Beauty

All day, every day we are bombarded with images that do not represent what we look like.

We are told that is what beauty is and it creates no end of issues for girls and women and now boys and men with the concern that we somehow don’t measure up.

There are finally healthy signs that a pushback is underway, and you have a role to play.

When women and body image meets women and aging you can go one of two ways. Keep fighting what is realistic and be unhappy, or come to terms with being the best you can be and let your natural beauty shine through.

Several years ago, an experiment in the Australian version of Cosmopolitan magazine caused outrage with the fashion set when models wearing size 12-16 were included in the magazine. It was a brave attempt to introduce a range of body shapes and a diversity of ethnic backgrounds into something that more resembled the actual population.

It's still going on today and the (former) editor that launched it is now on a mission to improve perceptions of body image. The campaign itself is over now, but you can read her perceptions on body image here. She has quite a bit to say.

Think about the most wonderful, beautiful people you know. Are they all thin and shiny on the outside or is it the shine from the inside that we respond to? If we are happy and healthy, we shine, inside out.

So stop concentrating on what you think is wrong with how you look and concentrate instead on what is absolutely right with you.

Work everyday to find a way to shine brighter. Let all the anxieties foisted upon us from the world fall away.

In the wonderful words of Maggie Alderson in her book Gravity Sucks, “If you don’t bother with makeup, bosom upholstery and foot facials, are you letting yourself go or just letting go?”

I think there is much to be said for ‘letting go’. So much of what we have done in the past was for others. So little of it was focussed on just pampering ourselves when we needed it.

Now it is as important as ever as we redesign our new life we need to identify what it is that makes us feel special and do it whenever you feel the shine beginning dull a little.

Spend a little me time making yourself feel special, just because. You deserve it.

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