The Beauty We Seek
It's time we stopped focusing on beauty as perfection, as idolization. Beauty has become a skewed, manipulated, and ever-changing trend rather than a sense of empowerment, health, and functionality. And I hate it. Thick calves used to be considered highly attractive because it indicated a certain level of wealth that could supply greater quantities of food. Wide hips have often been considered sexy because they suggest a woman can bear children more easily. Attractiveness even comes down to the color contrast of your eyes - the clarity of the whites in relation to the depth of color of the iris because it indicated overall health! These "judgements" of beauty and appeal do not bother me. They're at least based on something. Health. Reproduction. Ability to support a family, supply food. Fine. But when beauty turns from health and functionality into strange - and sometime life threatening- trends, I get angry. Waist trainers that squash your internal organs? Lip plumpers that have the potential to harm blood vessels? Extreme dieting that can trigger an eating disorder? What are we doing to ourselves?! Can you move about the world? Can you smile and make another person smile back? Can you breathe in the crisp air around you and turn your chin up to soak in the sun? Yes? Then you are beautiful. Don't take your strength for granted. And truly, deeply, sincerely.... do not take your health for granted. If the inside - heart, health, mind, soul - is feeling good, don't let the word tell you the outside doesn't also look good. You are not required to follow fashion, mold your body to these fake ideals of perfection. You're not. Really. The world wants you to believe that you have to but you so, so do not!
Love your curves, forgive your 'flaws', appreciate your bones for holding you up, your muscles for propelling you forward, and your brain for giving you the ability to do so very, very much... including something you probably aren't even thinking of - reading this, right here, right now. You are an amazing, beautiful, powerful creature. Your very existence is a miracle in its own right. Don't belittle that.
Don't forget that.
