“It’s never been more asked of us to show up as only slices of ourselves in different places.” – Courtney Martin (2015)

Beauty has been a label affixed to many different subjects. Once it was placed on the faces and bodies of only a few individuals then its own meaning changed for some of us. It was altered from something to love, enjoy and/or admire into an ideal which not everyone can attain.

Beauty was reduced from something to be found in everyone into something to be possessed by only the genetically fortunate. Then because a standard of “who is beautiful” was established many of us began changing ourselves to gain access to a type of beauty that we weren’t born with.

The message being sent out to us was that “we too can be more beautiful” but it was only if we achieved a likeness to the standard. Beauty had become a measure of one version of itself and those of us who strive to fit into one measurement begin to feel – less than.

It’s as though someone took Beauty (think of a stained glass window with a thousand different panes) and dropped it onto the floor breaking it. Then removed only a few of the glass panes to show the world something really beautiful but limited in its representation of the whole picture.

A fractured view of beauty, while still something to appreciate, cheats us out of the whole concept of how much more beauty exists within us and others.

One Thing To Do: Look for the beauty in your own face and in your own body. Open up your definition of beauty to include yourself and different versions of what’s beautiful.

Join us at an event on May 5th, 2016 Discovering Your Real Beauty- Inside and Out.

Click Here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/discovering-your-real-beauty-inside-and-out-tickets-24679419809

Dawna Daigneault, Ed.S, LPC.

Zest of Life, LLC. Professional Counseling.