The weighty topic of beauty

A few years ago I was invited to speak at a women’s wellness event. I decided to delve into a woman’s relationship with her body and the undeniable longing each woman’s heart has to feel beautiful. 

As I immersed myself in research on these topics and pondered on numerous conversations I’ve had with women over the years, I realised the immense need to start conversations about this and to unearth the deep-seated self-sabotaging habits that so many women adhere to in order to attain unrealistic standards of beauty. 

A never-ending war with food and body is often the result of these unrealistic standards and destructive habits. 

Let’s look at the numbers:

Dove conducted a global research study in 13 countries, which span across 10 500 women aged between 10 and 64 years of age. The results speak for themselves: 

• The conclusion was that women are more anxious about their bodies than ever before

• 80% of women says the media is setting unrealistic standards of beauty most women can’t even achieve

• 80% of women feel pressure to never make mistakes and never to show weakness

• 70% of women says taking time to care for themselves helps them to feel more confident

• 80% of women agree that every woman has something about her that is beautiful, but do not see her own beauty

• Only 4% of women globally consider themselves beautiful

What if?

What if this longing for beauty is in fact a longing for contentment?

What if you reach the epitome of external beauty, only to find that you’ve neglected your inner beauty and that you’re left with an empty shell, albeit a beautiful one? 

What if you attain every beauty aspiration you have, only to discover that your discontentment, striving and unrest is still as vividly present as it was before? 

What if external beauty standards were never designed to bring us to contentment, but instead to ignite a deeper striving for more more more? 

The never-ending need for more

If you pay close attention to the advertising industry, you’ll notice that at the core of each campaign in the beauty industry, the underlying message is that you need ‘this’ beauty product, magic weight loss product, slimming clothing item or beauty regime to finally be beautiful. Have you ever seen a beauty ad campaign that made you feel like you’re enough?

I dare say no. 

Where does this obsession with beauty spring forth? Is it only because we’re in a media-drenched world? Or has this innate desire for beauty been amongst women since the beginning of time? If you look back at history, there has always been a golden thread of women who sought after beauty in every way possible. 

Beauty, in its very core, is what we were made for and what we long for.

The problem sets in when our definition of beauty becomes distorted and when the world around us holds up a standard of what ideal beauty looks like and we jump onto the hamster wheel in an attempt to attain it - only to keep on running running running to no avail and with no sense of contentment.

Could this desire for beauty be redirected in a healthy way, instead of being a destructive force to our bodies, minds and relationships? 

What if you decide to implement an inside out approach, where you become more passionate about nurturing your inner beauty and coming to rest within yourself, instead of merely tweaking the externals? 

Beauty or contentment?

My firm belief is that our innate desire to feel beautiful is not so much a desire to be beautiful to the people around us (although this is a major factor and stumbling block for many women). I believe this innate desire springs from an even deeper desire to feel comfortable in our own skin. 

What if you were truly comfortable in your own skin - every time you look in the mirror, every time you get dressed and every time you’re surrounded by other women. 

Women tend to think subconsciously that they’ll be happy, content and free when they reach their ideal standard of beauty; and yet, they make use of self-sabotaging means to achieve that, thereby contributing to a continual self-war, which they believe will suddenly initiate self-love, self-respect and kindness towards themselves when their end goal has been achieved. 

Seems counterproductive, right?

Do you think that continual self-sabotage will suddenly end when you achieve your desired physical state of beauty? 

Chances are you’ll just increase your expectations and re-establish even more unattainable goals to remain in that default state of self-sabotage. 

Achieving a healthy weight won’t lead to a breakdown of unhealthy thought patterns.   

Food for nourishment, not punishment: 

There exists a direct correlation between your relationship with yourself, your relationship with your body and your daily food choices. They feed each other continually and until you take decisive steps to break an unhealthy pattern, it will continually feed a downward cycle of self-destruction.

If your relationship with yourself flows from a place of self-sabotage and self-destruction, your food choices will accurately depict this relationship: Yo-yo dieting, emotional eating, condemning yourself after eating ‘wrong foods’ and more.  

The outflow of this is that your body becomes your prison, instead of being your home. 

If you don’t believe that you’re worthy to be beautiful, whole and healthy, your food choices will reflect this belief. Food will become punishment, not nourishment. 

How about an inside out approach where you lean into a state of kindness towards yourself?

How do you think this will impact your food choices and your relationship with your body? 

Instead of following the next fad diet and implementing the latest quick fix, how about focusing on your sense of worthiness? 

What would happen if you truly believed you’re worthy to be beautiful and to be comfortable in your own skin? 

What impact do you think this will have on your food choices and self-care routines? 

Chew on this:

This is a weighty topic and there are many underlying beliefs and thought patterns to uncover and heal if you’re caught in an unhealthy relationship with your body and with food.

The aim of this post is to open your heart to the possibility of coming to rest within yourself.

To open your mind to the belief that you can have a healthy relationship with yourself and with food, effortlessly. 

To open your life to seek resources and guidance on how to follow an inside out approach to a wholesome life, where you are at peace with yourself and with your body. 

To open your hands to receive the grace needed to initiate and sustain this journey.

You are worthy to feel comfortable in your own skin. 

You are worthy to be free.