What Do You See?

Let me share a story of ‘seeing’ which happened with my granddaughter recently. I was caring for my granddaughters when the oldest one handed me a telescope and said, “Look inside it Nana – what do you see?” I looked up at the tree and I could see a small bird that I had not seen without the magnification. I told her about it. She then said, “Now Nana, turn it this way (backwards) and look at me!” The reverse of the telescope of course made her look as small as an ant. Her giggle at my expression and description still rings in my ears.

The point of this story is that often our vision does not see clearly. If our vision is not to be trusted, then how do we know what we are seeing?

I would like you to do an exercise with me. Go ahead and take a moment and look in the mirror. I mean really look. What do you see? Can you see beauty? Be honest with yourself. Does even the idea of this exercise create fear, or are you suddenly feeling tears in your eyes?

What if I told you that you can’t trust what you are seeing? Yes, this is actually true for a few reasons, and I will unpack this truth over some  upcoming blog posts. But let me say this to you:

Very few people can look in the mirror and actually see themselves. They see through layers of filters of what they have been taught to believe about what they are seeing. I would even posit that it is rare for a person to look themselves in the eye in the mirror and say with full confidence, “You are uniquely you, and you are beautiful just the way you are!”

Now perhaps you are reading this and you think it does not apply to you. That’s wonderful! But stick with me because there is very likely someone around you who might need to recognize their own value and self-worth. And this is where the redefining of beauty comes in to play.

I will share more of my story in sections along the way, but I will tell you that one voice in my head says, “If you say you are beautiful, it means you are vain.” The other voices are usually about what I would fix if I could change what I was seeing. These affect not only my self-image, but they have moved over into affecting my self-worth and self-esteem. And from what I have been reading, I’m not alone.

The picture my friend Katrina allowed me to post at the top of this article shows that when you look at the world through a globe, not only does it distort the picture, it actually turns it upside down and backwards.

And so I leave you with this thought: Is it possible that you have not been able to look at yourself and see the beauty that makes you uniquely you?

I invite you to sign up for this blog to learn more of my journey and perhaps together we can help each other as we unpack ‘the meaning of beauty’.

This is me…helping you…Spark Yr Beauty!