I had pretty good skin growing up, little break outs here and there but nothing major. Cut to me in my early 20s randomly breaking out with major cystic acne. Of course at first I was so embarrassed having bad acne in my 20s and felt really insecure which would just make me feel sad and over all not great mentally. It would get better off and on but continued to trouble me testing my patience and confidence. I tried a lot of things, most of them made it worse or did absolutely nothing. One day while looking at myself in the mirror I realized this acne I was unable to control did not have to define me or take away from my beauty & self worth. It was my choice to allow that to happen or not. I decided to take control and actually take advantage of my acne.. I was going to use this to gain even more confidence and dive deeper into the realization of my self worth. Now days with social media having such a major impact on our daily life and choices, even effecting our subconscious thoughts and actions. It is hard to stay confident and not let others opinions effect how we feel about ourselves. It is difficult at times to be our true selfs and be vulnerable. I know from personal experience when I feel this way it effects how I feel mentally and emotionally in a negative way. I know this totally sounds depressing and hopeless but I am here to share my experience in how I changed this whole thing in to a positive one.

Love. Gratitude. Vulnerability.

Whenever I have practiced these things everything changes for the better and that’s exactly what I did. I decided that I was going to share a photo on social media of me with no make up. Showing very clearly my face full of scars and acne. Scary right? It wasn't, because I had previously decided that I was beautiful and my skin being clear or full of acne did not define that. I decided that no matter what anyone said, good or bad their opinions did not define how I felt about myself. Being vulnerable and posting this set me free from the trap that caring about what other people think becomes. Every time I passed a mirror in public or private I would look at myself and say something I loved about myself, something about my appearance and another about my personality. I created a love and appreciation for myself that kept growing and soon the negative thoughts disappeared. If I thought about a negative thing concerning my face I would say something I was grateful for and why. I told myself everyday I was grateful I was overcoming my insecurities and grateful my acne was improving. I stopped feeling the need to constantly cover up and hide. I stopped allowing something so little and normal to effect how I felt about myself. I felt more confident and beautiful than I ever had. I wanted to share these words with you because this completely changed my experience, not only with acne but how I stay confident and happy with all other insecurities that come around. We all have things about ourselves we don't love, but with a change of perspective you can learn to love all of YOU just the way you are.

I love you big,

Saint Starlie