B is for Beauty!

How often do we strive to look pretty, instead of cultivating our inner beauty? We all know that real beauty is truly an inner light that shines from within and beautifies the countenance making even the most seemingly plain person truly radiant, don’t we?  Many of us have met people who become more and more attractive the more we talk to them and get to know them. And then there are those people who are the epitome of worldly beauty, but the closer we get, the uglier they become. So, what gives?

I can just hear Fernando from the classic SNL skit starring Billy Crystal interrupting, “Dahhhling... It is better to LOOK good than to FEEL good.  And you... you...look... 

MAH-VELOUS!!”    So sorry Fernando, just like bell bottoms and rainbow suspenders some ideas are better left in the 70s! 

The 70s were rife with ad campaigns aimed at women who were now a powerful buying force. So, cosmetic companies began to “make up” reasons why we needed their products. For the last 40 years we have been bombarded by ads on tv, in magazines, on billboards, on the radio, by any means possible telling us we just aren’t good enough the way we are. That’s all most ads are doing really, trying to do convince you that you need this thing to make your life more complete.  Over and over. Every ad telling us that we are not pretty enough, thin enough, don’t dress well enough, aren’t sexy enough or aren’t ‘something’ enough, but oh how lucky are we that they have the product that will change all of that!  It’s really just snake oil in a pretty package.   

I am reminded of a song called Ad Man by the band Servant. 

Watch out here come the Ad Man

With a message for your ears

He uses all your weaknesses 

And plays upon your fears

He fills the air with jingles

He puts sex in every ad

He tells us that our image 

Has to follow every fad

You’ve researched all you commercials

And you’re turning on the charm

You’re using it against me

Like a needle in my arm

You keep pushing merchandise

Seducing me to buy

You tell me I need

Another fix, another high

The Ad Man is the prophet of the century

Making all his profit off of you and me

I recommend the book The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf which delves deeply into mass culture and how we ladies have been manipulated by the cosmetic industries and pop culture to keep chasing an imaginary image of beauty.  We are all quite familiar with how photoshop is being used to create this image we can never live up to because it’s not real! We have to get to a point where we see the “man behind the curtain” for what it is, pull the curtain back and take back control. We also need to give ourselves permission to be real.

So what IS real? Is beauty truly is where you find it?  There is so much real beauty in the world, I think we overlook it because it’s just right there in front of our faces all the time.  My husband grew up in the heart of California and woke up to mountains every day. He never really realized how beautiful they were till he moved away and came back years later. He realized he had grown up in the “Garden of Eden” and didn’t even realize it.   

In the movie American Beauty, we watch the plastic bag fly through the air and we hear the words, “Sometimes there is so much ... beauty ... in the world. It's like I can't take it. And my heart is just going to cave in." And he’s right.  Beauty is everywhere.  Even in the seemingly mundane there is so much beauty. So much!

What animates us and creates that light that shines from within? What makes one beautiful and not simply pretty? Pretty seems to be tied to something we put on. Something we wear.  But, in contrast,  beauty seems to radiates from within. 

I mean, isn’t it the wind that makes the bag floating through the air beautiful? It’s what is filling the bag from within. The bag didn’t have a fancy logo or bright colors. Nope. Just a normal plastic bag, but when filled from the inside becomes a dancing thing of beauty that mesmerizes and captivates. 

We might all be better served to spend our time filling ourselves with the things that will radiate true beauty from within. And wouldn’t the world be better served by teaching our daughters that it’s better to be beautiful than to look pretty. And how empowering to teach our sons what true beauty really is and what it looks like, so when he sees it, he recognizes and appreciates it.  

 What’s considered pretty changes with the whims of culture. But inner beauty is real and true and lasts. Truly, how often was someone’s life touched by the color of your lipstick? Or your lack of wrinkles? Or by how pretty you look?  

So, maybe instead of spending so much time and money on our outer appearance, we might spend time cultivating the inner qualities of peace, love and joy that will shine from within and illuminate our beings and in turn light the lives of those around us.