What makes a woman beautiful? Is it simply the physical attributes that she is blessed with or is that something more at work here? We have a 6-week Healthy Girls/Healthy Tweens session that deals with this subject. It's great. We show the girls pictures of a super model and of Mother Theresa. Now, which one do you think they choose as being beautiful? That's right - the supermodel. However, we show them how that supermodel is primped and made up and hair done, etc. and THEN airbrushed - she doesn't even look like that! The point is, of course, beauty isn't just some norm dictated to us by the media, it's something that each of us has inside of us. I remember a girl I went to school with. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life. She was stunning - and intimidating. Of course she was very popular in high school and all the boys wanted to go out with her. I got to know her and as it turns out, she was extremely insecure and as such, was pretty mean. I watched as this seemingly gorgeous creature turned ugly right before my very eyes. It was an amazing transformation. It was the "aha" moment for me - when the light went on - that beauty is as beauty does. I was beautiful, even if I didn't feel like it - even if no one else thought I was. I was - and I am - because I have a good heart for people and I try to help them. I make people laugh or I cry with them. I listen when needed. I talk - and sometimes harshly - when needed. I guess it would be more accurate to say I have a beautiful heart - and that anyone can acheive that standard of beauty. That's the takeaway lesson for our girls. Who cares about freckles or jeans size or frizzy hair - it's that inner beauty that either shines through, or doesn't exist. It's something, however, that can be cultivated and expanded. Good lesson - for us all!
I'd love to hear from some of you. Did you have a time that you realized that beauty was really more inner than outer? How would you convey that to a group of girls?
Thanks for you input --
Kathy
