look. You are worthy of love, respect, and belonging exactly as you are, right now, regardless of whether you or anyone else thinks you're beautiful.

The Freedom in Seeing Yourself

Looking back now, I'm almost grateful for that asshole at the bar. Not because what he said was okay, because it fucking wasn’t. Not because it didn't hurt, because it absolutely did, and deeply at that. But because it forced me to confront my deepest insecurity and ultimately taught me that the only person who gets to define my beauty is me.

When you truly see yourself—when you recognize your own worth and beauty independent of anyone else's opinion—you become free. Free from the exhausting work of trying to earn other people's approval. Free from the fear of being judged or rejected based on how you look. Free to show up in the world as exactly who you are, scars and all.

That random guy at the bar couldn't see my beauty because he was looking with eyes that had been trained to see only one very narrow definition of what beauty could be. But I don't need him to see me clearly—I need me to see me clearly. And now I do.

So as you go into this week, I hope you can hear me when I say: you are not broken. You are not damaged. You are not less beautiful because someone else can't see your worth. You are exactly as you're meant to be, and the only person who needs to believe that is you.

So, Ask Yourself This Week

• What would change in your life if you truly believed you were beautiful exactly as you are?
• What would you do differently if other people's opinions about your appearance had no power over you?

These are the questions that will set you free.

P.S. FEELING THIS MESSAGE?? Reply to this email and let me know what part landed with you — or forward it to someone who needs a little pick-me-up.

P.P.S. I HAVE A FEW COACHING SPOTS THAT HAVE JUST OPENED UP!

Want to explore how to bring more real self-love into your life? Schedule a coffee chat here or respond to this email and we can set one up!