Hello and welcome to the DesignLife blog where we discuss Holistic Beauty, Personal Development and a little bit of Magic!
When you think of the the word beauty, what comes to mind? Do you immediately shrink back, because you are so used to comparing yourself to others and their standards? Do you feel bitter, frustrated or unworthy? Do you feel that the term beautiful is reserved to a select few - the lucky people who were just born with the "beauty gene"? I hope this isn't the case.
As you do, I have a personal journey with Beauty, too. Beauty seemed to be out of my reach. I grew up looking at my mom, my friends and even women in TV shows for guidance and I became quite sure that we weren't supposed to be satisfied with ourselves or how we look. Our hips are either too big or too narrow, our skin is too dry or too oily, our hair is too curly or too straight and life is either too busy or boring. When it's short we're supposed to want it longer, but when it's long we're supposed to complain about the tangles and the dry ends. Not that this trend was exclusive to the women in my life. As I got older, I realized guys were self-conscious about their height, their skin, their hair and obviously the size of their package, because who wants a... Never mind. Kidding, I was going to say, wait, what?
I was around girls and women more often while growing up, clearly women had a stronger influence on me during that time, but now I realize some of my guy friends are way more insecure than I had realized. And there's nothing wrong with that, just because you're a guy doesn't mean you don't want to feel beautiful (okay, we'll call it handsome if it isn't masculine enough for you).
When you think of the word beauty, do you immediately and exclusively think about your physical features? Because that's where I think the mix-up actually starts. You are looking at half of the whole.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't believe that a person's level of beauty hinges solely on how smart or kind they are either. Confidence has more to do with beauty than intelligence and basic hygiene is more important than whether or not you volunteer at the local shelter once or twice a year. But people don't seem to talk about stuff like that too often, because it's either not sexy enough or too shallow. What am I getting at here, you may ask? Here me out.
For a moment, let's forget about beauty entirely and speak about holism. Holism is a philosophical theory that states:
Parts of a whole are in intimate interconnection, such that they cannot exist independently of the whole, or cannot be understood without reference to the whole, which is thus regarded as greater than the sum of its parts.
Holism is often applied to mental states, language and ecology. I would like to extend the philosophy and apply it to beauty. If you are of the opinion that I'm looking into this way more than I, or anyone for that matter, needs to... I politely refute that opinion. There is a whole branch of philosophy dedicated to Aesthetics, if you were unaware. It deals with the nature of art, beauty, and taste. Aesthetics is concerned with the creation and appreciation of BEAUTY. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgements of sentiment and taste. More broadly, scholars in the field define aesthetics as "critical reflection on art, culture and nature".
I am no philosopher, but at least I know I'm not crazy. If there are people who study beauty for a living, then I can't be too mad for dedicating a blog post (and essentially my entire life) to what I believe should be our concept of beauty when we think about ourselves and others. We are human, after all, a part of nature. So let's reflect upon ourselves...
For some reason (and I admit this is my personal experience) people tend to speak about beauty in exclusives. Either beauty is an external thing, based on our physical attributes, or it is an internal thing, based on arbitrary stuff like our personality, level of intelligence, kindness or what values we hold and so on.
One does not have to be a certain weight (fat or skinny or average or bootylicious or ripped or whatever is the current societally constructed criterion) to be beautiful. But if you're not a very intelligent person, that doesn't make you ugly either. You can be the kindest person in the world, regularly saving kittens from trees and helping old ladies across the street, but if you don't take a bath once in a while and maybe brush your teeth, I doubt you will look or feel very beautiful (or handsome). Is my point coming across at all or am I just offending a whole lot of people who've made it this far into the post?
... Pause for dramatic effect.
Honestly, when I think of of the word beauty today, I think of bright smiles, comfortable clothes, self-love and confidence. I think of spending time with myself and getting to know who I am and what my purpose is and, for sure, a strong sense of identity comes to mind.
I know what clothes I like to wear, I know what food I enjoy eating and I know what exercise is right for me. I know what I am good at and what I suck at and I don't lose a wink of sleep over it. I know my good traits and my bad ones and I own them all. I have a strong sense of purpose and I know that taking care of myself, mentally, physically AND emotionally is the easiest and fastest way happiness and success. The journey is so much more enjoyable when you feel good AND you look good and you know it! In truth, once your are on this path to happiness and success, you will find that happiness and success is the path.
Beauty is an art. As is life.
You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world and there is still going to be somebody who hates peaches.
- Dita von Teese
Make your life your art. Take responsibility for it. Love the shit out of your life - every inch of it. Find your balance. Not your mother-, father-, best friend- or husband's balance. Yours. Find out what's your favorite colour and wear it on Mondays. Listen to as much music as you can and save only the best songs on your iPod - dance to them in front of a mirror on a Saturday night with the lights turned ON! Get your hair curled and wear it down for a change or colour it blue (or get a clip in extension if you're not ready to go all out). Hit the gym when you feel like it or do stretches while your washing the dishes and packing them away. Skip your jog and go for a walk on the beach with your best friend. Talk about how you feel, shout about it if you need to sometimes. Express yourself. Change if you need to. You will only lose the people who are not good for you anyway.
Beauty is getting to know yourself and falling in love. Your relationship with yourself sets the tone for every other relationship you have. Actually, I'd like to amend that statement... Your relationship with yourself sets the tone for your entire life. Your career, your health, your relationship with your family and friends, your connection (or lack thereof) with God (whoever that is or whatever that means to you). How you feel about yourself influences and affects everything... So, you want to be beautiful? What does that mean to YOU?
Look at yourself, your life, all of it. If you can't fall in love with who you see in the mirror, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, you will always feel like something is missing... You will never be as beautiful as you could be, until you fall in love with all of you.
And then, the world will see it. And they will fall in love too. Some will be obsessed, some will be jealous, most won't understand and they will think you are just one of the lucky few... but none of that will matter to you. Not anymore, anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment