Beauty

Isn't it so, that for many, the idea of being beautiful is just somewhat garbled. I can tell from my own experience that childhood experiences have left me believing that I could never be as beautiful as my sister for example. I was ok, sure, but there were too many flaws in my outer appearance that I could embrace any kind of concept of beauty. This stance of "I'm ugly - or if I'm not ugly, then I'm at least not beautiful" (it varied from time to time within those parameters), was then of course reflected back at me by my peers who actually teased me for my glasses, for my mannerisms, then for my height, for my way of dressing (comfort over fashion) and so the list goes on.

Of course there were those fine souls who tried very hard not to comply with my own program of "I'm ugly". They reassured me how beautiful I am, inside and out (strangely enough, always the "inside" part was more beautiful than the "outside") and by simply not believing those dear ones who thought me beautiful on all levels, I managed to stay ugly, stay true to the perceptions that were a direct result of my own mother telling me I was "distinctive", whereas my sister, now she was downright beautiful. It is incredibly fitting that the word for "distinctive" in German is "apart", which used in English again means "separate". And that was the feeling it created in me. Distinctive was possibly meant in a positive manner, but all I could sense from that word was that I was a freak, that I didn't belong with the beautiful people.

During many swirls along my own spirals of development, I've revisited this theme over and over again. I do not feel the need to go into details, but I want to speak of the glory of the moment this program ceased to keep a hold on my perception of myself. It was not too long ago, when I saw in an acquaintance who had just crossed my path, a beauty that touched me deep inside. It was outer beauty combined with inner beauty and wisdom that I saw. Who knows at this point, what the purpose of meeting this person had, but what I saw was breathtakingly beautiful.

I saw this beauty with the eyes of a child. It was mesmerizing. It is very possible (almost inevitable) that only I would see this beauty this way, meaning that to another person this soul would be just a fleeting thing, nothing of impact. I even had that feedback, when I showed a photograph and got some shoulder shrugs for it. That's when it dawned on me, that I was just looking in a mirror. I was seeing myself in this person's beauty. It was this same kind of beauty that I knew I held. There was so much reflected in this person's face that I could recognize, the beauty and the power it held. Inside and OUT.

A long while back, I had resigned to my inner beauty being the only beauty for me. I really just surrendered to what I believed was a fact that "OK there's some really physically beautiful people out there and I just have to live with that." I had given up seeking the beauty that defined myself on the physical plane. I had even thought that it was more spiritual that way. I was so totally wrong. Only when I realized that this mirror, this image of beauty that I saw, was my own inner AND outer beauty as well, did I realize that only by embracing this physical form and it's expression and deeming it beautiful have I fully accepted my beauty. Inner beauty alone, just didn't cut it, nor was it completely balanced spiritually.

I am deeply grateful for this person to show me my own beauty on all levels and I am more than thrilled to begin this new year with that integrated bit of knowledge, for I know that even though you won't find me on any red carpet any time soon, I will feel beautiful inside and out nonetheless and by feeling this way, I will be able to contribute more than ever before to the overall beauty of my reality and with that to the beauty of the experience in the physical realm.

We are what we see all around us, the mirror exists for every detail, beautiful or not so beautiful. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder they say, I deem it the job of the beholder to recognize true beauty where it is apparent.