As for me, I never knew about my beauty. My parents made sure I didn't know it, as they didn't want me to be arrogant. They did everything they could so I would just feel average and ordinary. Nothing special. Every attempt of my grandmother to 'show me off' and have me dance in costumes and pretty long dresses for her friends at tea parties, dressed up like a princess (which I adored!), each one of those was 'counter-balanced' by my parents with criticism, the wrongness of that, and how my grandmother would abuse me by showing me off. I never got that that was abuse, though. I enjoyed it. There was, very early in my life already, a taunting willingness in me, to be seen, to be adored, to 'be me' in front of an audience.
My parents' point of view was that there was nothing special about me other than making sure I had good grades in school and getting a 'real job' and a solid and ordered life.
I didn't get why my friends in school excluded me, girlfriends teamed up against me, being more happy about my failures than my successes. I felt awkward and constantly 'in the wrong place'. I couldn't cross a room without being so self-conscious that I almost tripped over my feet, feeling as if I was looking at my body while being in my body. I just wanted to disappear. Which I did, energetically.
Even with a teenage acting and modeling 'career', I would always feel 'just average'. There seemed to always be something wrong about me. I was too skinny, I missed the ideal height by 0.5 inches in order to be a fashion model, my mouth was 'negative' so I couldn't really be a photo model, I never had the right set card, never had the right portfolio, the right photographer, the right chest size, the right acting school etc. Everyone was looking for the needle in the haystack, the flaw in my beauty. I was never a cheer leader, I was never popular, I never fit in.
Until many years later, my teenage-years agent told me how really good I was as an actress. She hadn't told me then. My uncle told me, when I was way into my thirties, how much he had always admired me for my bold steps. He hadn't told me until then. One of the photographers I had worked with told me that he had always thought I was one of the most beautiful women he had ever met. He had not told me when I was modeling and looking for jobs.
Even now, writing about my beauty, is awkward, as if I don't have the right to write about it and to even mention it. As it always made everyone shrink, as it made everyone judge me for it.
I learned that it was more important to be seen for my inner beauty, that the outer wasn't really important and valuable.
With not acknowledging it, I couldn't see it, I couldn't perceive it and I couldn't create with, I couldn't use it in ways that would work for me, I could only use it to disappear. I was in the box that I allowed everyone to put me in. The box of "Oh, she gets everything she wants just because of her beauty!", "She can have everything, just because of her beauty!". And I believed it, especially the part 'Just because of her beauty!' I went into proving that a) I can NOT have anything I desire with my beauty and b) that it's not 'just because of my beauty', but that I would be one of the best and work hard. I made it about 'Doing'. But not 'being'. I could not be me. Beauty became an un-valuable product. With beauty being such an amazing and potent flavor of my being and my body, though, I had become an invaluable, or un-valuable, product. And, as I had decided that, my surroundings reflected it to me in many ways. Ease was not part of my reality. I could not receive. I had to fight for everything. I made it hard or even impossible for me to get anything I desired. Because I had cast out big chunks of my being, I had eliminated receiving. This way, I made sure I would not be seen, this way I, the being, didn't exist. I literally had disappeared by not acknowledging the gift and beauty that I be, the gift that my beauty is and the future that I can create with my body on the earth.
Today, I change this.
Today, I choose to be me.
Today, I embrace the body that I have created, the way I created it, with all it's radiance and beauty.
Today, I bless everyone who has ever judged my beauty and who will ever judge my beauty. I receive your judgment, knowing that it's your choice and it has nothing to do with my beauty. Nothing to do with me.
Today, I acknowledge beauty as a potent and powerful catalyst of change and source for creation. I acknowledge and celebrate the beauty I am with my body.
Today, I demand of me to choose greater, to create what I know is possible, no matter what. The beauty of a butterfly, the grace of a tree, the smile of a flower that will not hesitate to be as explosive as a volcano and spit fire as a fierce dragon, all of that and more is me being. Wind, earth, water, fire of consciousness, the elven-path and tree-whisperer that walks with grace and beauty and be seen in the world. And bring forth a magical potency and invitation for creation with the infinite colors of infinite possibilities that we know with the earth.
#IAmBeauty #30DayChallenge
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