Some days I feel beautiful. I have my go-to outfits in my wardrobe; and with the right hairstyle, the perfect pumps, my brows filled in, some mascara, and tinted lip gloss—I feel like a beauty queen. My confidence perks up and I feel great walking out of the house ready to face the day!!!
Like two sides of the same coin, and like rain that inevitably falls after a sunny day, I also have my share of days when I don’t feel as beautiful—and if I’m completely honest, there are moments when I don’t feel beautiful at all.
This constant flux of my “beauty felt” meter got me thinking of its concept on a more substantive level—a level that helps ground me and find my footing when my feelings tell me otherwise. Some people equate beauty to physical appearance—i.e. “she looks pretty”,“that’s a pretty dress”. I too make such observations and statements on a regular basis. However,I am often reminded that looks are only part of the whole. To equate beauty to mere physicality would mean that we could simply put it on and take it off like a jacket or a dress.
What happens when the show stopper jacket and jaw-dropping dress comes off? Does the beauty that we feel stay or leave too? The first two letters in the word beauty are “b-e”—be. Beyond mere add ons, beauty also relates to a state of being. It is the state the being who we are! You being you. Me being me. We are most beautiful when we are being our unique selves! Authentically you. Authentically me. In fact, during my life journey, the times when I deviated farthest from who I know to be is when I’ve felt the most offcentered, lost, uncomfortable in my own skin, and ashamedly ugly. I love how
Dr. Seuss puts it:
“Today, you are you. That is truer than true.
There is no one alive who is you-er than you.”
I also like what Emily Dickinson says:
“Beauty is not caused. It is.”
Beauty doesn’t have to perform or compete; and neither does it come and go. We can’t put it on and take it off. Beauty just is. So with each accessory we put on and take off—whether a dress or a jacket, whether a no-make-up-makeup-look or no makeup at all, we are our most beautiful, vibrant, best versions of ourselves when we are uniquely being us.
As you were fashioned by the Creator-the source and essence of all things beautiful, be fearfully and wonderfully you!
