Whole Beauty: An Introduction
It’s not a secret that women want to look and feel beautiful. We go about achieving this outcome in many different ways: through products, lotions, and potions, through procedures and treatments, and through fads and trends that have convinced us that, in one way or another, these solutions will allow us to reach our goal.
I have been in the skin care business for 40 years, so I know a thing or two about beauty. People come to see me because they want to know how to look “better”. They want to enhance their appearance to look younger, healthier and more attractive. Unfortunately, I often have to deliver the news that many of my clients do not want to hear. That is, with skin care, there are many things we can do, but we can’t do everything.
So how then, can we achieve true beauty? Firstly, we need to welcome age and imperfection. Why? Even the most beautiful people want to look better. The most celebrated and stunning celebrities wish they had smaller pores or a different nose or tighter skin. The people we put on a pedestal see the same imperfections in themselves that we see in ourselves. So our first step to being truly beautiful is to embrace the things that make us different. The second is to understand that achieving beauty isn’t just about what you put on your face. It’s about whole beauty, which is comprised of three segments: the mind, the body, and the skin.
Mind Beauty
As I mentioned, our first step in achieving true beauty is to embrace our imperfections. Humans, and women, in particular, play an awful game in our mind where we judge ourselves against others and analyze our appearances compared to our peers. What’s funny about this is that while we’re swooning over our neighbor’s eyebrows or long legs, that same neighbor is most likely admiring our thick, healthy hair and sky-high cheekbones. The woman with the model body begs for curves while the woman next to her wishes she could lose 15 pounds. And the cycle continues. So in order for us to feel beautiful, we first need to feel proud of and excited by the assets that make us feel good about ourselves. What are yours?
The other aspect of mind beauty that we need to recognize is that we wear so many of our problems on our faces. Stress, anxiety, fear and sadness all come from a negative mind. Have you ever had a friend come up to you, and before you can say a word, they ask, “What’s wrong?” This is the bi-product of a negative mind. People wear their feelings on their faces, and just how those bad feelings can be interpreted without words, so too can welcoming, compassionate and kind feelings. A positive mind delivers the kind of beauty that we can’t buy — a genuine smile, a twinkle in the eye, the glow that comes from excitement. It’s the energy we have inside ourselves that delivers a benefit to both our mind and our appearance, with the welcome addition of making other people happy in the process.
Body Beauty
Just like our mind, we need to be intuitive and receptive to the
information that our body gives to us. Beauty is a discipline and a lifestyle that we have to respect and put effort into. If you go to the gym once a month or take a yoga class every two weeks, will you see results? No, of course not. If you swap a salad for your daily slice of pizza once every week, will it make a difference? No, it won’t. Respecting our body is about listening to it and treating it well, and we can do that by eating healthy foods, limiting our intake of indulgences, and sleeping in accordance with our body clock. A fundamental concept of Chinese medicine is ying and yang, or balancing the inward and outward flow of energy. Our body plays a big part in keeping this balance. Why? If our chi is balanced, we look and feel good. If it isn’t, we look tired, stressed or anxious. This is why the body plays such an important role in the wholeness of beauty.
Skin Beauty
Our skin is the biggest organ in our body. It’s our shield of armor and it protects us from harmful elements such as pollution and UV rays. So if our skin does such a good job of protecting us, what are we doing to return the favor?
Just like how we have to take care of our minds and bodies, so too must we have a regimen for our skin. If we use sunblock once a week will it help prevent skin cancer? Unfortunately not. If we remember to put on eye cream once in a while, will we be able to roll back the clock? Not likely. So how then can we ensure we are taking care of our skin to give us optimal health and beauty wellbeing.
Skin care, just like body care, needs routine maintenance. This means that we need to be committed to our skin through a regimen of cleansing, hydrating, correcting, nourishing, and renewal. By committing to these habits, we are not only creating a ritual for our skin, we are also creating one for ourselves. It’s not often we get to take a break from life and give ourselves time to reflect, rebalance and relish in some “me” time. So through skin care, we offer ourselves mind and body care as well, and we come full circle.
Final Thoughts
Many people know me as a skin care professional and they use my products or come to me for facial treatments because they deliver results. But I believe that skin care has just one part to play and that only through education and training of the mind and body can we achieve whole and complete beauty, which goes well beyond appearance.
Over the next several months, I will be speaking about whole beauty and will offer my philosophies and ideas on ways in which we can take care of the mind, the body, and the skin in order to produce our best selves. I’ll also be taking questions and sharing ideas, so if you have something to say or a question to ask, please send me an email at askling@lingskincare.com or send me a message on Facebook at www.facebook.com/lingskincare.
