Beauty – do you fit the image?
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Beauty – do you fit the image?
Walking in a local shopping centre, I couldn’t help but notice that there was a definite look to many of the people I saw. This particular shopping centre is known for its glamorous holiday style dress, and so image and the way you look rates highly, with fake tans, enormously large bottoms (butts, booty, glutes, buttocks), scant clothing, and loads of gold and diamonds.
What was even more noticeable was that many of the couples I saw looked disturbingly alike. Similar body shapes, similar clothes, similar details in jewellery and accessories. One could be forgiven for thinking they had walked into a futuristic science fiction film where couples were only ever made up of two people who looked the same. Picture a woman in denim jeans, white cropped t-shirt, and bleached blonde hair, walking with a man dressed in the same clothes, styled hair, manicured nails, and glowing skin. Cloning for relationships if you will.
This left me pondering on whether we had now arrived at a point in history where it was desirable to look the same as your partner? With over 7 billion people in the world, and without getting into a debate about twins or doppelgangers, none of those people having the same face, or voice (have you ever stopped to consider how it is you can recognise someone just by hearing their voice), how is it that two people can initiate a relationship with someone who looks just like them? How do two people even find a partner that looks like them?
The answer of course is obvious…
We have as a society said yes to image and pictures of what we should look like, what our children should look like, what a family should look like, what our homes should look like, and so on and so on. We have bought lock, stock and barrel the story that a person’s worth, wellbeing, standing, and ultimately acceptance as a member of a relationship, a family, a workplace, or society at large is dependent on how they look. The nature of our buy-in to this new world order of image is so great, we are willing to spend big money to look that way, even if the current fashionable look is not in line to the body we were born with.
Let’s take a woman for example who is born with slim buttocks. You can, if you would like to meet the current fashion trend in giant buttocks, turn to the Brazilian Butt Lift, a surgical procedure promoted by a clinic in Australia that offers 3 classified shapes of bottom – the “Sports Illustrated” look, the “Beyonce” look, or the “Kim Kardashian” look. You can get any of these looks for a few thousand dollars, and a few weeks of recovery following your surgery. The company boasts doing more than 3000 such procedures, amongst many others it does. Now I have no judgement of what anyone may or may want to do with their body, but I do question why on earth when we are all born uniquely different, do we now all want to look the same?
What happens when Romeo meets Juliet and her butt is not the right size? It’s funny to say it that way, but with where we have now arrived in our obsession with body image, is there even space for Romeo to meet Juliet, or has our love affair with fake looks taken away the opportunity for love that has nothing to do with image?
For men and women alike the societal obsession with body image has redefined what we now call ‘beauty’ so much so that I would propose most women do not have any idea of their own beauty. As a woman when you look in the mirror and see the light in your own eyes, do you appreciate the beauty that is, regardless of your age, your height, your bust size or the perkiness of your butt? As a man when you take the care to shave in the morning, do you appreciate that the delicateness required to shave reflects the beauty that is within?
We have as a collective a lot to answer for regarding the diminishment of true beauty. The ideals and images we place on ourselves and one another have nothing to do with actual beauty.
Beauty is witnessed when the entirety of the being within is allowed to be seen, even if it is only a glimpse.
Beauty is felt when a single breath of a connected heart radiates the glow within.
Beauty is known when the love of that which is not physical is held more dearly than any image could ever profess to provide.
Allow not for society’s standards of beauty to define how you feel about yourself, or others. Be willing to be the point of difference not by saying “I will look different”, but by reconnecting to the being within you and letting that be your reference point for true beauty.
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