What is beauty?by Brenda Dwyer
What is beauty? Where does one find it? How does one possess it? Is it external, internal or both? In general, as women, we spend vast amounts of time and money on trying to attain it. Foolish. For truthfully, either you are beautiful or you are not. True beauty is radiated from the inside-out. True beauty does not fade with time, it is timeless. True beauty can not be attained with nips and tucks. True beauty can not be found in a jar or a perfume or in a tube of red lipstick.
The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
That which we nip and tuck will one day not only be unable to defy gravity but it will wrinkle and spot. That which we apply to our skin will only cause us angst in the constant seeking of something even more "effective". That which we put on smooth lips today will be patted on lips that loose their smoothness over time. We, as women, need to recognize that beauty is not as rare as we have been led to believe it is. We need to know that all of the methods we use to try to enhance ourselves is all just "smoke and mirrors" ... how will we ever age gracefully if we never understand the real truth? Beauty is attainable ... look in the mirror. Just look into your own eyes. First thing in the morning ... no make-up, nothing hiding your skin. What do you see? Let us hope that you see a very unique individual who is unlike anyone else ... anywhere. Look closer. Oh, what?! You can't see past your own "imperfections"? YES YOU CAN. (Funny those imperfections ... seems we are usually the only ones who can see them.)
The perception of beauty is a moral test.
-Henry David Thoreau
What if you hadn't been brainwashed by the media all these years and you were willing to just be YOU? Perhaps it is more personal for you ... perhaps you have allowed someone at some point in your life to define you. It is common for those who don't love themselves to constantly point the finger at what THEY THINK is imperfect in you. You can't see the beauty right there in front of you? YES YOU CAN. We need to reprogram ourselves to know that what is truly worth our time ... is to stop working on that WHICH IS ALREADY BEAUTIFUL & UNIQUE ON THE OUTSIDE and start working on that which greatly affects/effects everyone around us ... that which is on the inside, in the heart. We need to listen more, gossip less, love more, laugh more. There are so many things which distract us everyday from the true beauty that is right in front of us. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL ON THE OUTSIDE! YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL ON THE OUTSIDE! YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL ON THE OUTSIDE! Are you beautiful on the inside? If you aren't ... YOU WILL NEVER RADIATE TRUE BEAUTY.
Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful for beauty is God's handwriting.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do you possess timeless beauty? It seems 2009 may be a year of reckoning and introspection. Perhaps we, as women, need to readjust our idea of beauty. Over the years I have heard many women proclaim many other women to be beautiful, or other "things" to be beautiful. It is so easy to see the beauty in the rest of creation but wouldn't it be nice to realize the beauty within ourselves as well? YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. Embrace it.