Why beauty ideals suck. Hard.

Beauty ideals and Studio Metsä

Today I wanted to talk to you about beauty ideals and to start things off, I’ll tell you a little story:

One summer when I was 14, I was spending time with a friend of mine who lived in another town.

She was friends with a girl that both of us thought was really beautiful and we’d always admired her.

One day when she was surrounded by a group of people, we looked at her and wondered what it would feel like to be beautiful.

It was the type of genuine curiosity that would have shown anyone nearby how little we thought of ourselves.

We, just like Päivi, simply believed we were not in her category. Nor would we ever be.

It just wasn’t in the cards for us.

Distorted beauty ideals

Photo courtesy of http://impossiblebeautystandards.weebly.com/

The absurdity of beauty ideals

Now, let’s stop and take a second to think about this.

What’s wrong with this type of thinking?

EVERY. SINGLE. THING.

Why?

Because

  1. our value isn’t dependant on our appearance
  2. beauty is not just one type
  3. if we aren’t all beautiful, what are we?
  4. true beauty comes from the inside
  5. external factors do not equal happiness.

There is a common misconception that someone we think is beautiful (and may I remind you that beauty is in the eye of the beholder) would have it all – confidence, health, love and happiness.

A friend in Canada put it aptly when he said that a gorgeous person has simply “won the genetic lottery”. But so what? If they don’t have the personality to match, what good is their gorgeousness?

It’s an inside job

Who we are, how we are and how we feel, starts from the inside.

We may try to find confidence, love and happiness from external sources but on that road we will always fall short. If we rely on external sources for validation, permission, acceptance, we will never find peace or happiness because we aren’t in control of it.

External validation can’t and won’t last. It exhausts the people around us, it exhausts our relationships and it will never build us a sustainable life. We will always feel empty and lacking.

And WE ARE! when we expect others to tell us our worth.

The only person we can rely on to do that, to validate us, to believe in us, to build us up when we fall, is ourself.

Only we are in control of what we think, say and do. We aren’t able to control others, nor should we. When we take responsibility for ourselves and for our own happiness, we have a chance at building a healthy life for ourselves and for those around us.

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” -Gandhi

To give you some perspective, I’ve attached below a great talk by a model about the realities around our beauty industries.

And remember, you choose if you tell yourself you’re beautiful or ugly. And you choose whether you believe it or not.

Be gentle and loving with yourself and you’re well on your way to making this world a better place.

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Until next time lovely,
xoxo Erika

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