Enough... IS... enough.

That quote reminded me of how strange it is that so many of us spend (at least) half our lives at war with the mirror. We measure ourselves with rulers someone else created. Standards carved out by advertising campaigns, strangers’ opinions, and those poisoned internal voices of comparison that creep into our own heads.

As a young teen girl, I used to believe my worth could be disassembled and rearranged by other people’s comments. Their raised eyebrows, their “under breath” opinions, their careless and insensitive jokes - not to mention that cold shoulder rejection. It always left me shrinking myself even smaller than I already felt in spaces and company like that…smaller and smaller, trying not to take up too much space, as though existing on my own terms was some kind of offence.

And oh, my legs. I had an irrational obsession with hiding them. I lived in jeans, even on ridiculously hot summer days… so hot you could fry an egg on the pavement (This is Saffer land people) At school, forced into a uniform, I can remember rubbing used tea bags on my legs as a sort of “DIY 1990’s Self Tan” in the hopes that it would make my lily white, freckled legs “acceptable”. Twelve years old and already convinced I wasn’t enough. Sad, hey? But real.

Years later, I got used to myself. I stopped polishing, plucking, painting, dressing for the world every single day, and simply sat in my own skin. No stage lights. Just me. And slowly… painfully slowly, I began to realise the person staring back wasn’t half as bad as I had been taught to believe. In fact, she was beautiful in ways I had never allowed myself to notice.

It is quite liberating to see yourself “as you are” and refusing to apologise for it. You stop trying to negotiate your right to exist, and instead, you start to live. Not perfectly (that is a lie and illusion the world feeds us) but honestly.

Women are complicated creatures. We have been sexualised, judged, belittled, and stuffed into tiny boxes for so long that it’s no wonder many of us grow up mistrusting our own reflections. For some - like myself, that distrust turns inward, becoming a silent shame. For others, it spills outward, wrapped in bravado. And then there are the rare few who stride through the world like their skin is armour, untouchable and unashamed - but most of that is a facade too!

Beauty is not a competition. It is not a currency. It is not a pie chart that gets divided up so there’s less for you if someone else has more. It is more like art. Unique, wild, ungoverned, deeply personal art. And like all art, its value lies in authenticity, not perfection.

One evening, hair in a messy knot, mascara from the day before smudged under my eyes, I caught myself in the mirror on my way to bed. Not my “best self”, and definitely not ready for any camera moments. Just me, as I was “in my day”. And for once, I didn’t flinch. I didn’t criticise. I didn’t search for flaws. I simply said: “You are beautiful.” And in that unguarded moment, I believed it. It was not about vanity. It was not about arrogance. It was nothing more than acceptance.

That was when I realised that we spend so much energy teaching girls (as well as trying to convince ourselves) to strive for impossible standards that we forget to teach them (and ourselves) the radical (and awesomely freeing) power of saying, I am enough. As I am.

I am not talking about beauty routines, or photo filters, I am talking about what lies in the deeper waters of your own personal emotional psychology… how you FEEL about yourself. I suppose you kind of have to get the one aspect sorted before you can enjoy the other one on a level that does not define you.

What I know now? If you make peace with your own skin, the world loses its power to make you doubt it. If you learn to love your reflection, you will find yourself loving others more generously too, because the measuring stick you once beat yourself with will no longer exist.

I am of the opinion that if enough of us do that, society will finally have to reckon with what women really want… not necessarily smaller waists or tighter skin, but larger lives and an appreciation for how much we bring to this space called “the world”.

Next time you pass a mirror - I challenge you to look yourself straight in the eyes and greet yourself. Just you, right as you are. Perfectly imperfect. That moment could change everything.