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Thursday, April 10, 2008

Beauty

Ever noticed how nice it is to watch "Dove" product commercials? In 2004 DOVE launched a "Real Beauty' campaign in efforts to change society and the view of beauty. Their campaign was inspired by a global study about " The real truth about beauty" in which one result was that only 2% of women worldwide see themselves as beautiful. Pretty sad in my eyes.
I remember watching my favourite show "Starting over", from which I learnt so much, years ago, and one of the life coaches made a statement about beauty and what the believe of not being beautiful does to a woman's heart and soul, I can't remember the exact wording of it, but it really hit a chord with me and stuck with me for a long time, and it really made so sad, especially for myself because that was exactly how I felt and really what a huge impact thinking like that had on my being, and I kind of knew it was time for me to change my outlook on "beauty" and work on what real beauty is and what makes one beautiful
Well DOVE started using real women for their commercials, all ages, all sizes and shapes, all races, real women not professional models.
I remember my husband remarking at the first sight of one of their commercials, "isn't she kind of old to be in a commercial?" So what, first of all we all get older and second, who says she wasn't beautiful. Everybody is beautiful in their own way, there is inner and outer beauty. Who are we as people to decide who is and who isn't beautiful. And what kind of beauty is worth more, inner or outer? And wouldn't it be great to have both? But we all aren't blessed with the perfect body, the perfect hair, the perfect smile and all the things that make society decide you are beautiful and worth their time. And sometimes beautiful people on the outside, can be ugly on the inside and the other way around. So who are we as society to judge?
I admire their stand and their commitment to creating real beauty in everybody and especially their work on raising healthy self esteem. Might even not be too late for some of us. lol.....
I know for myself, I still have a long way to go to really think about me and beauty in the same sentence, I think it's easier to see the beauty in others, even if they aren't what society defines as perfect, than in one self and I also know how I see myself and how I feel about myself impacts my daughter, as it has impacted me watching my mom when I was young. So it is definitely something worth working on and is always work in progress.
Unfortunately our belief of what beauty is has also a huge impact on our self esteem at times, and I can just hope that I did a good enough job with my daughter, for her to recognize her inner and outer beauty.

"Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart." ~Kahlil Gibran

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