“There is nothing more rare, nor more beautiful, than a woman being unapologetically herself; comfortable in her perfect imperfection. To me, that is the true essence of beauty.”
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
I am soon to step in the 30's club... next year! Yeah, and astonishingly it just doesn't feel that horrifying as it sounds. In early 20's, entering into 30's was a nightmare for me. Guess, it is for every young girl. Now, entering 40's is a nightmare. But now I know and understand that it's something natural and its going to come, some or the other day. And so, I really do not have to bother much about it.
The matured wisdom that you see in my previous said words was not there from forever! I was not the same few weeks ago. I had a different approach to this. I was horrified, scared to death and used to feel aghast by just the thought of leaving 20's! Why? Because its an universal unsaid presumption that leaving 20's means leaving youth! It means you are approaching adulthood, just not in terms of maturity, but in every sense. It means, there are a hell lot of things that are going to change for you. And you know whats the scariest thing amongst this list of gruesome things for a woman: its her looks, the young skin, the lustrous youth, the gleaming charm, that appealing charisma that will get fade away with age.
Well, let me narrate from beginning.
Few months back, I started observing few changes in me: a few wrinkles, a few open pores, a few dark spots, and some other things, that raised an alarm that finally, the most forbidden thing is going to soon knock at my door: Age!
And the nightmare started. All this can be a very strong reason for a horrifying misery for any woman! Believe me...
I was missing my carefree, tension-free self when these petty things never bothered me. I never had these concerns. I never cared for anything when I was young: acne, dark patches, spots, sunburn... nothing! It never mattered to me at that point of time. But as I am growing older, these things have started bothering me. Why? A small pimple is more than enough to snatch away a night's sleep from me now! The small wrinkles which I have started observing looks hideous now. My dark circles looks ugly, damn ugly to me now, despite the fact that they had been there for always and they never looked so bad to me before!
I started checking each and every detail of my face frequently and started feeling repulsive, or rather grotesque. Attimes, I saw those small dark spots, of pigmentation or God knows what and I felt like howling.
I started standing in front of mirror for minutes together, wandering whats happening with me? Why this change? I never looked so ugly... Everything started looking awful to me! Was this mark there before? OMG! A new wrinkle? When did it appear and what caused it? A new pimple is on the way, I should apply a cream now itself, to prevent it from bursting into a huge ugly blotch on my face! And all this started revolving around in my head 24*7.
I started feeling inferior. I stopped looking directly into people's eye while talking to them because I had this weird conjecture built up in my mind, that all people would be noticing are: my marks, the imperfections in my beauty, the flaws, my dark circles and all the defects that I carry now. And all they would be thinking somewhere inside is how horrible this woman looks! BTW, till now these small flaws on my face had taken a shape of a big defect in my mind! I started feeling ugly, real ugly and always carried this urge of not facing and meeting anyone. All I wanted was to crouch in the cobwebbed darkness. There was this passionate sadness that surrounded me. I felt a kind of fear in getting noticed and labeled as an ugly woman.
And all this was dragging me into a ditch of never ending disturbance! After being in this trauma for weeks altogether, after bearing all the self caused humiliation, after going through a huge amount of self imposed degradation, I knew I had to do something! Something...
For hours, I used to look and search for preventions and cures on net. I wanted to know and was eager to buy anything, any product at any cost which could save me from all my flaws. While doing all this research, I noticed that its just not me alone who is gripped into this beauty flaws erroneous belief. There were many other women out there, suffering from the same!
But finally I realized its not products that I need because all they would do is (if I get a miraculous product which is a fallacy!) postpone this ageing thing for a year or so. I had to find some other solution. Something reliable and effective.
And I just made myself relaxed, really relaxed... And then, I closed my eyes and tried to converse with myself. I asked myself why do I want to be perfect? Why is this thing killing me? Why am I making such a big issue out of it? Why am I blowing it off out of proportion?
I explained to myself that you can't stop the skin from aging, you can't stop something that is natural. Your mom had been through this, your aunts have been through this and so do many other women out there go through this. Do every women feels the same? Do they? No, I don't think so. And then, my mind started recalling the names of those beautiful women whom I know have aged gracefully! They never dyed their hair, had never put layers of makeup but still had an aura around them. Still they looked beautiful. They had wrinkles, a lot of them. Still they never appeared ugly to me! How? Even they had all the 'imperfections' that are bothering me now, still they look stunning and gorgeous. How come they seem to be so happy dealing with their age and these imperfections?
And all these realizations made me feel embarrassed. How could I allow myself to inherit such a tainted and petite thought! I rebuked myself for torturing me for such small a thing! I always considered myself a very strong woman. Was that a myth? How come some pimples and few spots and few wrinkles made me weak? I felt humiliating! It took away the pride that I always had for my beauty! Was that pride only for upper beauty? No... it couldn't be. I was not a showy person at all! And I knew and was confident about it. And I had valid reason for that. I always felt more happy, more delighted when people complimented me on my traits, on my qualities, on my persona, on my individuality, on my uniqueness than on my beauty! And that's the inner beauty of which I had always been proud of. How come few small spots on my skin take away that pride? Isn't that insulting to me? Isn't that an offense to my pride? Doesn't this makes me a person with a very limited wisdom, a person with a conventional approach? Doesn't it make me equal to those whom I had always criticized for not seeing and appreciating the larger and imperative picture and always keeping themselves confined to insignificant and petty things.
And there I was, a changed person! Yes, for me a small realization, a strong rebuke from myself, is more than enough to throw away all the negative and unwanted thoughts from my mind, from my soul and from my life.
These wrinkles shows that I smile a lot and I take pride in that. These marks shows my experience and I take pride in that. Whats wrong in that? I have a familiarity with these pimples since I was young, then whats there to be scared of them now?
I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that.
- Lauren Bacall
Its good to try, to look and to want to be beautiful, to indulge yourself in skincare, to take care of yourself. Its really important. But that's just a part of your life, a small part. Its not your life at all! You, as a person, is much larger than it and much more beautiful than you can see.
Instead, you should invest your time, money and energy in making every part of your body (not just face) healthy and beautiful. You definitely need a healthy and a strong body to help yourself get going through this real long and tough journey called life. Work on being healthy, concentrate your energies in making your body strong. And believe me, this will show on your face too. I have been knowing women who really are beautiful, even in their 40's and just because of their healthy and stress free lifestyle and not because of all the creams and peels that are available in the market. They would do no good:)
And stop taking these wrinkles and minute spots seriously. At the end, all people remember is the kind of person you are, the kind of gentleness you hold, the kind of aura you carry, the kind of love and care you shower on everyone, the kind of attitude you have and not just beauty. Outer beauty will lose its charm in front of the softness of your conscience, for the shrewd and strong beliefs that you possess. People remember you for the beauty that you leave behind and not the beauty that you carry.
Believe me, people might notice your outer beauty for the first time they see you but they immediately forget all of these unsaid flaws as soon as they get acquainted with your inner beauty, as soon as you greet them with a huge beautiful smile.
Go ahead ladies, free yourself from this trauma that beclouds your love for life, that makes it obscure for you to see and enjoy the beautiful moments. Shed this artificial skin and you will feel beautiful, you will also learn and see conspicuously that there is a beauty in imperfection too.
And promise yourself to age gracefully. If you can't stop something, start enjoying it! Prevent from becoming one of those wannabes whose desperation to look beautiful gets converted into obsession, and after an age, it becomes impossible for them to hide this obsession and believe me, it makes you look like a horrible, shallow person. Be comfortable in your own skin and nothing can make you look and feel more beautiful than that.
Cheers and embrace life. You would never be as young as you are today at this moment. Why to let it go? Why to sacrifice this beautiful young moment on some rotten decayed brainless thoughts?
Explore the beautiful you, which gets veiled away somewhere in the race of exploring the false beauty!
Stay happy, stay wild, stay beautiful.
People often say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing you are the beholder.
- Salma Hayek
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
I am soon to step in the 30's club... next year! Yeah, and astonishingly it just doesn't feel that horrifying as it sounds. In early 20's, entering into 30's was a nightmare for me. Guess, it is for every young girl. Now, entering 40's is a nightmare. But now I know and understand that it's something natural and its going to come, some or the other day. And so, I really do not have to bother much about it.
The matured wisdom that you see in my previous said words was not there from forever! I was not the same few weeks ago. I had a different approach to this. I was horrified, scared to death and used to feel aghast by just the thought of leaving 20's! Why? Because its an universal unsaid presumption that leaving 20's means leaving youth! It means you are approaching adulthood, just not in terms of maturity, but in every sense. It means, there are a hell lot of things that are going to change for you. And you know whats the scariest thing amongst this list of gruesome things for a woman: its her looks, the young skin, the lustrous youth, the gleaming charm, that appealing charisma that will get fade away with age.
Well, let me narrate from beginning.
Few months back, I started observing few changes in me: a few wrinkles, a few open pores, a few dark spots, and some other things, that raised an alarm that finally, the most forbidden thing is going to soon knock at my door: Age!
And the nightmare started. All this can be a very strong reason for a horrifying misery for any woman! Believe me...
I was missing my carefree, tension-free self when these petty things never bothered me. I never had these concerns. I never cared for anything when I was young: acne, dark patches, spots, sunburn... nothing! It never mattered to me at that point of time. But as I am growing older, these things have started bothering me. Why? A small pimple is more than enough to snatch away a night's sleep from me now! The small wrinkles which I have started observing looks hideous now. My dark circles looks ugly, damn ugly to me now, despite the fact that they had been there for always and they never looked so bad to me before!
I started checking each and every detail of my face frequently and started feeling repulsive, or rather grotesque. Attimes, I saw those small dark spots, of pigmentation or God knows what and I felt like howling.
I started standing in front of mirror for minutes together, wandering whats happening with me? Why this change? I never looked so ugly... Everything started looking awful to me! Was this mark there before? OMG! A new wrinkle? When did it appear and what caused it? A new pimple is on the way, I should apply a cream now itself, to prevent it from bursting into a huge ugly blotch on my face! And all this started revolving around in my head 24*7.
I started feeling inferior. I stopped looking directly into people's eye while talking to them because I had this weird conjecture built up in my mind, that all people would be noticing are: my marks, the imperfections in my beauty, the flaws, my dark circles and all the defects that I carry now. And all they would be thinking somewhere inside is how horrible this woman looks! BTW, till now these small flaws on my face had taken a shape of a big defect in my mind! I started feeling ugly, real ugly and always carried this urge of not facing and meeting anyone. All I wanted was to crouch in the cobwebbed darkness. There was this passionate sadness that surrounded me. I felt a kind of fear in getting noticed and labeled as an ugly woman.
And all this was dragging me into a ditch of never ending disturbance! After being in this trauma for weeks altogether, after bearing all the self caused humiliation, after going through a huge amount of self imposed degradation, I knew I had to do something! Something...
For hours, I used to look and search for preventions and cures on net. I wanted to know and was eager to buy anything, any product at any cost which could save me from all my flaws. While doing all this research, I noticed that its just not me alone who is gripped into this beauty flaws erroneous belief. There were many other women out there, suffering from the same!
But finally I realized its not products that I need because all they would do is (if I get a miraculous product which is a fallacy!) postpone this ageing thing for a year or so. I had to find some other solution. Something reliable and effective.
And I just made myself relaxed, really relaxed... And then, I closed my eyes and tried to converse with myself. I asked myself why do I want to be perfect? Why is this thing killing me? Why am I making such a big issue out of it? Why am I blowing it off out of proportion?
I explained to myself that you can't stop the skin from aging, you can't stop something that is natural. Your mom had been through this, your aunts have been through this and so do many other women out there go through this. Do every women feels the same? Do they? No, I don't think so. And then, my mind started recalling the names of those beautiful women whom I know have aged gracefully! They never dyed their hair, had never put layers of makeup but still had an aura around them. Still they looked beautiful. They had wrinkles, a lot of them. Still they never appeared ugly to me! How? Even they had all the 'imperfections' that are bothering me now, still they look stunning and gorgeous. How come they seem to be so happy dealing with their age and these imperfections?
And all these realizations made me feel embarrassed. How could I allow myself to inherit such a tainted and petite thought! I rebuked myself for torturing me for such small a thing! I always considered myself a very strong woman. Was that a myth? How come some pimples and few spots and few wrinkles made me weak? I felt humiliating! It took away the pride that I always had for my beauty! Was that pride only for upper beauty? No... it couldn't be. I was not a showy person at all! And I knew and was confident about it. And I had valid reason for that. I always felt more happy, more delighted when people complimented me on my traits, on my qualities, on my persona, on my individuality, on my uniqueness than on my beauty! And that's the inner beauty of which I had always been proud of. How come few small spots on my skin take away that pride? Isn't that insulting to me? Isn't that an offense to my pride? Doesn't this makes me a person with a very limited wisdom, a person with a conventional approach? Doesn't it make me equal to those whom I had always criticized for not seeing and appreciating the larger and imperative picture and always keeping themselves confined to insignificant and petty things.
And there I was, a changed person! Yes, for me a small realization, a strong rebuke from myself, is more than enough to throw away all the negative and unwanted thoughts from my mind, from my soul and from my life.
These wrinkles shows that I smile a lot and I take pride in that. These marks shows my experience and I take pride in that. Whats wrong in that? I have a familiarity with these pimples since I was young, then whats there to be scared of them now?
I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that.
- Lauren Bacall
Its good to try, to look and to want to be beautiful, to indulge yourself in skincare, to take care of yourself. Its really important. But that's just a part of your life, a small part. Its not your life at all! You, as a person, is much larger than it and much more beautiful than you can see.
Instead, you should invest your time, money and energy in making every part of your body (not just face) healthy and beautiful. You definitely need a healthy and a strong body to help yourself get going through this real long and tough journey called life. Work on being healthy, concentrate your energies in making your body strong. And believe me, this will show on your face too. I have been knowing women who really are beautiful, even in their 40's and just because of their healthy and stress free lifestyle and not because of all the creams and peels that are available in the market. They would do no good:)
And stop taking these wrinkles and minute spots seriously. At the end, all people remember is the kind of person you are, the kind of gentleness you hold, the kind of aura you carry, the kind of love and care you shower on everyone, the kind of attitude you have and not just beauty. Outer beauty will lose its charm in front of the softness of your conscience, for the shrewd and strong beliefs that you possess. People remember you for the beauty that you leave behind and not the beauty that you carry.
Believe me, people might notice your outer beauty for the first time they see you but they immediately forget all of these unsaid flaws as soon as they get acquainted with your inner beauty, as soon as you greet them with a huge beautiful smile.
Go ahead ladies, free yourself from this trauma that beclouds your love for life, that makes it obscure for you to see and enjoy the beautiful moments. Shed this artificial skin and you will feel beautiful, you will also learn and see conspicuously that there is a beauty in imperfection too.
And promise yourself to age gracefully. If you can't stop something, start enjoying it! Prevent from becoming one of those wannabes whose desperation to look beautiful gets converted into obsession, and after an age, it becomes impossible for them to hide this obsession and believe me, it makes you look like a horrible, shallow person. Be comfortable in your own skin and nothing can make you look and feel more beautiful than that.
Cheers and embrace life. You would never be as young as you are today at this moment. Why to let it go? Why to sacrifice this beautiful young moment on some rotten decayed brainless thoughts?
Explore the beautiful you, which gets veiled away somewhere in the race of exploring the false beauty!
Stay happy, stay wild, stay beautiful.
People often say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing you are the beholder.
- Salma Hayek
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