Dealing with Insecurity! Skin Confidence even when your skin isn't perfect...

Hi there, my name is Arielle Shipe and you might know me from Instagram but regardless, I'm really happy to be here on YouTube sharing a little bit about just a deeper view. One of the main reasons that I wanted to create a YouTube channel versus just working with my Instagram is that I felt like sometimes as much as I love Instagram and I love looking at all the beautiful pictures, I find that a lot of times it paints an unrealistic view of what people's lives are like and what they're going through. I think it ... as viewers, we might sit there and think like, "Oh, everything in that person's life is so great and they couldn't be going through any struggles or anything like that." That was really one of the main reasons I made this.

So for this mindset Monday I want to give you guys kind of a peek into an insecurity that I've been dealing with for a while. I'm gonna take you along with me on my day today. I was actually ... it happened earlier but you'll see it next.

So I am going to go meet a friend just for ... I was gonna say for coffee, I don't really drink coffee. I'll get like a chai or a tea or something like that, but I was deciding on leaving my house of whether I was gonna put any makeup on or not. I mean, honestly, I don't really wear a lot of makeup. I don't have any on right now. My eyelashes are extensions. I just got them. I can do a video on those another day if you guys are interested. But for me, that was really the only makeup I was wearing was mascara because it gave my eyes a little bit more pop and so now with the extensions, I just don't wear anything.

But it's funny because now that I'm filming a lot of my life, I'm almost more tempted to put on a little bit of makeup because I'm like ... I know my skin isn't perfect, it's mostly a bunch of scarring and it's so funny that after all of these years and all this work and how much it's improved. I'll show you a video, or a picture of what it looked like, and that was not at its worst. It's so much better. But it's crazy how much I still think about it. It's something that I'm really working on and I know that I'm not alone. I know so many women struggle with their skin in multiple different ways and scarring, it's a part of my story and I hope that by sharing it and by being transparent with you guys that I can maybe inspire some of you to know that you don't have to be perfect, your skin doesn't have to be perfect to leave your house. If you feel more comfortable wearing makeup, I'm not shaming you. That's totally fine. Like I said, I thought about it just now, but I'm gonna head out and have a little lunch with a friend.

Okay, so I almost never drive in the summer time, the spring, the fall, because traffic going into Aspen is actually surprisingly really bad. So I always ride my bike, but I did a really big hike yesterday and I'm a little bit sore so while I'm sitting in traffic, I thought I would just talk to you guys a little bit about some thoughts I was just having of some of the things that have really helped me over the years start to deal with just self consciousness and everything like that, and I was thinking about it because right now I'm going to have a little tea with a friend and when my skin was at its worst, I really isolated myself. I was always not available. I never went out to meet people.

Honestly, I haven't been a fan ... it hasn't resonated with me to do a bunch of partying in the last couple of years and I don't have any problem with it. I think everybody should do what's right for them, but it just hasn't felt right for me for a while and I think I used that as an excuse, but in reality, I was hiding and it's so ... it's so different now.

Like I showed you guys, my skin isn't perfect. I have tons of scarring. I actually don't ... my skin itself is actually not that bad. I only get maybe one or two new zits a week. I used to have like ... I mean full on cystic acne, so it's a big difference and I definitely want to share with you guys a lot of the things that have helped me along the way and as I continue to refine that and figure out what works for scarring and everything. I'll share that with you, but something I think is really important is not letting how you look hold you back.

I ... I found at some point that I just wanted to live my life and that I wasn't ... I wasn't gonna be defined by what was going on on my face and it's so funny because if you scroll back far in my Instagram, you'll see that almost all of the pictures of me, I'm looking away or not looking at the camera. There's very few where I'm actually looking dead on and it's because I was embarrassed about my skin. I had a lot of ... I had really bad acne going on and that was my first steps for me and I think now I'm trying to get really comfortable and okay with showing myself completely, but that was a great place to start.

It's kind of a hot day and I was thinking about getting a chai but then I got a $7 watermelon juice so I'm gonna savor every sip of it. But that does look pretty freaking good.

The chai is gonna be delicious. I'm just pretending it's colder than it is.

Okay, so what was ... growing up, what was a big insecurity of yours that held you back from doing stuff?

Definitely more of wearing certain clothes because of my legs. I just have really bad cellulite and that was always a big insecurity for me. It kind of still is sometimes.

What ... did it ... as you got older did anything shift where you feel more confident? Where you're like, "I don't give an eff"? Like, "This is my body. I'm gonna do whatever."

Well, I learned that ... well, it's like the strongest part of my body for me, because I'm such an athlete and my skiing really helped me kind of overcome that, because I'm such a strong skier and those athletics and those abilities made me realize that it doesn't have to do necessarily with your legs being fat, it's just something that kind of comes with ... I don't know ... the territory I guess.

I will just ... I'll just chime in by saying that she is a super bad-ass skier.

So I give my friend a lot of credit for sharing because I kind of just sprung it on her, but I just wanted ... I wanted everybody to know that they're not alone. I, when we were sitting there, asked a couple of women next to us their journey through life and they told us our ... their challenges that they've worked through and everybody's story is a little bit different, but really, what they were sharing was how they were able to get to the other side, was by not caring so much about what other people think and just by doing, just by getting out and doing what they want to do and not letting there be ... letting their skin or their gender or their education or any other part of their body or anything hold them back from following their dreams.

This whole last week or two that I started this YouTube, I've been doing a whole bunch of editing and something that you guys probably don't know about me is that I, when I was a snowboarder, competitive snowboarder back in high school, again it was not very good, but I loved to ... we'd film ourselves hitting all the jumps and the rails and everything like that and then we would take all that footage and I loved making edits. One of my friends and I actually won a video contests. We won free ski passes one year for creating this safety video for the resort, and I just loved it.

I don't know what shifted. I thought I was gonna do a lot of things. There were a lot of career things I was interested in, but doing video, video editing was definitely one of them. I ... I was tempted to go to college for it, but then I got real and I was like, "Oh, that's not responsible" or whatever excuse it was and I decided to go get a business degree instead.

I don't regret what I did. I'm grateful for everything that brought me here, but as I was editing all of this footage, I realized how much I love doing this and there's a couple of things that have held me back from doing this sooner. The main thing really has been my skin because I was scared that ... you see so many people on YouTube and I follow so many people, and I love them, they're amazing and they inspire me every day but pretty much everyone I follow on YouTube has flawless skin or they've ... I don't know, maybe they've mastered the art of some sort of filter, but I relate to them and I'm excited by their stories and a lot of them have come through so much, but they're already on the other side, and I kept thinking to myself that I had to be on the other side of that, this particular struggle, before I could sit in front of this camera and share with you and talk to you.

But what I'm realizing as I get into this is I love creating, I love editing, and I love sharing and helping other people and my life isn't perfect, but I have come through ... I would say I've walked through a couple of fires and every single step along the way I feel stronger, I feel brighter, and so I just want you to know that if you're going through something, you've got this, keep going.

If there's something holding you back that's just in your head or that's not really a limitation, it just feels like it or you don't want to do something because you're scared you might be judged or anything like that, just know that I think of how far my Instagram has ... how much my Instagram has grown in the last year and I can only imagine if I would have started this YouTube a year ago, two years ago when I really had those thoughts percolating, where it would all be and it doesn't matter now. It doesn't really matter now what could have been or what should have been, because that's not so much the point, but the point is you have the opportunity to start right now. There is really nothing holding you back. It might feel like it, but there's not, so if there's something on your mind, on your heart that you're like, "Ugh. I want to do this," do it. Regardless of what people might think, regardless of how many people might see it.

I'm just starting this YouTube. It's small. It's ... I could be making videos for people where I'm only getting 20 views, I don't know, but that's okay, because I love creating. So whatever it is for you, go out there, do it. If you're looking for a sign, let this be it, and thank you so much if you've somehow made your way over to this channel and you're still here at the end of this video watching, I am so, so, so, so grateful and I can't wait to keep sharing more and more of this journey with you guys and continue to give you the tips and tricks to be strong and everything along the way.