If you don’t like yourself, losing weight, getting breast implants or having a nose job isn’t going to change that. Liking yourself happens in your mind, soul and spirit.

Chesna grew up with an alcoholic mom. Her parents were divorced and couldn’t get along, so she rarely saw her dad after she was 3 years old. Her mom was too drunk to teach her how to take care of herself. Chesna was always teased about the “rat’s nest” in her hair. By the time she was 10, she was overweight, covered in freckles and had no idea now to manage her frizzy hair.

Chesna felt ugly, but that wasn’t the biggest problem in her life. Being responsible for raising herself while hiding the fact that her mom was an unfit parent was a daily struggle. After her dad remarried, his new wife encouraged him to get involved in Chesna’s life again. They discovered the desperate conditions she lived in, and when she was 12, her dad and his new wife took Chesna into their home.

Judy, Chesna’s stepmom, taught Chesna how to straighten her hair and make it curl in the current style. She started eating healthy meals, and that, combined with an adolescent growth spurt, helped her slim down over the summer. Almost overnight, Chesna became the pretty girl in her new school. If there ever was a real “ugly duckling turns into a swan” story, she lived it. The problem was, no matter how much positive attention Chesna received about her looks, she couldn’t stop feeling like that fat, neglected little girl inside.

How you look on the outside has little to do with whether you feel good about yourself on the inside. Studies show that beautiful people actually have a greater dislike of their looks than average-looking people.

Renew Your Mind
Healthy self-esteem comes from believing in the value God holds for you, not in the value the world (including guys) places on you. The abuse and neglect Chesna received from her alcoholic mom had damaged her view of herself. It took time and attention for Chesna to come to believe in her value and worth. She had to forgive her mom and realize that she did not cause her mom to drink. Chesna’s stepmother helped her take a long journey to healing. But bad feelings about yourself don’t automatically go away after you make yourself look good.

I (Rachel) know how easy it is to believe this myth. We think, If I can just get that perfect prom dress and my hair to turn out like the picture in the magazine, I will have the time of my life. From my years of high school special occasions, I’ve discovered that it’s not about what you’re wearing or how your hair looks. It’s about the people you’re with.

Beauty Myth No. 2: My outward appearance is the most important thing about me.
It’s totally natural for teenagers to focus on their appearance. It’s part of your healthy development. But when this natural stage of development meets the youth-frenzied focus of our culture, it creates youth who are fixated on their appearance. This is not healthy at all. Some teens are willing to spend literally hundreds of dollars to do away with blemishes. We’re not talking about teens who truly have an acne problem; normal girls with normal breakouts are getting facials and treatments at a very high cost.

Obviously parents are involved in funding these decisions. What does this kind of “help” communicate to their daughters? Sometimes well-meaning parents go along with these decisions in the hopes of raising their daughters’ self-esteem, but it’s not a healthy development of self-esteem and ends up increasing their insecurity. Girls get the message that appearance is all that matters about them. Do you know that in American culture, looking good rates higher on priorities than giving to the poor?

It’s interesting that God sends blemishes into our lives at the developmental stage when we’re most concerned with our looks. Perhaps the lesson God wants to teach us is that life will go on even when we have a horrible breakout. When you begin to believe that your appearance is all that matters, though, you don’t even consider all the other qualities that make you you.

I (Debi) remember being a very skinny girl, but at age 13, skinny was in. I was also taller than average, and suddenly I started getting a lot of attention for my looks. People told me that I should be a model. I started to believe they were right and convinced my parents to let me try modeling. When the modeling school told us that I would have to pay money to be a model, I began to doubt that I was destined for stardom. I also started looking through beauty magazines and realized that there were a lot of beautiful girls in the world. I realized that I couldn’t be the most beautiful. I decided that I would need to develop other qualities.

Too many teens today don’t make the same breakthrough. They stay focused on the belief that their only value is in how they look.

Renew Your Mind
The truth is, your outward appearance is what people will first judge you by, but your personality, self-confidence, talents and abilities and your spiritual sensitivity are all vital to who you are as well. Beauty is much deeper than how you look (1 Samuel 16:7).

It really helps you accept yourself when you stop judging other people based on their looks alone. As a therapist, I (Debi) gave girls the assignment to watch people at the mall without judging them by their appearance. Rather than thinking, Look at that fat man, say to yourself, Look at that father holding his daughter’s hand as they walk through the mall. Looking for beauty in other people helps you see the beauty in yourself. Try to think a beautiful thought about every person you have in your first-period class. Find the beauty in people, and it will help you discover the beauty in yourself.

Adapted from Beauty Secrets by Dr. Deborah Newman and Rachel Newman. Published by Focus on the Family and Tyndale House. Copyright 2007.