How Woman’s Yearning to Embody the Essence of Who She is, Got Twisted Into a Superficial Quest of “Looking Good’
We have forgot what beauty really is
Me in a luscious moment in Bali
Why Does Woman Long to be Beautiful?
Why does woman love to look at herself in the mirror, and see herself shine as the beauty that she is; to see her body looking healthy, to feel natural in what she wears, to watch her skin glow, her breasts filled with energy, her neck relaxed, her face at ease, her hair being just right?
Why does woman love to see herself like that?
Because her beauty is a sign that she is embodying the essence of who she is, and loves herself while doing so!
So it’s not so strange that woman yearns to be beautiful. At its core, that yearning is her attraction to embody the most sacred essence of who she is, and to thrive in that embodiment.
But... humans always had a tendency of getting lost on the surface of things. And this has happened with our understanding of beauty too. Our society has forgotten that beauty starts within as our acceptance of who we are, and started presenting beauty as a thing that can (and even should) be created on the surface. And as that happens, the genuine beauty of woman is under threat of being extinguished.
How Woman Takes on A Distorted Version of What Beauty Is
Here is how the story goes:
One day woman witnesses the reflection of herself, and is spellbound. Through the mirror, via the screen, or in a pair of attentive eyes, woman discovers that she is indeed a source of beauty. But, woman wonders, how do I nurture that source, to make it bloom?
In a healthy society, someone informs woman that her beauty blooms as she embodies the essence of who she is. Someone tells woman that her beauty is the radiation of her connection with and love of her innermost essence.
But here we are, in 2021, where the knowledge that our beauty has anything to do with what is inside is a secret only for the initiated few. So who is it that teaches woman how to make her beauty bloom?
Oh, you guessed completely right! Consumer society.
Consumer society has no care about woman’s healthiness, sanity or happiness. Consumer society’s only concern; is to sell. So this is no source that will let woman know that her beauty is connected to who she is inside. Quite the contrary. Consumer society depends on woman perceiving beauty to be a purely superficial thing, to sell her stuff that will satisfy her quest of being beautiful.
Yes, I see your seed of beauty, consumer society says. After all, you are a woman. But you have to hone your beauty, if it is to serve you. And we can help!
Consumer society has plenty of suggestions for how to grow a woman’s beauty. What about a lip fill? A new set of lashes? A pretty dress? Whiter teeth, hairless legs, bigger boobs, a new hair colour? What about a diet for that far too heavy body of yours? Or maybe (if we pull it pretty far) an anus bleach?
And to give legitimacy to its services, consumer society supports ads, magazines, films, and series of females with a certain set of looks, selling woman its blueprint of how “beautiful” looks like.
Flaming June, by Frederic Lord Leighton. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
And woman buys the bait.
Surrounded by images of pretty ladies and countless possibilities to adjust the way she looks, woman never gets to discover that her beauty Is an expression of the essence of herself. She is taught into a completely another paradigm. In this paradigm, being herself has little value. What matter is simply: How she looks.
Because, as consumer society markets her to believe: As long as you are beautiful, you will have many perks in life. You will feel worthy, you will have it your way, you will feel good about yourselves - and you will secure things that are important to you; as a partner, a job, attention, friends, or fame.
The more beautiful you are - consumer society tells woman - the more power and influence you will have in your world. And the more power and influence you have, the more happy you will be.
How can woman withstand this marketing? Desperately yearning to embody the beauty that she knows deep inside she has, woman starts cutting, removing, adding, injecting, painting, sculpting and changing the colours and shapes of her body. She will do almost everything, in order to look “beautiful”.
Oh, if somebody could just tell woman that the recipe for beauty that she is hunting – is distorted!
Tricked into squeezing herself into images that she is not, the yearning for beauty that once was woman’s yearning to be herself, is fueled into a quest that is taking her AWAY from being herself, rather than the other way around.
And since most people around her take the same approach, it never occurs to woman that her quest for superficial beauty non-connected to her essence, is entirely… mad.
It's Being Me That Makes Me Beautiful
Woman has missed the most crucial point: she already HAS her beauty. Her beauty is given to her by birth. Her beauty was never something she was in charge of creating - it is something she SURRENDERS to.
But how can she know that, if nobody tells her?
We need to reclaim the concept of what beauty really is! And I’m starting here, saying:
Dawn (1881) by William Adolphe Bouguereau. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Our yearning to be beautiful is our yearning to embody the sacred essence of ourselves.
Beauty can never be known or created by copying someone outside of us.
Our sensuality - the pleasure of being present in our own body - is far more powerful than any superficial “beauty” can ever be
Beauty is being true to who we ARE. When we love and thrive in being ourselves - and are confident enough to share our thriving with our world, we WILL be beautiful. That is exactly how profound - and simple - existence is set up.
Hey women: we have a significant task ahead of us! We have allowed consumer society to coup the concept of what beauty is, and make it into a superficial, respectless and even ugly concept. We have allowed consumer society to distort our yearning for being ourselves into a path of collective self-neglection. I’m saying: I protest! I am ready to recoup the concept of beauty, and remind us all: that genuine beauty can NEVER be anything else than a courageous expression of being… ourselves.
And therefore, where is the place to turn our attention, the place where our blooming beauty begins?
Within.
