Over the course of 58 years, I have encountered so many women who struggle with their looks. It seems to be an eternal theme which crosses generations.
We live in a culture that's about need. We are bombarded with advertisements telling us what we need to need, and what we supposedly shouldn't be able to live without. Women are indeed the perfect targets for them.
Impossible standards for women to live up to have been created. It seems that you must always look like you did when you were 25 years old – young and thin. They tell you that if you look this way, you will be desired, even loved and happy. And if you don't, they have the products to help you. Most women, indeed most people have the feeling that they are not complete, good enough or whole. This causes shame.
I noticed when my children were toddlers, they knew no shame. They danced, sang, painted and had positive body awareness. What shame they have now acquired, came from others who told them they had to be different.
I, on the other hand, have known shame. Insecurity haunted me most of my life. As a child, I wasn't so much aware of being a girl. As a teenager I felt awkward for a long time. I knew the pain of embarrassment and the sting of shame when I stepped out of line. What I also discovered is that shame is not our natural state. It's something we learn.
When you fully open and embrace all of yourself, including the parts you have been trying to fix and make better, you simultaneously open to deeper energies and begin the journey into a fuller, freer you. Doing so, you can be more fully present to life – in the realm of love, joy, pain, loss and ecstasy. It involves all acceptance, the receiving of all aspects of yourself, even the frozen or unloved parts of yourself, exactly where you are at in this very moment in a wider embrace of love and self-compassion.
You will activate the power of the divine feminine, who will call you into a much more mature, freer and wiser expression of yourself in a natural fashion. Remarkable and lasting transformation takes place, which leads to evolution. You will feel that you are coming home in a tender, loving, welcoming way.
I know many beautiful women of all shapes, sizes and ages. Their beauty is expressed through their eyes and their hearts. They radiate beauty and they exude themselves. It's extremely catching.
Unfortunately many women never seem to consider that they are loved by their fellow human beings, even if they don't meet the 25 and thin forever image.
You are not your age, your dress size, cup size or waist size. Those are just outward manifestations of the true you. If anyone rejects you because of this, they don't deserve you!
It troubles me that so many women don't love their differences. Wouldn't it, after all, be a dreary world if all women were the same? Be the only you you can ever truly be. Then you will feel pretty. And you will be as pretty as you feel.
Ruth Bleakley-Thiessen is a communication designer, a Journey Practitioner, a coach, an artist and an author. She has coached thousands of people one-on-one and in workshops, most of them women, helping them to evolve, empower and express themselves in their own authentic way.
Her first book was published in 2000 with the Ch. Falk Verlag in Germany (Die Lehren der Engel).
She is from Ireland and lives in the north of Germany.