6 
6 Beauty starts in your head, not in the mirror.
—Joubert Botha
I have a job in an industry that places value on beauty far beyond the norm, at least it seems that way at times. It also means being pressured to believe in one concept of beauty that often does not reflect who you are or what makes you beautiful on a nonartificial level.
Like it or not, beauty is a major concept that we all constantly have to deal with in life, so it’s pretty essential to decide what beauty is and what it means to us on every level so that we don’t get confused by someone else’s meaning.
Of course there are different categories of beauty because it appears in nearly all aspects of life. In a personal sense, you can have a beautiful mind, a beautiful heart, a beautiful soul, and a beautiful face. These things are subjective. Ideally, in a perfect world, we would feel beautiful through and through all the time.
That ain’t easy, but why not try it?
I try to look for beauty everywhere in life (my grandma Davis did too). I love beautiful music, beautiful artwork in any form, and just the simple beauty of a rainbow outside. 
I look for beauty in the mirror too, simply because it’s me and I love me! I know now that beauty is in every person and comes in all forms, but when I was younger I sometimes struggled to see the beauty in myself. I started my acting career at a very young age, and that brought a lot of stress. As a growing adolescent, I also dealt with a lot of acne, which added to the stress because looks are so important in the entertainment industry.
I was around eleven or twelve when my acne first started showing up, which was the same time I became hyperaware of my self-image and the importance of looking “polished” because of my career. In some ways, being “onstage” was perfect for me because I always liked getting dressed up and made up as a little girl. I watched my grandma Davis get dressed up many times for no reason and I too made every situation a “moment,” haha.
People forget, though, that entertainers are regular people. There is a stigma of perfection that comes with the profession. We are under incredible pressure to look our absolute best on camera, while being photographed or even when we are off work. It’s unrealistic, almost fake, and it can make people who watch our television shows and movies feel horrible for being natural.
I learned early on that my looks from head to toe are on full display in every television show, movie, and red carpet I step foot onto, so by Hollywood standards—and let’s not talk about social media, lol—I am expected to be flawless at every turn. Of course, my acne made looking flawless a challenge. For a long time, I suffered from severe acne problems, which wreaked havoc on my self-esteem.
Fear of being judged is one of the worst parts of growing up. You can multiply that fear by millions when you are an entertainer. My skin problems often left me feeling ashamed because I felt like I had to do so much concealing of my acne as part of the job. Ugh, it made me feel like I was constantly saying to myself, You aren’t cute enough on your own. My acne made me less confident. I didn’t feel beautiful at times.
Not long after I filmed Madea’s Family Reunion, my mom and I ran into Tyler Perry at the Black Movie Awards show. I felt self-conscious because I was having one of my biggest acne breakouts. We started talking to Tyler about whatever (can’t remember because it was forever ago, lol). As we finished the convo and I started to walk away, Tyler quietly pulled my mother aside and told her that he knew of a good dermatologist. He said she was a great doctor and he offered to pick up the tab for my treatments. 
He only asked that we not tell anyone he was footing the bill. What a blessing you are, Tyler! I kept quiet as long as I could #SORRYITOLD. 
And thank you, Dr. Pearl Grimes, you da bomb!
SHOWING YOURSELF SOME LOVE 
My skin cleared up and my self-esteem improved some. Of course self-confidence isn’t connected to just one or two things, and those things don’t all relate to looks, but we can’t underestimate the importance of doing something for yourself that makes you feel better about you. There are many basic ways you can learn to look your best to the outside world, but we all know the real hard work begins when we decide to become beautiful on the inside!
Aside from the fact that my skin was clearing, just going to the dermatologist and following her instructions made me feel that I was taking positive action to relieve a source of discomfort for me. The fact that I was going out of my way for myself made me feel more confident too. Tyler helped me understand that there were remedies. He put me on the path. And it felt good to then step up and take positive action that boosted my self-confidence and benefited my career.
That’s showing yourself love—taking responsibility for your happiness by creating a way to be the best YOU that you can be! If you and I had a friend with acne problems, we’d want to help them, just like Tyler helped me. Sometimes, though, we aren’t as good a friend to ourselves as we are to other people. I’m not sure why that is true. Maybe we’re afraid to love ourselves. We might be afraid of being egotistical or narcissistic.
There is a difference between indulging in what may make you feel beautiful and tackling the real issues so that you become the best all-around person you can be. I love doing my hair and makeup. Getting ready in the morning, plucking my brows, etc. If hair products and makeup aren’t your thing, that’s cool too! There are tons of things you can do to improve and feel good about yourself, whether it’s for health, fashion, or both! The most important thing is that it works for you.
We have to love ourselves enough to take care of ourselves, in order to see life from a positive viewpoint. That takes being healthy in mind, body, and spirit! Choosing to do what’s best for yourself isn’t selfish when doing things for your overall state of being. You have to love yourself before you can be loved by others. When you build your self-esteem, you tell the world “I am worthy of love. So love me!”
Young women and men can feel pressured about their physical appearance even if they aren’t in a business like mine that is so intensely focused on it. I wish that wasn’t true, but it is a reality. The truth is you shouldn’t worry about what other people think, their ideals and labels are their hang-ups, not yours. Don’t listen to critics and bullies who judge your appearance and make cruel comments.
Don’t take care of yourself to win their approval. Do it for YOURSELF! Take care of yourself because you care about you, not because you care about what others think. Yes, beauty care is part of my job as an entertainer. But even if I wasn’t constantly exposed to the public eye, I would want to look good, feel good, and be good because that honors my Creator and it enhances my quality of life.
It goes far beyond paying attention to my makeup and my outfit for a day. Those are just some fun things that interest me that I like to treat myself with. The way I feel about myself doesn’t come from the cosmetics or beauty products. It really has nothing to do with any of the products. It’s really about loving who you are enough to make the effort necessary to take care of yourself. Exercising, washing your hair, brushing your teeth—these are signs to the self that it is beloved. It is true that the first thing most people notice about you is your physical appearance. That’s a fact, but whatever look you are going after should be the look that makes you feel your best.
FAKE IT UNTIL FABULOUS Fabulous is a great goal. But your body doesn’t always cooperate. Even with the help of a great dermatologist, my skin still has its ups and down. Like everyone, I still have good and bad days on the beauty scale! 
Like most who want to look their best even when their body is at its worst, you learn to accentuate the things you do like about yourself and spice up the things that may bug you.
Makeup is the gift that keeps on giving to all of us, but it really is to those of us, male and female, with serious skin issues. After all, makeup is just another form of self-expression. It allows us to look extra cute and feel fierce! #FUCKHETERONORMATIVITY.
The best part about beauty products is experimenting to figure out what you like, don’t like, or what looks the best on you. I experiment a lot and am always willing to learn more. I had a best friend who wanted to learn how to do her own makeup but the big problem was, she’d never wear it. I told her she had to experiment to find the best products for her skin type and the look she wanted. If you don’t try all kinds of makeup, how can you learn?
Wearing makeup and getting your best look exactly right takes practice, lots of practice! Wouldn’t you know practicing is my favorite part because—true life—My name is Keke and I am a makeup fanatic. 
I love, love, LOVE makeup. I adore the idea of foundation, eyeliner, and lipstick and how it can help me showcase my favorite features a million different ways. 
Thankfully, working on shows, movies, and videos, I have had the good fortune of meeting some of the most amazing makeup artists and hairstylists in the industry. They’ve shown me many tricks that taught me how to beat my face. 
As with anything else in life, if you’re around people with knowledge about what you value, I recommend getting out your notebook and taking notes like crazy! Some of the best lessons don’t come from books or classes. You can gain so much knowledge by listening to and observing the gifted people around you #SOAKITUPLIKEYOURNAMEISSPONGEBOB.
EXPRESS YOURSELF My auntie Nene, who owns the beauty salon we visited to make my audition video for Pimp, was a real rebel during her heyday when it came to her looks. She didn’t mind going short and black one day and long and blond another, lol. She had her eyebrows and tongue pierced, which was so cool to me as a kid, haha. 
Auntie Nene is still the bomb!
Today, I am a little like her in that regard. I love flipping the script each morning in an attempt to reveal different layers of myself to the world. If you’ve followed my career long enough, you know I’ve had short hair, long hair, and every other kind of hair in between. I’ve shaved one side and then the other when the mood has hit me. I’ve sported braids, weaves, wigs, and any other hair accessory that can be used to enhance my look, and I’ve loved every minute of it. 
Of course with each change of my eye shadow, hairdo, or lipstick came comments from those unhappy with the frequency of my changes. Being an entertainer requires understanding that people feel free to comment on everything you do. In my case, my fans watched me grow up from being little “Akeelah,” so they often feel very close to me because they saw me as a child.
Growing up on television can create that feeling simply because people don’t always comprehend that child actors are truly acting. Fans often don’t grasp that even child actors can genuinely analyze their characters and play their roles, lol. But the reality is I was conscious of every acting choice in that movie. I was playing a character and the gag was people bought into it to the point that they thought that was me. However they felt about that movie they felt about me and boom, I became a part of their families.
As a result, they feel that any major changes I make in my fashion style, makeup, hairstyle, or personal life should be discussed with them, right? Yes, but not really. I don’t buy into the celebrity craze of my generation and I don’t encourage others to buy into it either. We are in a huge time of worshipping and praising celebrities. I don’t agree that they should be the pinnacle of the world.
If a celebrity does something that’s interesting, inspiring, or thought provoking, it’s not bad to have a conversation about it. That is totally necessary. But the idea that celebrities are perfect beings who exist for only our pleasure and affection is a bit—no, a lot—out of reality, lol. It’s a concept we bought into that can be a huge distraction. Of course, I love my fans and I am committed to sharing my art, but at the end of the day, we all need to do what makes us the happiest, and we should base our decisions on what it is we truly want!
BEAUTY ON THE INSIDE In many ways, feeling beautiful on the outside is the easy part. The real hard work and the most important part is feeling beautiful on the inside to the point where you can truly admire what is your existence in its totality: your uniqueness! I’ve always been up front about my struggles with anxiety. These issues ran through my family’s history due to many horrific experiences over the generations.
I’ve written a lot in this book about how much I appreciate my parents and all they’ve sacrificed and done for me. 
There have been times in my life also when I felt my parents were overcontrolling. It’s not unusual for a person to have “baggage” with the authority figure they grew up with. But hindsight is a mf and it never occurs to me that they could have been afraid of losing me—acting out of fear often leads to extremes. It took me years to understand how those patterns of theirs affected me so tremendously as I was developing into an adult. I began to suffer from anxiety and panic attacks early in my career and that anxiety continued to grow in leaps and bounds as I continued.
When my career became a major focus of the family, the stress quadrupled. Being the breadwinner was a heavy burden to carry while riding the roller coaster of emotions of a teenage mind. 
Something had to give and it did.
I sat my parents down when I was around sixteen or seventeen and told them I wanted and needed to enter therapy as soon as I could. I was clear with them that if I didn’t get help, they should be afraid for my sanity. I knew I couldn’t survive long-term if I didn’t go to a professional who could help me sort out my feelings of anger, frustration, and confusion toward myself, my family, and the world around me.
We all feel stressed out and overburdened from time to time, but I think that’s why finding a way to release your feelings through creative self-expression, like singing, writing, painting, or acting, is so important. Our minds are churning all day, every day, and to assume they do not get jumbled or tired is just not reasonable. The teenage years are especially challenging for our brains. It’s during those years that they are actually rewiring themselves to prepare us for adulthood. 
For example, studies have found that because the brain is working overtime to rewire even as teens go about their daily lives, certain parts of the brain actually aren’t functioning at full capacity. This is why teens often have trouble assessing risks, or making judgments about what to say and do. So go easy on yourself and the teens you know. Understand that between all the raging hormones and brain adjustments going on, they are bound to get overwrought, confused, and conflicted from time to time.
Even when I was a teenager, I was aware that success, particularly success in the entertainment industry, is a double-edged sword. It’s wonderful on one side, but it often is accompanied by tremendous pressure. If a studio casts you as the star in a movie that costs $80 million to make, that’s some serious responsibility to be capable and accountable every day.
There is also tremendous pressure to stay on top and to never have a bad day in public, which is absurd because who’s to judge what that is, even. I remember the overwhelming feeling of wishing people would give me a break. I would wonder why they expected my young ass to have the maturity of a thirty-year-old, I was already handling so much that every time I was scolded for anything it was like “DONT YOU KNOW WHAT I’M DEALING WITH IN MY HEAD!?!”
I was a teenager with typical teenager issues, and I worked in fickle-ass Hollywood, and I was well aware that my family’s quality of life was largely dependent on how I performed in my career. That was a lot to handle even if my parents did tell me I could quit. I did not see that as a realistic option. 
IF YOU NEED HELP, MAKE THE CALL In truth, most of us have a lot of day-to-day pressures and anxieties. Yours may be far worse than what I was dealing with. If so, I encourage you to first of all know that this is a very human problem. You aren’t alone, and there are professionals who can help you, whether it’s a therapist, a school counselor, or a local pastor with counseling training.
Our brains are beautiful instruments and they are finely tuned. They are also physical organs that can break down or have blips and bloops just like any other body part #THISISNORMAL. Going to a therapist is similar to going to your doctor. You need physicals and checkups throughout the year, and that’s the same thing as seeing a therapist regularly if you feel stressed out or just need to talk through issues. Your brain is like a computer that never shuts off, so weekly therapy is the usual suggestion for dealing with challenges that you feel you can’t handle on your own.
Therapy is just you speaking with a person who is trained to help you find ways to help yourself. They specialize in finding healthy ways to mirror your thoughts and feelings back to you so you can understand yourself better. They are there to help you observe yourself without judgment. They can help you rewire mentally to overcome blockage by a fractured thought process.
There is no shame in seeing a therapist. If there was, 90 percent of the people in show business would be living in shame! Instead, most of them talk openly about the benefits of therapy. A good therapist will help you monitor and control negative thoughts while switching over to a more positive outlook. Those dark voices in your head can be controlled, and a therapist will teach you how to find ways to do that.
The defense mechanism and mental constructs we create often make it hard for us to see outside ourselves. Eventually, we can reach a point where our minds aren’t allowing us to move forward anymore, and we all react differently. I started to realize that I was disassociating from most things around me. I was forgetting how to feel.
I’d put up walls because I had felt SO MUCH and never learned how to process it. My mother cried and my dad had shown frustration, but our family mostly just moved on over shit. We never discussed the process of feeling hurt and accepting that as okay. Crying was okay, but only in a limited capacity—not when it was coupled with your own mistake.
I had issues, and they were piling up like a twelve-car collision. I felt bombarded by pressures and responsibilities with my career, my family, and all the things that come with being an adolescent. 
My mind was exhausted from trying to rationalize so much on my own. I didn’t want to shut down emotionally or become comfortable resisting the feelings of life. “Good” or “bad,” I wanted to be able to be there, to be present.
I knew I needed help and I had to get it, for me. I had to have my back. Make me a promise, please. If you ever feel the same way, don’t talk yourself out of it. Don’t curl up in a corner or hide your despair. Get help. Feel good about having the courage to ask for it. Know that you can take actions to ease your mind and even save your life. Please don’t suffer in silence.
Many times during my bout with depression, I’d wonder how much better my grandma’s life could have been if she’d had the opportunity to speak with a professional about all the problems in her life. What obstacles in her and my mom’s world could have been avoided if my grandmother would have had the opportunity to speak with someone trained and skillful in therapeutic methods?
I knew both my mom and grandmother wanted me to have better opportunities that would lead to a better life, one free of fears, self-doubts, and insecurities. With that knowledge, I began therapy and it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made for myself. It was such a relief to talk freely to someone who had no dog in the fight, so to speak. Someone trained to look from the outside into the heart of a situation and pinpoint what was causing me to shut down emotionally. Therapy is an awesome experience.
TREAT YOURSELF LIKE YOU’D TREAT A FRIEND There were so many times before when I felt I was losing my mind, and the escape I had was journaling. There was no other outlet for me to unleash all the chaotic feelings rolling around in my head. Now journaling has its definite values, and I recommend it to everyone.
With therapy I found someone who validated my painful past, who helped me understand how to define my experiences and how not to let them define me. My conversations with my therapist challenged me to see myself and my anxieties more objectively, as a pattern, nothing more.
If your insurance doesn’t cover therapy or if your finances are really in a jam, look for community centers that offer counseling, or reach out to your church to find out what services they offer for those struggling emotionally. One of the best and recent additions to the world of apps are those that offer email exchanges between you and a certified therapist for a weekly or biweekly fee of twenty-five dollars. How cool is that?
Imagine if that app had been around twenty years ago, thirty years ago. I wonder how many people and how many minds would have been helped? #THANKFULFORTHESEOPTIONSNOW. 
Maybe our parents or people we loved didn’t have those opportunities, but we do. If you need someone to talk to, please go out and find that help. There are so many things that I took away from therapy. I see things so clearly now thanks to tools that are now must-haves in my life. I learned that I needed more self-compassion, and I began to resist the urge of being my own worst critic.
We have to forgive ourselves when we make mistakes, because others are all too happy to remind us of our shortcomings. We don’t have to help them be hurtful. Self-compassion builds up resilience because it shows you how to have your own back. I also learned how to be brutally honest with myself by asking myself questions. Simply getting to the root of my issues by asking myself Why? or What makes you think that? and forcing myself to open up to me has been very helpful. These are all tools that a trained counselor or therapist can help you master.
ALTERNATIVE PATHS TO HEALING THE MIND, BODY, AND SOUL Therapy is a widely accepted resource in the entertainment industry. It’s almost as common as going to the dentist or working out. Show business is so stressful that most performers are extremely conscious of staying healthy in every way. They are also open to trying alternative approaches that go beyond traditional methods of healing and building strength.
One of the coolest things about my job is meeting so many smart people who have a wide range of interests and beliefs. Friends and contacts I’ve met on the set or at parties and dinners have opened my eyes and my mind. Since coming to California, I’ve been introduced to yoga, meditation, and chakra cleansing, all of which have been very helpful.
I’ve also discovered intuitive counselors and emotional healers who’ve given me methods for self-healing and tools to empower my mind. You know me, I love to explore and experiment, so I found myself reaching out for more knowledge on these “healers” and their methods for exploring deep-seated emotional issues and painful memories. There were things I’d buried inside so deep I forgot where to find them. 
According to many of these healers, once a deeper level of awareness exists, change occurs and real healing can begin.
I don’t want to come off so millennialish, but the gag is I AM! 
I believe in trying new things and using my own spiritual compass (gut) to figure out what might help me. Don’t we all want to find our soul’s deepest purpose? I, for one, believe there are many paths to that knowledge.
If you read more about these alterative healing methods, they aren’t as “otherworldly” as they may sound. You might find some stuff that speaks to you, but if you deem it not cool, leave it where it’s at. At the end of the day, you gave it a look and that’s what is important. Trying things, being open to new healing methods, is the first step toward good health. You are free to choose only those methods that appeal to you. The key is to learn about many things, so you have many options and a wide perspective that allows you to do what feels genuine to you.
Through my own guides and teachers of alternative paths, I became intrigued by the world of chakras and crystals, and the impact they have on our bodies and minds. The idea is that we, though human, are spirits made up of energy, and because we are made up of energy we must be sensitive to the ways in which we choose to vibrate (based on our actions) in the world around us.
Our energy vibrations are impacted by what we choose to invite into our energy space and what we decide to keep out. When our chakras are balanced and we are eating well, exercising, and meditating, we are operating on a high vibration level because our energy is supported. When our chakras are imbalanced—maybe because we aren’t eating healthy or aren’t exercising enough—we end up at a low vibration level. This usually means we have low energy levels and a lack of motivation, so we aren’t inspired to do much of anything.
Chakras are said to be the seven central energy points in a human energy field that can easily become imbalanced with the daily frustrations of life. When we are unaware of this concept, we might be tempted to blame ourselves or others for our mood swings, but it’s really more related to your lifestyle habits. #ITAINTYOUITSTHEWAYYOULIVINBOO. 
To counteract that imbalance, crystals can be used to produce corrective vibrations that promote well-being in whatever area you may feel most lacking. Chakra balancing is done through a combination of meditative practices, such as yoga or prayer, as well as adjusting your diet and exercise levels.