Beauty at Any Size

There are a lot of ad campaigns and Internet GIF's with regards to women,  beauty and size. While these are meant to promote body confidence,  they're straddling a fine line between promoting self love and advocating unhealthy bodies.

Let me start by saying true beauty is about much more than what's on the outside.  Much like the old adage,  'you can't judge a book by its cover, ' it's about content,  aka what's on the inside. So whether or not you're truly beautiful is completely within your control as you decide the person you want to be. 

These ad campaigns and GIF's are not talking about true beauty,  it's clearly referring to superficial beauty. Superficial beauty is what's on the outside and we all know some of the prettiest packages are filled with vile dog shit. What we're really talking about here is being attractive.  Whether or not you're attractive is in the eye of the beholder. The only time you have control of that is when you're looking in a mirror.



That being said,  there's a BIG difference between saying women are beautiful at any size and saying women are healthy at any size.

While I do feel it's important for women to love themselves as they are,  I also feel it's important that women love themselves enough to take care of their body.  A part of truly loving yourself is being honest about where you're at in life and making improvements as necessary.

If we're telling women they're beautiful at any size are we not saying it's ok to be obese or to be cachectic? Obesity is the cause of numerous diseases and deaths, such as,  cancer,  stroke,  fatty liver disease,   cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes.  All of these diseases and deaths could be controlled or prevented with a healthy lifestyle.



I'm not saying skinny is the only beautiful nor am I saying that obese women aren't beautiful.  What I'm saying is let's promote health.  Let's not promote complacency. Let's remove judgement from the entire conversation. Let's promote honest self love that pushes women to put themselves and their health first.  Let's be done with the old standard of women doing everything for others and nothing for themselves.  It's about bettering our health to better our lives.

  

So let's recap.  True beauty comes from within,  so yes ladies,  you can be beautiful at any size.  Superficial beauty is bullshit.  Obesity,  anorexia, bulimia,  exercise addiction,  or any other extreme on either side is unattractive. Confidence,  self love and healthy lifestyles are not only beautiful,  they're down right sexy!

    

Live Now

The thing about life is that we're constantly told what "should" be. We're supplied these preconceived notions of how things are supposed to be via our caregivers, tv, media, and other societal influences.  Somewhere along the line we even create these subconscious directives for ourselves.  What we often don't realize is that when we're experiencing anxiety,  depression, frustration,  anger and so on,  it is due to this vision that we hold onto about how things "should" be.

Living presently simply means accepting our life for the reality of what it is right now, as it's happening and for what it truly is.  It's responding to this life consciously. It's being mentally present to what is occurring at this very moment. All responses are conscious, not out of habit or unconscious behaviors.  It's really a matter of accepting what's going on and letting go of any preconceived notion of what we think should be going on. In other words, it's living without expectation and responding to what comes your way with thoughtfulness not reacting on impulse.

In our fast past world concious living takes consistent practice. It's a matter of making a commitment to the practice and finding one's own personal balance.  As with anything in life it's about prioritizing. Being able to live conciously requires slowing down, taking a step back from the traditional grind and soul searching for what's really important to you. We tend to rush through our days,  rush through our tasks,  completely missing the truth around us. Our society puts a lot of pressure on us to go, go, go,  but this mindset,  this lifestyle, is a cycle of habits and rituals without feeling,  without experiencing,  without living.

Contrary to popular belief, we're not here to accumulate things. We're here to accumulate knowledge,  to spread that knowledge and love. To grow as individuals and to grow as a species not into technological and financial evolution, but into concious evolution. We aren't here to rely on computers to do the thinking for us. We're here to download the higher conciousness ourselves. We're not here to live in creature comforts,  but to align ourselves with nature. We're not here to horde excess,  but to simply have enough.  We have to find a way to balance these things as a whole. We do this by starting with ourselves. We do this by practicing living in the now, living conciously.

Steps towards living conciously might include:

* Slowing down, both figuratively and literally. When we're rushing from one thing to the next we tend to respond via impulse. If we slow down,  drive the speed limit,  declutter and remove some things from our calendars, focus on the task at hand vs multitasking,  etc, we are able to experience what we are doing and respond to external stimuli vs reacting.

* Taking time to think before responding to ensure we aren't acting on impulse. This is especially key in trigger areas that tend to produce anger. If we take the time to think it through, we won't respond in ways we may later regret.

* Observing without judging, labeling or attaching any preconceived notions via comparison. Realize that everyone is on their own journey, one we know nothing about. Just simply SEE what is occurring and only take in the facts we can discern for ourselves. This one is much easier said than done as our preconceived notions are heavy when we're interpreting the world around us, but with consistent practice it's achievable.

* Experiencing life from a place of compassion. When we do this we are able to bring kindness into the world and avoid unnecessary drama and hurt for ourselves. We cannot take what others do personally. We've all made mistakes, lessons from the human experience, let's give others the compassion we'd like to receive on our worst days.

* Making ourselves a priority. The practice of living conciously takes a lot of energy, especially in the world we live in today. We must make time to rebalance ourselves on a regular basis. We all find our centers differently and that's okay, as long as we're making it a priority.

* Accepting that everything that has occurred in our lives, everything as it is right now, is a direct or indirect result of the choices we've made. Take ownership of where you stand, realize your own power and once accepted realize you have the power to make a different choice.

There are many strategies toward living conciously. No one way is the right way as we all must do what works for us and our reality. Above all we must remember that we can do anything we put our minds to,  for "he who controls the mind, controls his world."

*love & light*