Beyond The Beauty Trap

If you ask one hundred women, "Do you want to be beautiful?" most of them will say they do. But, if you ask them, "So what do you think of beautiful women?" Most will have some pretty strong opinions. They will tell you that beautiful women are "thin, confident, perfect, well-dressed, and that they get what they want." They will tell you that it takes a lot of time, energy, and money to look beautiful. They will also say that beautiful women are usually born that way. These statements are all myths -- they are not true, but we tend to believe them.

And lurking just beneath the surface, the myths get even worse. When questioned more closely, many women will also report that beautiful women are "vain, self-centered, egotistical, selfish, and basically, not very nice." I have asked tens of thousands of women of all ages and social groups these questions and share with you that this is what many women experience. They also think that they would have to be perfect. And until they are perfect in every way, then they cannot be beautiful.

If we think this way, we are in a trap! We think we want beauty, but the concept carries a lot of baggage with it. And if it's as bad as some think it is, we should be avoiding it! The unfortunate result is that very few women have been able to be happy or satisfied with their appearance. Yet, we live in a world where others judge us and we judge ourselves on how we look.

Most women don't want to be vain. In fact, the fear of becoming vain -- or being perceived as vain -- keeps many women from seeing and experiencing their beauty. This becomes very understandable when you look up the word "vain" in the dictionary. It is defined as, "having no real value, idle, worthless, useless, foolish, silly." With this definition, I can see why no one would want to be seen in these ways.

Another definition of vain is "having or showing undue or excessive pride in one's appearance or accomplishments." If a woman thinks that she is worthless or has little real value, then any small amount of personal pride is "excessive and undue," and can make her uncomfortable.

Pride is a very tricky word. It has two completely different meanings and they are quite contradictory. One definition is "inordinate self-esteem; conceit" and the other is, "a reasonable or justifiable self-respect." So, let's think of false pride as, "conceit" and true pride as, "self-respect."

Now, the plot thickens. It's not just becoming vain that we fear. Women are afraid that others will think they are vain and so they either keep putting themselves down, or trying to prove that they are good enough. So, in several different ways, vanity is related to fear.

Vanity comes out of feeling worthless or unworthy to some extent and trying to prove you are not. So, every step toward finding your true worth is a step away from vanity.

Both vanity and false pride seem to come from trying to pretend that you are something that you are not. Let's give this up! Every single woman I've ever met had her own beautiful qualities. Very few women realize their beauty fully and some have not realized their beauty at all. They are all just at different stages of learning their worth and beauty.

Realizing our beauty is not something that we were ever taught to do. And we were never shown how to do it. To top it off, we live in a world and society that teaches us that it's bad to think too highly of ourselves. We are also told that we can never be perfect, but that we should be perfect. So it should be no surprise that women have so many mixed emotions about these issues. Beauty, the way society has defined it so far, is a pretty impossible goal.

The real problem with the common notion of beauty is that we often see it as something comparative and competitive. This is really a very silly idea that we don't apply to the rest of nature. We don't go to the zoo and discuss, "Which is more beautiful a giraffe or a zebra?" When we go for a hike in the mountains we don't analyze or evaluate, "Which is more beautiful an oak tree or a pine tree?" But for some odd reason, we apply this strange thinking to our appearance as women. Let's stop it.

Women have to realize how much of a lose/lose situation this is. No matter how much you perfect your appearance, there will always be someone out there who is thinner, prettier, or younger, etc. All women lose at these limiting, either/or type of comparisons. Let's leave competition for sports.

I used to say that we've needed to redefine beauty. But if you look in the dictionary, you'll see that "beautiful" really means, "generally pleasing; excellent." I'll buy that. "Beauty" is defined as "the combination of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit." That really is sounding better, isn't it?

If we can go along with the idea that all flowers are beautiful and all mountains are beautiful, why can't all women be beautiful? We shouldn't have to stretch our imagination too much to include ourselves with the rest of nature!

It's really a matter of harmony. Just as there is already beauty and harmony in forests and deserts, there is already beauty in people. They just need to realize it. If you went on a walk with someone who did not see beauty in the woods, would you change your opinion? I don't think so.

Harmony is a pleasing or congruent arrangement of parts. It's knowing that, as part of nature, you are put together well. That's exactly what I've seen in studying thousands of women (and men, too.) We are put together very congruently. Nature is very consistent in giving giraffes long necks and zebras get stripes. There are patterns in women also.

The pattern in you is there whether you see it or not. Just because a flower doesn't see it's harmony, doesn't mean it's not there. Fortunately, unlike a flower, you have the ability to discover your harmony. And when you do, you'll be able to have the experience that you're already beautiful. Then your clothes don't make you beautiful, they enhance the beauty you already have. Your make-up doesn't make you beautiful, it brings out the beauty you already have.

Finding your true beauty will never occur until you stop trying to be anyone else. Just be you. But, you have to look for and discover the beauty and the harmony. Ever since I discovered the patterns in people, people have become beautiful to me.

The approach of finding harmony in yourself does not create vanity because it is not about undue or excessive pride. It's about finding your true worth and value. Remember, we said that "true pride" is self-respect. Every woman's goal should be to find her true value. It's an area in which most of us have no training, but it is possible and thousands of women have learned to see the harmony in their natural pattern.

Discovering your harmony leads you to finding your true value and builds your confidence. Confidence is the quality or state of being certain. Confidence stresses faith in oneself and one's powers without any suggestion of conceit or arrogance. You can learn to find strength in being you.

Natural Beauty Products and Beauty Enhancement

Beauty can defined in a variety of ways; to some it simply means the state of being pleasant to the eyes while to others it is something that brings a feeling of sweetness to the heart. To others still, it could be a sound or touch that soothes the soul however; true beauty in the actual sense encompasses all these and even more, for instance a person can be pleasant in appearance but in speech and action the reverse may be the case surely that person can not be truly described as beautiful, let us say you were asked by the police to describe a thug who just mugged you at gunpoint certainly beautiful will not come up in your description of the thug regardless of how good looking he appears to be.

Now we know what beauty truly is the next step is to establish how we get it or where it comes from. The simple truth is everything was created beautiful, beauty is within us, and it is all around us as nature has bestowed us with so much of it. As a matter of fact our very nature as human beings is beautiful and for some beauty is displayed effortlessly while others need to do a bit to let it show. That not withstanding, everything, everyone is inherently beautiful. Take a piece of diamond for instance until it is cut and polished it could just as well be a piece of rock. Gold and silver have to be refined to bring out their true beauty, it is in us all to be beautiful but to attain true, total and all-encompassing beauty there must be some form of enhancement. This reminds me of the story of Cinderella and her ugly stepsisters. The stepsisters had the best of external adornment but they refused to enhance it with that which come from within hence they were described as ugly, Cinderella on the other hand had beauty within her which made it easy for the fairy godmother to turn her into a real gem. So if we are all inherently beautiful, why then do we need to enhance it? The simple truth is that, it adds value to our being and when this value is added people tend to appreciate us more, people want to love us more and I do not know of any person in this life who does not want to be loved and appreciated. Many manufacturer, advertisers and marketers understand this concept that is why the manufacturer wants to produce the best quality of a product and advertisers and marketers ensure it is well packaged and displayed to the public. How then can we enhance our inherent beauty and attain that true, total and all encompassing beauty?

1. The first key is in our attitudes, we must recognise we are inherently beautiful and let that be reflected in our attitude to life, to people around us, to the world we live in and everything in it. No one could pick up a certain piece of rock and if he does not recognise that if cut and polished that rock is a gem he may just toss it into a pond. In the same vein if we do not realise this beauty is in us there is a tendency that our attitude to life and various issues will be wrong consequently we devalue ourselves in our relationships, work places and all other endeavours. To be truly beautiful we must have the right attitudes, think positively and most importantly recognise the beauty that is in us.

2. The next is a healthy life style, to be truly beautiful we need to live a healthy lifestyle; it is pointless to have a pleasant appearance while we are killing ourselves with our lifestyle. The food we eat, the amount of rest, recreation, exercising and how we socialise are all important factors here. Our lifestyles may be such that we are to busy or we find it too difficult to balance out all these factors, for instance in the case of a balanced diet, we sometimes find this difficult to achieve not because we can not afford it, but because the time and knowledge required to put it together is not there especially in the modern world we live in where there is an abundance of junk food. This can however be remedied with the use of nutritional supplements. One must however, endeavour to maintain a healthy lifestyle and the keyword here is moderation.

3. Finally we look at external adornment, this relates to the clothes, perfumes, cosmetics and accessories we wear to enhance our beauty. In this case there is no one perfect solution, what suits you may not suit me what is important is to be comfortable with what you wear. Avoid coming across as being over dressed or painted up like a doll; make sure whatever you wear adds to your self esteem.

Beauty can be viewed in different ways but in essence to be described as truly beautiful entails a combination of different aspects of beauty. We are all inherently beautiful, but we need to enhance this raw beauty so that we add value to our being. This makes us better appreciated and love. Beauty enhancement can be achieved by recognising our inherent beauty and allow this to reflect in our attitudes; living a healthy lifestyle and with the use of appropriate clothing and accessories. I have heard people say beauty is relative, what is beautiful to one person may not be so to another, this may be correct for physical appearances but with regards to beauty, true beauty I totally disagree. True beauty is absolute it is either you have it or not and it is achieved by enhancing ones inherent beauty.

A Beauty Pageant As One of the Ways to Explore Women's Abilities

Women are called the most beautiful creature in this world. That is why they are related to many terms of beauty, physically and mentally. Physical beauty includes the beauty of body and face, while mental beauty includes psychological condition, intelligence, and attitude or behavior. As one of the ways to explore women's abilities, beauty pageant combines physical beauty and mental beauty as requirements for women to get the genuine beauty.

Nowadays, you can easily see various types of beauty pageants, such as Miss Universe, Miss World, Miss USA, etc. Basically, all of beauty pageants have the some purpose, which is choosing the most beautiful woman who has some certain requirements. The requirements are usually called as 3B stands for brain, beauty, and behavior.

The first B is brain means that a woman should have good intelligence and has a broad knowledge. The second B is beauty that means a woman should have physical beauty, including the beauty of face, body, and all physical appearances. The last B is behavior that means a woman should have good personalities, attitude or behavior, and how she behaves and treats others.

Even some beauty pageants in some countries also require another one B that means brave. A beautiful woman not only should have brain, beauty, and behavior, but also should be brave to express herself and her mind to the world, since there will be many obstacles she will face when she is chosen as the most beautiful woman.

Actually, beauty pageant can be one of good ways to explore women's abilities. This event can show the women's existence and as a good way for women to reach self-actualization. They will make efforts to increase their abilities, broaden their knowledge, and care of others. They will more realize that to get the genuine beauty, they not only need physical beauty, but also other eternal beauties like intelligence and behavior.

Joining beauty pageant also can measure your abilities since you are going to meet many other competitors who also have good qualities in many ways. It can be a good motivator for you to always improve your abilities, not only to win the competition, but also as training to compete fairly. And of course, by joining this event, you are going to get many new friends, and it can be extra benefit for you.

Finally, as one of the ways to explore women's abilities, beauty pageant should be supported. Joining this event, even if you win the competition, can be pride for you as a woman. But however, you should always realize that the basic of this event is how to be a real beautiful woman who has the genuine beauty.