Beauty Series: Women

To the dearest women and girls of the world.

If I could have one wish for the women of western culture it would be to stop hating your body now! "Beauty" in our culture has reached a strange place. I hope I am seeing what may be a shift. Although, I continue to hear so much judgement on a daily basis about how someone is fat, or ugly, or weird looking. To me it is all beautiful.

As a person who has worked in the fashion industry as well as been a retoucher for pornography, I find media portrays mostly the unattainable and misses the beauty of flaws, imperfection, and who a person is. Who a woman is, is almost discarded if they are not idyllically beautiful. (This happens with men as well but the focus of this entry is women). I have struggled through self hatred, body dysmorphia, years of binge eating, years of anorexia nervosa, and severe panic disorder; which in part I feel came from a perspective based on an culture in the throes of illness. I had to take responsibility and embark on my own journey of healing and self love.

A particularly disturbing and destructive element I see, is women in this vicious competition with one another. The jealousy, judgement, the hatred, and gossip are so unnecessary and frankly, a petty way to live life. Women and girls! We are all beautiful. There is no competition. We are all “it girls”! We all have unique beauty and our own way of expressing it. I recently had a man choose to be with a woman other than me. Do I hate her? No. Why not? Why? She is just as beautiful as I am. I am just as amazing as she. I only have love for her. I loved the person who chose her. She just may be better suited to him and what he was looking for. Was it hard to see him move on? Of course, but that is no reason to hate anyone or be jealous. She is not my competition she is another beautiful woman like me with her own brand of wonder and mystery. Once you begin to love yourself and see the beauty in others around you, you begin to feel and ease and an inner peace and fulfillment that is more powerful than any competitive “win” over another person. In the grand scheme these kinds of “wins” are actually karmic losses and only harm you and others.

I feel the most beautiful when I truly see the beauty in you, because you are a reflection of me. We are not separate but connected. Once that is seen, all barriers are broken and there will be no space for hatred or loneliness.

All of the below images are a celebration of beautiful women.

Start a revolution!