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.

The Inner Life of the Cell

My sister unknowingly inspired me by sending me an incredible 3-minute video. You have to see it. It is amazing.

It is a reflection of the incredible life that is going on inside any one of the 60 billion white blood cells of our bodies. You will see via animation a scientifically accurate depiction of the inner life of the cell.

It is extraordinary. It is beautiful. It is vibrantly alive.

http://aimediaserver.com/studiodaily/videoplayer/?src=harvard/harvard.swf&width=640&height=520

Obviously the life of the cell is not something that most of us, unless we are molecular biologists, think about. That’s all the more reason to watch this film. If this is the energy that is going on inside each of the 60 billion white blood cells and there is some other but similar energy going on in the rest of our 10 trillion cells, that’s a whole lotta energy that we normally don’t pay any thought to.

What if you did think about your body as this amazing miracle of creation? What if you watched this video every day at least once to remind your self? Would that change your actions?

Given that actions follow feelings and feelings follow thought, if you think about your cells as a miraculous work of creation, does it not follow that you would feel differently about your body, and thus be more inclined to act differently towards it?
In theory and with practice this does work.

However I am really really curious about how this film, “The Inner Life of the Cell” affects you. So I invite you to offer your response to the question, Are you inspired by The Inner Life of the Cell? here.

One other cellular offering is what I call my ‘Happy Cells’ song. I am putting my inclination towards silliness (which we could all use a little more of) on the line here. This is a song I learned over 10 years ago and have been singing ever since. I challenge you to sing it and not feel happier for doing so.

It is sung to the tune of the southern song, “(Momma’s Little Baby Has) Shortenin’ Bread”

It goes like this:

Every little cell in my body is happy,
Every little cell is happy and well.
Every little cell in my body is happy,
Every little cell is happy and well.

I’m so glad
every little cell
in my body
is happy and well

Repeat over and over until you can’t help but feel happy!!

Sing this in the shower, in the car, with your kids, whenever you are feeling low and need a boost. It is a guaranteed mood elevator.

Large Radiant Women

I was searching for another site when I stumbled across www.radiancemagazine.com , a site and mag for large, well-endowed women. My curiousity sent me exploring through some of the back issues.

I was moved by two articles from the Fall 1997 issue. Wonderfully Endowed by Jeannine Dettoney, is her journey to love her big, beautiful black hips and butt and the women in her life and culture who inspired and dignified her beauty.

I was reminded of one of the stories in Women Who Run With the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, a book that I read over 10 years ago. I might be slightly astray with the details but the crux of the story stayed with me. She recounted her own story about her body esteem being challenged by being in the presence of the thin, white girls that she went to school with and the American culture that supported that white notion of beauty. It was not until Estes went to visit her extended family of Amerindian/European/Hungarian roots that she realized that her body type was part of her heritage, and she was trying to fit a naturally large body into a thin representation of beauty.

Reading Wonderfully Endowed, as well as two other articles that moved me, Big Beauty, One Photographer’s View (Fall 97) and Confessions of a Radical Registered Dietician (Spring 95), reminded me to do a check in on what is most important in the work that I do. I have asked some of my clients if they were healthy but had to choose between losing the weight that they want to lose yet not being more peaceful or being at peace with themselves but not losing weight, which would they choose? All of them have chosen peace over weight loss.

As a coach and a nutritionist, I feel compelled to help them achieve both, but that is my learning too. I need to find peace with not being able to change what may not meant to be changed. Despite all my research into how people create real transformation in their lives, there are some things that just need to be accepted for what they are, especially our bodies.

A woman who lives healthfully, mind, body and soul in a large body is a powerful woman, and one that our culture needs more models of.

‘Being With’ My Body

We live in a small house east of the downtown core of Toronto. It is a sweet place, one that I believe reflects our warmth and our love of beauty. But it is small, and none of us have space of our own. Recently though, there was an added blessing to the house. The large apartment upstairs that we rent out, was vacant for 8 weeks. After 2 weeks of being empty, a light bulb went off over my head, and I moved my stability ball, portable stereo, CD’s, labtop and files up there. The living room is about 160 sq. ft., enough room for me to dance, have a little space to meditate and write and lots of room to do my coaching work. I thrived. I danced almost every day, started this blog, designed a workshop, coached, read the better part of 3 non-fiction books, meditated, slept, offered a movement/collage workshop for three coaching colleagues and created a larger space in my mind for my work and my life.

Now that I am back downstairs, cramped, with no room to move, except maybe the space between the dining room table and the wall or the kitchen, I am trying to put it into perspective, and find meaning beyond my own experience. This is what I am reflecting on:

My body and my home are both spaces that I occupy. My body I am with for the complete range of my life, my only constant companion throughout. So with it, I am dedicated to loving and being with it. Finding the acceptance, forgiveness, patience, compassion and kindness to occupy that space as gracefully as I can. With my home I am in a finite relationship. It has served us well for a time, but the end is nearing and so I am seeing how my visionary capacities are being engaged, as I prepare for change. I do not know yet how or when it is going to happen, I just know it is happening soon.

With what we cannot change, we need to settle in and find peace in the ‘being with’. With what we can change, we need to engage all of our mind’s capacities to take action.