I hope you’ve been enjoying our You’re Enough campaign as much as I have been. I’ve met so many wonderful and exceptional women through this endeavor, and their stories have moved me. Our next featured lady is Cathy McKinnon.
Unlike many of us, Cathy remembers a lack of focus on beauty while she was growing up.
“I was raised in a house of boys with a mother who rarely wore makeup. I didn’t know how to do my hair or why I would need makeup,” she said. “Painting my nails was for rare, fancy occasions. There wasn’t dialogue around the girly things in life.”
Cathy said her life story has been dramatically shaped by what she calls the trifecta of life events – a five-year infertility struggle, a cancer diagnosis, and a messy divorce. To make things worse, all these events happened in a single decade.
“This trifecta dramatically shifted my outlook and how I live my life. This was my wake-up call to start living with intention and take back my life,” she said.
While heartbreaking each in their own way, these events led to some of Cathy’s most powerful and defining moments.
“I had no idea how I was going to move forward after my son’s father walked out. However, I decided who I was going to be in this storm. The world was crashing down around me. It was messy, but I knew I was going to stand for the life I wanted to demonstrate for my son,” she said. “There were days I was overwhelmed with all the emotions yet stood tall for my greatest accomplishment, my legacy, my son.”
Cathy hasn’t allowed her difficulties to affect how she sees herself — if anything, she feels more beautiful now than ever before.
“It is strange how I have now stepped into this place in my life where I am comfortable with the masculine and feminine energy that I blend to be the person I am,” she said.
From a non-physical standpoint, the thing Cathy is most proud of is her big heart. She reminds other women to look for their inner beauty and stop worrying so much about the outside.
“You are whole and complete just as you are. Your self-worth is not defined by a number on a scale, how expensive your clothes are, if you wear makeup or not, or anything that society tells us beauty is,” she said. “We are all human, and no one is perfect. Your uniqueness is what makes you beautiful. It is your magic.”
Cathy thinks beautiful photos should be a priority for women.
“We are our toughest critics and do not see what others see. It is a reminder of our beauty,” she said.
Cathy hit the nail on the head with that assessment. We can be so hard on ourselves. Whatever you’re doing today, stop for a minute and think about the inner features that make you uniquely amazing because You’re Enough, too.
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