It’s amazing how beauty standards can impact our life, and how much they can cripple us. I did a reading recently with a wonderful woman for whom beauty standards were curtailing her experience of life and her everyday happiness. She was living in a miserable world in that her body wasn’t what she thought it should be, both in terms of weight and age, and she was punishing herself.
I get it. Beauty is so fleeting in general, often reserved for youth in magazines, television, movies, etc. We all have different bodies, different elements that make us “beautiful,” and we all age.
Sometimes all it takes is looking at fear to find ways to heal. We can’t exactly change our physical appearance in an hour, but we can come to deep realizations that can change our lives. Looking at the beauty, she was focusing on things that she couldn’t change and was hurting herself about them. But there are ways to bring beauty into your life. First, with the things that you can control: what you see--your physical environment. This can bring you out of focusing on yourself, and looking outward instead. How you dress. (Kelly Rae Roberts has a whole course on this.) How you wear your makeup if you wear it, and how you choose to present yourself. By focusing on the elements that you can have an influence over, then you feel like you have more of a choice and are more in control. Also, working on the beauty in your outer environment gives you more joy, relaxation, and relief. You can live in beauty.
Another thing that came out during this reading was a fear of travel because she believed she wasn’t beautiful enough. I honor this, because this is a fear that most of us have in some way. And when anyone comes to you with their personal fears and shame, the best thing that you can do is honor them, and look for healing. With this one, we simply looked at the fear and created a counterpoint. Who’s beautiful? We saw her walking in the Middle East, buying items at colorful, outdoor markets, and looked around this scene. It was filled with ordinary, everyday people with nary a movie star or super model in sight. I asked her: who’s beautiful? We’re all unique and most of us are beautifully different. Those perfectly crafted magazine faces don’t usually stare back at us when we leave our media and go outside. What does stare back at us is the world in real life, filled with different kinds of beauty everywhere. There’s a freedom in this.
The theme for this blog kept coming up for me, so I’m wondering, if you’re reading this, if it’s for you specifically. For some reason, I kept getting the urge to write it and share this experience. There are things that you can have influence over in your life, and super model “beauty” isn’t necessary for enjoying the extreme beauty of your life. This life is yours to live, craft, and experience, and I want you to do just that in the best way, and with the most joy, possible.
With love,
P