Beauty Inside and Out

“It would be good if we could make efforts to free ourselves — to sometimes try to see beauty in people, to give them a chance, or let it be an acquired taste,” she says. “Our society often talks about inner beauty; that that’s what counts. But we fail.” - Amanda Filipacchi

Today's post is inspired by a PRI interview with Amanda Filipacchi from late last week;  Is it Possible to be too Beautiful?  Amanda discusses growing up with a super model mother and how our standards of what is beautiful changes over time.  The interview also touches on the high importance we place on physical beauty.  Her own love-hate relationship with beauty, wishing did not matter and yet being drawn to it, loving it at the same time.

In the four years of writing this blog I have written often about my own struggle with how I feel about my appearance. There are days that I feel hideous and there are days I feel beautiful, most days I feel a tenuous sense of moderate physical self acceptance.  My perception of my own beauty and my relationship with my body has been an ongoing struggle since my teenage years.

Physically I always felt awkward and ungraceful due to my height.  It was a feeling of always taking up too much space.  I actively tried to make myself seem smaller; an impossible task.  My long fingered hands and size 11 feet extended inches beyond sleeves and pants cuffs that were always a few inches too short.  And no matter where I stood or sat, my arms and legs always seemed spill out of the chair, couch or corner I was trying to contain them in.  My discomfort made me clumsy. I was forever bumping into things and people, which of course only drew more attention to me and my giantness.

As a performer I've learned to appreciate the advantages of my size; bigness provides instant stage presence and few can loom over an audience as I can. Still, even now I  have an inner dialog that bounces between "appearances don't matter, I will learn to accept myself as I am" and "don't fool yourself, appearance is everything you must to find a way to be beautiful."  The former tends to win out but the latter voice still makes itself heard more often than I would like. 

For the past several months I've tried to set this dialog aside and focus instead on improving myself on the inside, working on my "inner beauty" by making myself a better person. I've encountered my share of ugliness there too but that is far more fixable than trying to fit into a physical mold that is not possible without massive amounts of plastic surgery. 


It is not easy.  This sort of personal work is that it is work no one sees.  We are complimented when we lose weight, get a new hair style or show up to a party wearing a flattering new dress...

"You look amazing!  Have you lost weight?  Love the hair.  That dress looks fantastic on you."

No one comes up to you and says, "You really handled that anxiety attack well yesterday."  or "It's so great that you've taken the time to identify what your fears are." or  "Facing and accepting your flaws.  Wow, that's really awesome work you are doing."

In culture that places such a high value on externalities like physical beauty, there is perhaps little incentive to focus on one's inner beauty.  It is not something that is directly rewarded in the way being beautiful is.   The rewards of self acceptance, a chance at some inner peace, a sense of purpose, are not something that come from outside; they are 100% internal.  And it is not instant.  The changes can be frustratingly incremental.

I don't think that society's views on beauty will change anytime soon; the change will be incremental there too.  And I don't have any control over whether others may perceive me as beautiful or not.  What I do have control over is myself.  I have chosen to turn inward in an attempt to find some happiness and self acceptance.  I'm starting to realize that as I do this work on the inside and learning bit by bit to accept myself, that my acceptance of my physical self is growing too.  It is an unintentional, but welcome, side effect.

Maybe that is what makes this sort of work so personally powerful.

Storms of all kinds...

If you live anywhere in New England then at some point in the past few days you've probably had a conversation about snow. You  have probably had at least one, if not several, events canceled or postponed due to snow.  You are likely sick of shoveling and cursing yourself for not buying that snow-blower that was on sale last June.  If you ski or snowshoe you've not had to travel far to make use of them and they may have been your only way to get to the corner store, to work or to overcome your serious cabin fever in the middle of storm number three (and besides, snowshoeing down the middle of Main Street is kinda cool).

If you don't live here and you have tried to fly into one our airports in the past few weeks there is a good chance your flight was delayed, canceled or rerouted.  If you found yourself stuck here, unable to leave due the storm you now have a Winter of 2015 story to tell the kids.  You've probably told friends how you are glad this is not something you have to deal with regularly and what's with those crazy people who live in places where something like winter exists anyway?   Should we start taking up some sort of collection for them?

I can't say I love winter but I have always been tolerant and accepting of it and I've come to enjoy it a whole lot more since I discovered snowshoeing,  I'm not one of those folks depressed by snow and I make sure I dress appropriately for the cold when I go out so cold isn't often an issue.  In general winter does not impinge on my social life or cause any undue burden. In the early part of this winter I'd even lamented the warm days and serious lack of snow which prohibited my having any snowshoe adventures.

But now I've have missed four days of school and two of my classes have had to issue multiple syllabus updates.  As I tend to make keep track of my life based on my school schedule I'm not sure what day of the week it is most days let alone what is actually due for class.  I've made and rescheduled plans with one particular friend so many times that we are considering setting up a Skype date and then meet in person if there ISN'T a blizzard that night. Like most everyone I'm feeling totally overwhelmed with snow. 

When I began writing this post a few days ago we were forecast to have and 12 - 18 inches fall upon us today.  As of right now we've had about 4 inches and there is a bright spot of sun attempting to burn through the clouds.  I'm feeling a mix of ENOUGH ALREADY relief and darn, I really wanted to snowshoe in the falling, blustery snow today.

My mind is moving towards metaphor and my efforts towards self-discovery these past few months.  I began this attempt in the late fall as the weather turned cold.  I was trying to figure out just what it was I wanted in life and to equip myself with the self knowledge that I needed to make some decisions I'd soon be facing.  I started seeing my therapist again, did a lot of journaling and contemplation.  I seemed to be doing all of the right things and though I didn't seem to be making a whole lot of progress, I at least felt like I was doing something.

Fast forward to about a month ago, right as our first storm it. I'm now writing regularly in my journal about feelings of depression that I've been waking up to each morning (something new to me as my emotional struggles have always been late night insomnia inducing ones).  I've been working through a personal inventory  that brings me face to face with those sorts of personality flaws that we'd all prefer to pretend we don't have (most of which I'd been well aware of but...you know, denial).  I have a series of conversations with friends that seem to confirm all my fears of being a horrible failure of a human being.  Most are initiated by me, one is out of the blue unexpected, one is delivered with seeming relish...all leave me feeling a bit battered, low and questioning everything.  I'm a heaping pile of doubt.

Somehow I don't shut down.  I don't run for the hills.  I don't bury myself in being busy.  I do give in to a bit of wallowing.  I recognize that I asked for this when I started down this road in the fall. I can't say I expected, much like the storms of the past few weeks, to have as much dumped on my psyche as has been but whatever the mental equivalent of shovels and snowshoes are, I'll be attempting to dig myself out keep moving forward.

#Womenslives

I am very pleased to announce that I will be participating in the #Womenslives initiative.  The initiative, a partnership between Public Radio International (PRI) and SheKnows Media, intends to bring attention to news stories from around the world that focus on or impact the lives of women and girls. 

This blog began with a focus on living as an unmarried woman in a culture that puts coupling on a pedestal.  Over the four years of its existence the scope of my writing has grown to include not only my personal story but also my thoughts on a broad range of women's issues.  Joining this initiative seemed not only to be a natural fit but also an exciting opportunity to help shine a light on the issues women face around the globe.

As part of this initiative I will be sharing news stories on Twitter, tumblr and Facebook, with the hashtag #womenslives, as well as continuing to blog regularly on thees topics.  I hope that you will join me helping to highlight these issues by sharing the stories in social media and engaging in thoughtful discussion. 

I look forward to sharing more of #womenslives with all of you.