How Do You Define Yourself?

“Brave starts here.”

These are the closing words to Lizzie Velasquez’s powerful and gut-wrenching TED talk on how we define ourselves. Lizzie is one of three people in the world born with an exceptionally rare syndrome. She cannot gain weight. While many may read this and think how marvelous that would be, two seconds into this powerful video will change your mind forever.

Lizzie is not slim, she is skeletal. She was raised normally by a loving and supporting family, but as soon as she entered school, she faced immense bullying. When she was a teenager, an eight second video of her was put on YouTube, defining her as “The Ugliest Woman in the World.” The video got over 4 million views and countless comments like she’d do the world a favor if she killed herself, or “kill it with fire”. Complete strangers defined her as a monster. Ugly. Unworthy of common human decency, unworthy of life. All because of how she looked.

Lizzie could have crumbled. She could have accepted the way the world saw her, and began to define herself accordingly. But she didn’t.

Watch how Lizzie transformed her life and overcame the negativity of a superficial world in this video.

Today, consider sitting down with a pen and paper and ruminate on the question she asks: How do you define yourself? Then ponder how many of those descriptors you assigned yourself, and how many you adopted from others. After all, though it may be exceedingly hard, we have the power to accept or deny the labels placed on us. We just need to recognize the strength of our own truth.

“Brave starts here.”