What is Beauty and What Survives?
I wrote an article recently in answer to the question of how to maintain a sense of happiness and “being in control” as you age.
The question was posed by the media outlet and the use of the word “control” caused me to contemplate (I do a lot of contemplating) how much effort is expended in trying to control the experience of aging.
Nowhere is this more evident than the physicality of aging. The number one concern of my clients and people I meet is how aging is affecting how they look.
Excuse me while I step up on my soap box. This culture is so obsessed with a certain standard of beauty that women and men are mutilating their bodies to try and achieve it. It must stop. Obsession with fighting the inevibility of nature moves us away from paying attention to what really matters in life. Like being a good human, the sustainability of our planet, and creating a world that works for all.
Where did this belief that you must physically look decades younger than your chronological age come from? It came from consumerism. Buy this, buy that and you too can achieve this unachievable advertising agency construct standard of beauty.
Most of us have a minimal stream of awareness of what’s going on. And yet we still chase it. The beauty industry is a gazillion dollar money machine. How much money have you put into that machine and are you happier, more content or are you still chasing?
I have a friend who was a model and for much of her life her beauty was her value. She traded it for money, relationships and adoration. Then she got older and while she was still very beautiful, she no longer fit the standard.
What does it feel like when your entire identity is built on looking a certain way and then it’s taken away from you. She started small with a needle here and a needle there. When I see her now, her face barely looks like her. There is so much filler that her eyes are in a permanent squint and her teeth are hidden behind lips pulled so tight that her mouth barely moves. My sister and I call it the “joker” effect, Jack Nicholson in Batman….you get the idea.
What is beauty and what survives? It’s time for a new idea of beauty and it starts with you. We all want to look good, but the question to pose to yourself is according to whose standard?
Beauty is an inside job. We all know people who radiate with a glow that causes us to believe they are beautiful even when they don’t fit the standard formula which is Barbie and Ken doll perfection (with spray on six pack abs added).
Be a beautiful human. Start today by believing that you are, even though and especially if, you have wrinkles around your eyes, saggy knee skin and spots on your hands. What you see as an imperfection, turn it around to something you love and are proud of. That’s the start of the transformation for you and for the planet.
It begins with you and what you believe. Changing your mind and perception about aging is the secret formula for happiness, well being and an amazing experience of life.
Originally published at www.ShamelessAging.com
