What Makes You Beautiful?

This week has been one for reflecting on beauty.

On Sunday, I settled into the overstuffed chair in the living room to read from the book, Beauty: Rediscovering the True Sources of Compassion, Serenity, and Hope by John O’Donohue, that a beloved client had gifted me with. From it I quote – “When we say from our heart to someone: ‘You are beautiful’, it is more than a statement or platitude. It is recognition and invocation of the dignity, grandeur and grace of their spirit.”

At the gathering at my sister’s in the evening, I was in a touching conversation with a friend including a discussion about her beauty. This woman radiates the loveliness of a compassionate and kind spirit. And she is blessed with the genetics of a classic Italian beauty with high cheekbones and almond eyes. Yet still she cannot accept herself as beautiful and talked about wanting to get her nose fixed.

A study commissioned by Unilever, the company behind the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty reviewed the attitudes of 3200 women from 10 countries regarding beauty.

Only 2% identified themselves as beautiful.

How do we define beauty, culturally and individually? Is it measured by the ideas of perfection that are portrayed by inauthentic images portrayed in advertising, movies and television? To some degree, this seems to be the case. In this study, more than two-thirds (68%) of women strongly agree that “the media and advertising set an unrealistic standard of beauty that most women can’t ever
achieve.” Women over 30 tend to believe this more strongly than women 18 to 29.

I love this Campaign for Real Beauty that Unilever has initiated. It is brilliant marketing but it is also using its power to wield an important message. Maybe it will be the beginning of a paradigm shift that needs to happen in the media.

Media aside, we all need to do what we can on an individual level to create beauty within and without. In the same study mentioned above, when asked what makes them feel beautiful, 92% of women stated ‘being loved’, 89% said “doing something that you really love to do” and 82% claimed that “taking good care of themselves” made them feel beautiful.
Fortunately, whatever we were given genetically, we have control over these aspects of our lives.

I invite you to ask yourself the same question: What makes you feel beautiful?

Whatever it is – do more of it. Our world needs more of the ‘grandeur and grace of your spirit’ and you need to feel more of your own beauty.