Book Review: How to Embrace Your Inner Hotness by Leta Greene

Raise your hand if you feel insecure about any part of your physical appearance! We all do - every one of us. Whether we're supermodels or soccer moms or weigh 120 pounds or 350 pounds, every person alive on earth dislikes something about themselves. I'm right there with you - I'm downright awesome in so many ways, and yet when it comes to my weight, I can't seem to cut myself any slack. The way I feel about myself emotionally gets piled on top of the unhealthy way I feel physically, and it becomes a vicious cycle of self-criticism that's difficult to break.

Makeup artist and motivational speaker Leta Greene addresses these issues and more in her new release, How to Embrace Your Inner Hotness: An Inside-out Approach to a Lasting Makeover. This book was a fun read for me on several levels.

First, Leta is a real woman. She's not a stick-thin, airbrushed, media-hyped personality - she has scars (literally) and she's really down-to-earth. Second, the book starts out by affirming something we should all be telling ourselves everyday - that we are of value, regardless of our appearance, and that God only creates beautiful things. She then gives practical tips for working with the very best of our features by choosing colors and styles and shapes to make ourselves amazing instead of longing for the body we may never have. If we honor what we have and dress for who we are now, we can feel good about ourselves every day instead of waiting to lost that ten, fifty, or hundred pounds before we'll give ourselves some credit.

In my experience, most books that give tips for makeovers concentrate on hair, makeup, and fashion. Leta gives advice for how to change the way we perceive ourselves before she gets into choosing the right moisturizer. She really gets at the heart of beauty, which is that it doesn't matter what you look like on the outside if you don't love yourself on the inside. She shared an experience of doing a makeover on a perfectly lovely model who talked about how ugly she was and how flawed she felt - loving yourself must be a function of your inner self, not the products you put on your face or how much you weigh.

Leta gives a to-do list for finding those qualities and traits in ourselves that we can admire and encourages us to remind ourselves daily that we are truly beautiful, shifting the focus to the positive. Then, after a time, we'll find that the things we don't like about ourselves are somehow less offensive in our eyes.

Because we all struggle with self-esteem, I think we should all read this book. Once again, here is the purchase link.

In addition, here is a link to Leta's beauty consulting business, and another to the TED talk she gave on this topic.