Is Beauty Worth It to You?

This is about using beauty to expand our sense of self-worth. Self-worth defined as, “Is ‘it’ worth it to me?”

Is beauty (my beauty) worth it to me?

Yes.

The answer has always been yes – and, has always been a struggle to have it a yes, until now.

The struggle for beauty – the resistance – the unknowing – comes from (of course) childhood roots. Roots that never took root. Roots that were never allowed to take root, and more so, growing up in a “fire and brimstone” Christian community…the message was clear: beauty is bad – your body is bad. My little sweet innocent brain took that information as, “I am going to hell if I desire beauty in any way shape or form.”

As I grew older, the idea that God made me presented itself. That I am beautifully and miraculously made. That I am made in God’s image…so, “why would God make me (my body, my desire for beauty) bad?

And what about The body is a temple?

Temples meant something in Biblical times. Temples demanded respect, cleanliness, order, and beauty in the architecture. Many of them were of utmost value – artistic – a creation of beauty – to be revered. Reverence.

Reverence…is a word worth knowing.

I tried to ‘not desire’ beauty, and that didn’t work out so well.

Beauty became a haunting, never leaving me alone…and then I finally looked closer. Not a haunting so much, but a deep sadness, as if my beauty was asking me, “Why am I not worth it to you?

The rejection, the abandonment, the neglect, the message of “you’re not worth it” in regard to my body and my beauty…lived and breathed in my cells, and in my neurology – playing itself out over and over in various ways of neglect, rejection, and abandon.

Until I decided to meet my beauty with Grace.

I hear you sweet one. I will neglect you no more. Reject no more, Abandon no more.

You are worth it to me.

This begins a new relationships with your unique beauty. Not the Kardashian kind of beauty (that’s unique to them) – but your beauty. Your God-given beauty.

And just like any relationship we decide is worth it, we begin to invest time, effort, and energy. We begin to give of ourselves; we join, partner, couple…we are going to do this with our beauty.

Beauty Speaks.

We see, hear, feel beauty of others, and in our environment, etcetera, but it’s important to begin hearing, seeing, feeling our unique beauty. To let our beauty speak.

Step 1: to counteract, and to heal the damage of “You’re not allowed to have beauty,” the new message is of allowing.

Speak, “I am allowed to have beauty – to see beauty- to feel and sense beauty within me, around me, and on me.” “I am allowed to give beauty attention. I will no longer reject, neglect, or abandon my beauty.”

Beauty is more meaningful when it is felt – when we experience felt-beauty. Yes, there is space for purchased beauty, but to purchase beauty is best done when it’s done as an investment that aligns with your unique beauty.

Felt-beauty.

For example; you buy an EXPENSIVE outfit, EXPENSIVE shoes, EXPENSIVE face products…and don’t feel so good in them. The shoes hurt your feet, the makeup feels like it’s smothering your pores and your face feels dirty, and you feel somewhat awkward in the outfit.

It’s subtle. To look amazing is not the same as feeling amazing.

Temples.

There are women who love to adorn themself in color, jewels, and gems. Very expensive these things are. This kind of beauty may be your kind. And I enjoy looking at this adornment, it’s just not for me.

For myself, I’ve wasted countless hours (life.time), money, effort and energy thinking that outer adornment was beauty, and it failed me everytime.

I’m not saying it’s not – i’m saying there’s more.

The first time I felt my own beauty (that I was able to recognize) was days into a trek in the Andes Mountains.

I was dirty (from actual dirt). I hadn’t showered in days. My clothes were dirty because I’d worn them more than twice – and I felt amazingly beautiful.

If you were to see the photos; you can see (feel) the beauty within me…it’s written in my beautifully dirty self.

For years…and years…I couldn’t figure out that in the midst of nothing – no shower, no makeup, no technology, no luxuries of any sorts…that this is when my beauty shows up.

So do I live my daily life as ‘the dirty one?” No, but less is my beauty.

Less is Beautiful.

Minimalism and simplicity is my beauty. Nature and natural is my beauty.

It’s when I come alive.

Let me be clear, I also come alive when I am in the city jazz of all-things glitz and glam – however, my style, my presence, my temple has to stay simple in dress and makeup, and glitz is not a sustainable lifestyle for me.

To sustain my beauty on a daily basis comes with pretty extreme minimalism – the kind of Walden Pond minimalism. It’s when my Beauty Queen shows up and speaks to me most.

I delight in the change of the seasons. My eyes delight as they gaze sunlight through the trees, and when they see the branches sway in the breeze.

My ears delight at the sound of birds in the morning and at dust.

I love the felt sense of stillness in the Fall and Winter seasons.

These are things I need to be present for – to be available for- to actually be there – they become food for my beauty.

And then I become full of beauty: my kind of beau.ti.ful.