I have had quite a journey with beauty. In seventh grade I wanted to be a model and even went to modeling school. (You gotta love it! Only a looks-obsessed teenager would dream this up at 5’3”.) In high school, I downplayed it for the girls and worked it for the boys. By college, I was in full-tilt beauty rebellion. My clothes were four sizes too big (and my body was three sizes too big), make-up was nowhere to be found and my armpit hair was longer than the hair on my head! And let’s not even discuss my leg hair. My boyfriend and I had matching shaved heads. (He’s now my husband, bless his heart; he loved me for me! And sorry, there are strangely no pictures from that era or I’d share). And here was the best part, I decided that eating whatever I wanted to eat was a feminist issue and that exercise was only for shallow people.
Ahh youth. Well, I have grown up a little bit, and so has my context for beauty. I am no longer offended by the fact the world cares; yes, even I care. I now understand that what impresses people about beauty goes far beyond the symmetry of a face, the shininess of hair and the brightness of eyes. Beauty is the result of and demonstrates self-respect, and we are rightfully impressed by self-respect. After many years, I got really into caring about myself as a way to grow up and respect myself, not something superficial at all.
You may already care about being beautiful as a way to manipulate people to pay attention to you, or you may be making a point of not caring, or you may have given up. Wherever you are on your beauty journey, I invite you to consider dropping your cultural, historical, familial, political and personal baggage and come back into the conversation from a much more spiritual perspective.
When you dig through all that crap, you will find a bunch of really bad logic and silly laws you are living by, like:
• I only need to dress up when I go to special functions
• I can eat whatever I want
• It just feels so good to pick my pimples
• My hair can wait another week
• My nails can wait another week
• My teeth can wait another year
• My body can’t be any better than this
• I’m too old
• It will never work
• I’ll never sustain it, so what’s the point?
• There are no good outfits in my closet
• I don’t have the time or money to look good
I could go on and on, and so could you. Call BS on all that.
Now, remember a time when you felt gorgeous. What was your practice? What did you do for yourself? There was a time when you cared and you did things for yourself, and it made you feel good. This is not about external validation; this is about the pride that comes from designing how your relationship to yourself should be and then acting on it.
Feeling proud and great is about taking back the reigns: changing your thinking, the laws you live by and then your habits and practices. The minute you change a habit, you feel better.
Here are just a few I suggest, to get you started:
• Make a bedtime
• Slather yourself in lotion once a day
• Make an appointment with your hair stylist, manicurist, dermatologist, etc.
• Drink eight glasses of water a day
• Stop touching your face
• Get that product you’ve been dying to try and commit to the full cycle
• Take your supplements dammit
• Add leafy greens to your diet
• At home pedicure anyone?
• Learn or return to meditation
• And of course my best beauty tip: tell the truth
When you take better care of yourself, you feel better and you look prettier. Try it and report back.
Personal Integrity is the true key to beauty. Pride is sexy. Confidence is beautiful. You deserve it. It’s finally spring; time to uncover you, show yourself and shine!
Here’s lookin’ at you!
xo
Laurie
P.S. – We’ve designed a one-day, urban retreat on this exact topic: Uncover YOU will be on Saturday, May 7 in NYC. If you can’t attend this live workshop, consider the Dream Body teleseminar on Thursday, May 5.
Laurie Gerber is President of the Private Coaching Division of The Handel Group™ and an expert life coach herself. Passionate about personal development, Laurie oversees 20 coaches and has been working with individuals and groups herself for the past 10 years. Public speaking, tele-seminars, blogging, radio and TV are her current favorite modalities for bringing the Handel Method® to the world.
Leave a comment below and a winner will be chosen at random on May 4, 2011 to attend the Dream Body teleseminar on May 5 at 8pm EST!I