23-year-old Larra Lasam survived a fire, battled with self-acceptance, and now proudly bares her scars each day
The concept of beauty changes when you become covered with permanent scars. At eleven, Larra Francesca Lasam was trapped in a burning bathroom during a power outage, and the fire left her with several physical scars—and the mental toll was just as grueling. In a conversation with MEGA, Lasam explains her long, complicated, and arduous relationship with self-love and beauty.
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“When I looked at myself every day in the mirror, I felt a dip in my stomach—I did not accept myself yet,” she admits. “I had to come face-to-face with what I looked like.”
Everyone has the seminal moments in life where you are rejected, flattened, humiliated—the moments that seem to lay the groundwork for insecurities to come. For some, they unspool so easily into the brain with almost no prodding at all. But for 23-year-old Larra Lasam, a tragedy became a referendum on her looks. As said in her YouTube documentary, “The insecurity that I had before doubled—even tripled—because I was covered in scars.” For the next seven years, Lasam internalized this life-changing adversity so much that you could read it on her face and in her posture, and she hid herself from the world with masks and cardigans.
Those unwanted skin imperfections and the story behind them made Lasam move through life tolerating that seminal moment—plagued with insecurity, isolation, and the feeling of defeat. The unshakeable inner saboteur, when you are faced with the permanence it bears on the living record—your body—is cruel. But to spend seven years listening to that voice, Lasam found a way to lower its volume via a Netflix film; the quote, “The funny thing about hiding is that you’re even hidden from yourself,” changed her mindset.
“I was hiding my scars from the world because they would think they were ugly, or as a preventive measure not to be pitted in a box or associated solely as someone who looks different,” she tells MEGA. “And I was hiding from the reaction I might have with seeing myself with scars. When that realization hit, the motivation to hold myself accountable for my perceptions about my scars or what happened to me became salient and the intention to have a more favorable self-concept was put in place. The actions and results eventually followed suit.”
The belief that radical self-confidence and self-compassion can mean so much is quite real. We’ve been trained to believe that our looks carry so much weight, but it’s actually what we believe in, and what we put out to the world, that makes the line, “Beauty is power,” hold truer in its reversal: “Power is beauty.”
From Victim to Victor
For years, self-love was an empty buzzword written about in a tone so distancing Lasam did not have access to it. The psychology student thought her scars partly defined her; to her, scars equaled ugly, and without scars equaled beautiful. And switching that mindset off didn’t come by chance—she has worked tirelessly against that inner saboteur to become the self-accepting and unconcealed woman she is today—from victim to victor.
The roadmap requires three points: awareness of the unfavorable beliefs, exposure to empowering beliefs, and behavioral manifestations.
Awareness of the Unfavorable Beliefs
“The awareness of the mindsets I had about what I looked like, especially with the scars, was half the solution to the plague which was insecurity,” Lasam begins to explain. “The nudge for this awareness came in the form of conversations; the following were the most salient. The first was with my friend—we were talking about the notions of love and relationships. With the candor and boldness of a newly formed relationship, she told me, ‘I don’t think you should be in a romantic relationship unless you take your mask off.’ That, to me, posed a challenge.”
Lasam continues to share that the second was with her oratorical competition coach: “She told me, ‘Larra, I won’t ask you to take your mask off for this competition, but I’m curious, why haven’t you after all these years?’ I answered, ‘Because people will think it’s ugly or I’m unpresentable.’ She further prodded, ‘How did you come to that conclusion?’ I answered, ‘I assumed because when I—’ Then she stopped me, saying, ‘Exactly, you assumed.’ This brought me accountability. The things I thought other people thought of me—were the things I thought of myself. With that awareness came the investigation of what influenced my thought process to establish that certain mindset. Then came the wave of intention to change.”
Exposure to Empowering Beliefs
Often, awareness becomes a zero-sum game, where the knowledge becomes the end of the process rather than the beginning. Our idea of how the world and those in it works is adaptable and ever-updating, so attention to that awareness is and should be incredibly valuable. But then how do you turn that into change? For Lasam, another step is exposure to empowering beliefs—through support systems and everyday affirmations.
“One of the biggest privileges I have in this lifetime is being surrounded by the best people ever manufactured on earth to journey with me. My family and friends have embodied unconditional positive regard—acceptance of my entire existence regardless of my successes and despite my setbacks,” she declares.
“What catapulted the change was having someone articulate it: ‘You’re more than a face.’ The statement became a window to the realization that I am more than self, familial, and societal-imposed limitations and identities.”
“Another is the universe giving me more reinforcements. An example is coming across Cynthia Erivo’s I’m Here during the pandemic, the cusp of my ‘transformation.’ This became my anthem, my everyday affirmation,” she shares. “But the bulk of the work came with actually believing that I’m more than self, familial, and societal-imposed limitations and identities. Then came the wave of intention to change, to make my self-perception more favorable, compassionate, multidimensional, and empowering,”
Behavioral Manifestations
While the human brain is very good at becoming aware of things, it’s harder for this awareness to lead to changes in behavior. Abstract concepts and understanding can be useful, but emotional reactions may carry more ‘weight’ as far as our gray matter is concerned. To battle this, Lasam emphasizes that building on those affirmations and beliefs with an action plan helped her with her process.
Through successive approximations, or little steps you take until you get to the aspirational point, Lasam exposed herself to the fear of being seen with her scars: “First: exposing my scars to social media—initially with my close friends, then to the public. Second: exposing my scars in real life—initially at family vacations where no one knows me, then to the public, with people who I know.”
This, coupled with her belief reconstruction of “The scars are not as unfavorable as I think they were. They don’t define me as much as I thought they were,” gave her a chance to affirm that she was more than her physical imperfections, and that she had a real desire to ‘do’ and ‘be’.
Beauty, Now
Now, the concept of beauty indeed changes when you are covered with permanent scars. Lasam describes the notion as not so much an attribute anymore, but a state of being: “If you exist therefore you are beautiful. Independent of external factors or internal processes, one remains beautiful, in a state of beauty. Another dimension to my definition of beauty is it being a verb more so than it is a noun. Beauty is the experience which features our humanity—good or bad, favorable or unfavorable, are acknowledged, given space to, and revered either for cultivation or change or simply being.”
Lasam goes on to describe that while perceptions of beauty are influenced by evolutionary mechanisms, hegemony, and societal impositions.
The content creator continues, “I like to believe that what I am here for is to invite the expansion of how we experience beauty—in the everyday and the seemingly ugly. By being aware of the constructed definition we hold, deconstructing the assumptions and implications, and reconstructing these ideals through and by anchoring them in our actual self.”
The reality of what Lasam experienced is in navigating the intangibles, the guilt that comes with, the blame games, acceptance, and moving forward. “The challenge of recovery and reaching a relatively homeostatic state cannot be understated but so is the reward for being on the other side,” she explains.
Lasam tells MEGAStyle that, like any other human being, there are hard days where the self-doubt is crippling. There are times when you feel great about myself and times when you don’t, and having any control over those times—when they start or abruptly end—feels pretty elusive. But, “Most of the work I’ve done allowed me to go past the what-ifs. There’s more of what is, what will be, what can I do. The inner work allows me for the most part a level of acceptance and peace. Getting my skin stripped away provided me with an opportunity not afforded to many to understand and grapple with identities, constructs, and limitations that have been held deeply.”
The Girl on Fire—and Not
In Lasam’s documentary, she said she is more than just “The Girl on Fire.” When asked who she is beyond that, she answered:
“Banking on Gestalt’s notion of, ‘The whole is greater than the sum of its parts,’ there are things that I do, attributes that I have, situations, and experiences that may contribute to who and what I get associated with—but I am more than those things. Perhaps what I want people to know me as—is an instrument through which inspiration and value are brought. Hoping that coming across me or the things I do allows for vicarious learning that enhances their lives, even in the smallest sense of the word. A mirror who they get to see their own lives through and experience love, hope, loss, and life (ten thousand joys and ten thousand sorrows) with.”
Photos and Featured Image: LARRA LASAM
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Source: Insta News Pinoy
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