As children, we’re taught early that it’s what’s on the inside that counts.
This mantra, and variations on the theme, help to affirm that beauty isn’t skin deep, and that nothing matters as much as having a beautiful spirit and personality.
Still, while self-esteem goes a long way, deep down we all have our body image insecurities. It can be incredibly difficult to let go of the underlying belief that your value is determined by your physical appearance, as we saw with the powerful yoga instructor who struggled to love her body.
Learning to feel good about your appearance is especially difficult when it’s been radically altered by something out of your control, like illness or an accident.
For Danielle Branch, who grew up so beautiful she turned heads wherever she went, a shocking accident left her covered in burns and scars, with a painful road to recovery ahead of her.
Despite what she’s been through, Branch insists that she's thankful for her horrific accident.
Scroll through below to learn more about her awe-inspiring story.
[H/T: Daily Mail]
Danielle Branch, a self-described "vain girl," grew up naturally beautiful in Kent, U.K.
She had the advantage of never really having to worry about her physical appearance.
As a result, she became accustomed to using her pretty face to get whatever she wanted.
Lithe and curvy, Branch can be forgiven for falling into a pattern familiar to many pretty young women; she relied on her looks as a fallback in tricky situations.
Now, she says that she's grateful for the horrifying accident that completely changed her body and face, saying that the accident has helped her become more grounded and in tune with who she really is on the inside.
While Branch doubtless faces a long, long road to recovery, it's truly inspiring to see this young woman embracing her new body and working to restore her self-esteem from the inside out.
For Branch, New Year's Eve was the night that changed her life forever, when she was caught in a ferocious fire that left her with burns on 85% of her body.
She had been camping with her family in her RV for the holidays, and they were parked overnight at a campground.
Early in the morning on New Year's Day, she was awoken by the smell of gas and began screaming, waking her stepfather sleeping nearby.
When Branch woke, she was already engulfed in flames, and her situation was rapidly growing more dire.
Her well-meaning stepfather ran to open the caravan door to get help, and inadvertently let in a draft of oxygen that fed the flames.
The updraft was so sudden that he was blown out of the RV, and Branch and her mother ran out after him. Branch stopped to roll on the ground and put out the flames before they raced away from their blazing camper.
After putting out the flames, Branch stood with her mother and stepfather not far from the camper, and watched as the vacation RV they'd been staying in moments before went up completely.
The family lost a great deal in the blaze; both Branch's mother and stepfather sustained painful burns of their own and were hospitalized for three weeks.
They had brought two dogs with them on their vacation, and, while one pup escaped, the other didn't make it out, adding an additional element of tragedy to the ill-fated vacation.
Still, it was Branch who bore the worst of the fire's wrath.
Running away, Branch remembers agony, and describes realizing that the soles of her feet had burned off, but didn't understand how severe her injuries were until she was airlifted to the hospital.
She was burned over 85% of her body, and doctors put her immediately into a medically induced coma.
While she was in the coma, doctors performed procedure after procedure as quickly as they could. They were performing skin grafts on her painfully burnt body every few days.
Despite the swift actions of a top-notch burn unit in one of London's top hospitals, her recovery took a long time.
Branch was placed in her induced coma shortly after the New Year's Day blaze, and wasn't awoken from the coma until March 1st, three months later.
In that time, she had been through countless procedures while unconscious; when she woke up, she was shocked by the extent of the damage to her body, even after three months of recovery.
Upon waking, she was shocked by what had happened over the course of her time in the hospital.
The beautiful young woman, pictured before the accident above, used to work as an advertising executive. After the events of New Year's Eve, her body was so badly damaged that she is no longer able to work, and it's not clear if there will be any point in the future where she'll be well enough to return to work.
For the moment, Branch, now 30, is primarily focused on restoring her mental and physical health as much as she can.
When she first saw herself, she was stunned, telling the Daily Mail, "I was given a mirror by one of the doctors. They prepared me by saying I was badly burnt and had a [therapist] present in case I needed to speak to her. What I saw was horrible. I'd lost my eyebrows and eyelashes and had no hair."
At first, she felt incredibly isolated by her highly-visible injuries, especially after she faced scrutiny and unkind words from strangers shortly after leaving the hospital.
“A few weeks after I came home, I went to the fish and chips shop across the road,” she recounted to Daily Mail. “An older lady took one look and me and said, “What happened to you, you look a mess.” It really knocked my confidence.”
Then, Branch met with a woman named Katie Piper, a model injured in a vicious acid attack by an ex-boyfriend.
Branch credits Piper with helping her to see herself and her injuries in a new light, and to be thankful for the small blessings.
She explains that her priorities went through a rapid shift, noting, "I realized how lucky I was to survive and have all of my fingers and toes. So many people judge a book by its cover. I used to rely on my looks, now I'm just thankful that I'm a decent person. It restored my faith in humanity."
Branch, pictured above before the accident, still has a long road ahead of her, but it sounds like she's well on her way to recovering her self-esteem and becoming a powerful role model to women the world over.
If you believe it's what's on the inside that counts, and you applaud Danielle for coming to terms with her scars, make sure to SHARE her beautiful story!
