Feeling…Ugly? 

Are you feeling…Ugly?  Take a breath…You’re wrong. You are so beautiful and I want every single woman who reads these words all across the world to feel it.

Your beauty has nothing to do with your hairstyle right now.

Your beauty has nothing to do with your stomach right now and how far it’s sticking out as you sit reading this.

…Your beauty has nothing to do with how much he loves you, how much she loves you, how much they could, should or need to love you.

Your beauty has everything to do with the way you feel.

It has nothing to do with the way you look.

How could it?

Beauty has to pour out from you.  You cannot look beautiful if you are not feeling it – you’ll just look like a fake.   I invite you to fall in love with the way you look right now, not when you lose weight, get a tan, look less tired …fill in the blank.

A few years ago I had a client who began my coaching program (with absolute gusto) – we’ll call her Vanessa; she was a lawyer and valued her mind waaay over her looks.  Her mind had gotten her everywhere and her looks had gotten her no-where.

And let me tell you during our coaching together as we got to the “body love” bit of the program she became utterly repulsed by the thought of giving any attention to her body which she thought was a sexist idea and completely un-spiritual.

She just wasn’t interested in “it” anymore, it didn’t get her anywhere, the way she looked only bought her problems, so better to file her beauty under the “not for now” department, we’re busy.

She admitted she shrank in the presence of beauty and felt less than the “beautiful” women in the office when they stood next to her.  Even though she reviled them in her head and told me in no uncertain terms this part of the coaching program was rubbish, we gently pressed forward because I knew that the more resistant a woman is to loving all of herself the bigger the gift she is hiding from.

Slowly she got to know herself; slowly she began to enjoy her body, just as it was.  I gave her some fun tools to put into her tool box and she began to notice herself for the first time.

And then something happened.

She started to like herself more, both inside and out – she began to enjoy herself more. She decided to get a new haircut.  She decided that the body she had been born with was right.  It was the perfect size, shape and colour for her.  As she slowly but surely began to fall in love with herself, she noticed her co-workers falling in love with the work she did, and the effort she put in.  Her husband started noticing her again and complimented her one morning on the way to work.

She began to care more for herself as she let the self doubt slip quietly away.

The day she decided she was beautiful was a monumentus one, because yes, it is a decision. No-one else can make it for you.

She decided she could have both the brains and the beauty.  She decided she was beautiful just the way she was.  She didn’t have to fight anymore with her body image, she didn’t have to put other women down or criticise them for what they wore or what they looked like.

She didn’t feel better or worse than the next woman.

She could stand next to the beautiful people at work and enjoy their company knowing that she was perfect just the way she is.

And that really is all there is to it.

If you didn’t doubt how you looked, if in fact you could boldly say to the mirror – I AM BEAUTIFUL and know it deep down – what would change for you?  Tell me in the comments below!