The Secret to Everlasting Beauty
This article contains no ads for products, encouragement for exercise or diets, and definitely won’t tell you it has anything to do with looks.
Because it doesn’t.
True beauty is everlasting. It draws you in — makes you look twice. Maybe even makes you fall in love, if only for a moment. It gets inside of you and stays for a while. And it might even be tricky enough to make you feel beautiful just being in its presence.
I love that kind of beauty.
First, it’s important to consider what beauty is or how it is defined by you. We all see and experience beauty differently. So how do you define beauty? What really catches your eye? Or heart? Is it outside appearance? Style? How someone fixed their hair or how they walk?
As a young girl, I was preoccupied with beauty in a perplexing way. My parent’s friends and employees would talk about how attractive my siblings and I were. They would bend down and look at us, making evaluations or comments, and then congratulate my parents on our beauty. As if that’s an accomplishment. As if it’s actually within our power.
After hearing these remarks, I would always sneak away to the bathroom and look at myself, up close and personal in the mirror and try to see what they saw. It was strange to me, this whole “being beautiful” thing. What did it even mean?
And still, to this day, I sometimes find myself doing the same thing — looking in the mirror and trying to see what they see. Trying to understand why people say the things they do.
Because when I look in the mirror, I see me. I’ve never thought I was ugly but I’ve never fully settled on what I look like either. I’ve definitely thought I was cute before, hot even. But I’ve also looked in the mirror and thought I looked terrible. I know the whims of my exterior self are up for debate, depending on the day and time. Therefore, I decided long ago to not place much value in them. Why wrap your self-worth up in something you could lose in a random accident any day of the week?
Point being — they say beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. But is it?
I think “beauty” is very misunderstood.
We’ve got whole industries making billions on trying to tell us what it is. They put it in magazines. Music videos. Tell us to buy this or that to enhance this or that. Encourage us to fix what they deem broken with surgeries and painful procedures — we even have a whole population of women who look nearly identical from these expensive promotions. As a woman, we are conditioned to believe our “beauty” rests on the shoulders of what is currently popular — big booties, large breasts, skinny thighs, thick eyebrows, and on and on. That industry has spoken so loudly and for so long that everyone is confused.
Because the real secret to everlasting beauty is knowing beauty isn’t external. That while we may have preferences for looks and physique (and that’s perfectly fine), true beauty can’t be evaluated with our eyes.
True beauty is recognized by our heart. It’s energy. And that energy is why beauty is so powerful. Why it can seep in and steal your day. Why it can leave you gobsmacked. When someone is firmly grounded in their energy, when they are joyful with their life, we see and experience beauty. The kind that never dies.
Here are some examples.
I’ve always half-joked that there are two types of men — those who are attractive/beautiful and those who are sexy. For me, I prefer sexy ANY day of the week because no matter what age he is or how many limbs he has, he’ll always be sexy. It’s essence. It’s energy. It’s who he is.
Another. As a young woman, I realized very quickly when I went out with my friends that the best, most consistent way to get the attention of men was to have fun, to laugh, to be comfortable. It didn’t matter what I was wearing or how I compared to other women, if I was laughing out loud and comfortable in my skin, swarms of men would surround me. Because it’s essence. It’s energy.
Think about that friend of yours you love to be around or the coworker you just can’t get enough of. You find them gorgeous, highly attractive. And although they might be physically attractive physically, you intuitively know it’s more than that. What is it about them? Why do they grab your interest so much? It’s essence. It’s energy. You come alive in their presence. They bring out the best in you. They remind you WHO YOU ARE.
Yes, our physical selves, our outer shell is part of the puzzle, but it’s far from everything.
Beauty comes from the inside. It’s happiness. Contentment. Joy. Confidence. Excitement. Aliveness. It’s a real living, breathing element — it’s not static or based on material items.
Esther Perel said it best when she talks about the real meaning of Erotic. It coming from a Greek word, eros, which means being fully alive, and yes, there’s nothing as erotic as that. Nothing as beautiful.
And isn’t that awesome?
In 2020, I loved seeing the shift from all the doll-like, perfect selfies into no-makeup, real-life photos. Watching my friends realize that whether they’re in sweats or heels, their value hasn’t changed. Or experiencing the questioning behind whether spending loads of $$$ to “perfect” ourselves was necessary.
Everlasting beauty is an essence, it’s an energy — and that’s inclusive and achievable by anyone and everyone.
Pretty kickass if you ask me.
