A few months ago, I celebrated my 45th birthday. While it wasn’t the milestone that turning 50 will undoubtedly be, it prompted me to examine the way I look at – and feel about – myself.
I don’t know about you, but I can definitely be my own harshest critic, in all kinds of ways. When I look in the mirror, for instance, I see wrinkles. In fact, I see every one of my wrinkles, and the way in which my skins seems to droop more than it did when I was in my 20s or even my 30s. I look at photos that friends take of me, and where they see someone they love and notice how delighted and alive I look, the first thing I often notice is the way I am aging.
Why, I wondered, do I do that? And is there another, better way?
We all receive plenty of messages through the media that equate beauty and vibrancy with youth. And it’s easy to get caught up in and adopt other people’s ideas of what is beautiful. When I do that, I look at my wrinkles and I judge myself less beautiful than I once was. And when I judge myself in that way, I feel my heart sink. I feel sad and stressed and I begin to worry – about my health, about how others see me, about the future.
What I’ve come to realize over time, though, is that I don’t need to live my life, or treat myself, that way. I don’t have to judge and criticize myself. In fact, it doesn’t do any good when I do. All it does is negatively affect how I feel about myself, how I treat myself, and invariably how I treat others – particularly the people closest to me, the people I love the most.
So what’s the antidote for being so hard on myself? What is the better way? Rather than accepting other people’s ideas, I need instead to look inside for what is really true for me. Doing that means taking the time to stop, letting go of any preconceived ideas I may have, checking in with myself from a place of curiosity and paying attention. What is it that I find beautiful? What is beauty, really?
When is the last time you stopped to consider what beauty really looks like? Not just what the media tells you is beautiful, or even what those around you seem to find beautiful, but what you truly find beautiful? What does it look like? How do you recognize it when you see it? Real beauty naturally attracts you and draws you in. What opens your heart, and moves you so deeply that it brings tears to your eyes, or fills you with joy or love or utter delight?
Stop for a moment to look around you. Right now. Just stop reading, look around and pay attention. What do you notice? Where do you find beauty? Can you see the beauty that is all around you right now?
In a poem called “The Invitation”, Oriah Mountain Dreamer says, “I want to know if you can see Beauty/even when it’s not pretty/every day. And if you can source your own life/from its presence.” To me, real beauty is aliveness, excitement, openness, love. I experience beauty when I see people smile, or express love or tenderness toward others. In fact, I see beauty every time I look at anything from a place of love and curiosity.
How would it be to turn that open-hearted curiosity and wonder toward yourself? Take a few deep breaths. Look at yourself from a place of love. Allow yourself to feel comfortable in your own skin. Breathe. Can you feel the life energy that has and continues to flow through you? Now, look at yourself in the mirror. From this place, what is it that you see?
When I embrace and accept myself, and relax into how comfortable I actually feel in my own skin, I feel beautiful. I see my softness. I see someone who has lived enough of life to have compassion for the struggles we all go through from time to time. I see someone who feels deeply and passionately – so much so that those emotions have left their marks. The lines around my eyes? Those lines have been etched into my face by years of laughter. How beautiful is it that laughter has left its mark indelibly on me?
What helps you feel more beautiful? More alive? More in love with yourself? Do you see the beauty within you, the beauty that IS you? What can you do today to recognize, honor and celebrate how beautiful you already are?
