"As I'm leaving my 40s and getting into my 50s," said the woman on the phone, "I find I'm reinventing myself and looking at beauty in a whole new way."
This was on a teleseminar I listened in on this past weekend entitled A Journey Into Beauty, which was designed to "activate a deeper kind of beauty in our lives that doesn't diminish as we age."
Certainly a good goal. Nothing else is stagnant or changeless in life, so why should our ideas about beauty be?
On the call, women from all over the world tuned in either online or on the phone for a discussion that included 1- and 2-dimensional beauty (a predominant perception in our teens, 20s, and even 30s) and how to move toward a more 3-dimensional understanding of beauty. It's not as trite ("oh, I see the beauty in a flower") as it could sound; we all see beauty in flowers, skies, puppies, whatever — but it's bigger than that.
It's more an integration of your whole self rather than just what you look like. Some of the points covered included:
In a breakout session (smaller phone discussion groups), one woman discussed how she used to be considered very beautiful and got away with a lot, but that it took a lot of energy. Now, after 6 kids and fibromyalgia, she's finding new ways to define herself.
Another woman from Ohio said she'd been more "ordinary than beautiful" and never paid much attention. Now she enjoys spending more time on self-care, eating healthy food, exercising.
In the larger group, a 71-year-old woman said she's never felt younger than she does now, while a 30-something woman felt tired from trying to figure out where all this fit into her workaday world, the sexualizing of beauty and whether to be considered a nice girl or a bitch.
Ah yes, where would we women be without our labels? I do think you deal with that less as you get older. Is that wishful thinking? Perhaps, considering The Devil Wear Prada.
But the 70s vs. 30s comments made me realize that there are no linear rules anymore. I have friends in their her mid-50s sending kids off to college and others with wee ones in diapers. You can feel young or old at any time. I was reminded of Cindy Joseph's comment to me, "Aging is just another word for living."
Beauty's the same way; you can feel beautiful at any stage, depending on what's going on with you. I've known gorgeous young women who were wildly insecure and self-critical, whose identity was completely attached to their looks. And other women, with perhaps unconventional looks, who were steeped in their own gorgeousness — and the world responded that way to them!
What would it take for you to be steeped in your own gorgeousness?
The teleseminar was actually an intro (you can listen to it here) to an 8-week course called the Beauty Way, designed to realign your ideas about beauty to fit your 3-dimensional self (begins Sept. 9; $287).
Not for everyone, but right for some who want let go of personal negative beliefs about beauty and self-worth, feed your feminine nature, "differentiate between beauty to please another and beauty as an expression of your true Self" (I liked that one), among other topics.
All the chat made me realize my own ideas about beauty are changing. Is that because they have to, or because I want them to? How about you? Where do you stand on beauty?