Beyond The Beauty Trap

If you ask one hundred women, “Do you want to be beautiful?” most will say they do. But, if you ask them, “So what do you think of beautiful women?” Most will have some pretty strong opinions. They will tell you that beautiful women are “thin, confident, perfect, well-dressed and that they get what they want.” They will tell you that looking beautiful takes a lot of time, energy, and money. They will also say that beautiful women are usually born that way. These statements are all myths — they are not true, but we tend to believe them.

And lurking just beneath the surface, the myths get even worse. When questioned more closely, many women will also report that beautiful women are “vain, self-centered, egotistical, selfish, and basically, not very nice.” I have asked tens of thousands of women of all ages and social groups these questions and share with you that many women experience this. They also think that they would have to be perfect. And they cannot be beautiful until they are perfect in every way.

If we think this way, we are in a trap! We think we want beauty, but the concept carries a lot of baggage with it. And if it’s as bad as some think, we should avoid it! Unfortunately, very few women have been happy or satisfied with their appearance. Yet, we live in a world where others judge us, and we consider ourselves on how we look.

Most women don’t want to be vain. The fear of becoming vain — or being perceived as hopeless — keeps many women from seeing and experiencing their beauty. This becomes very understandable when you look up “vain” in the dictionary. It is defined as “having no real value, idle, useless, foolish, silly.” With this definition, I can see why no one would want to be seen in these ways.

Another definition of vain is “having or showing an undue or excessive pride in one’s appearance or accomplishments.” If a woman thinks she is worthless or has little real value, then any small amount of personal pride is “excessive and undue” and can make her uncomfortable.

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Pride is a very tricky word. It has two completely different meanings, and they are quite contradictory. One definition is “inordinate self-esteem; conceit,” and the other is “a reasonable or justifiable self-respect.” So, let’s think of false pride as “conceit” and true pride as “self-respect.”

Now, the plot thickens. It’s not just becoming vain that we fear. Women fear that others will think they are hopeless, so they keep putting themselves down or trying to prove they are good enough. So, in several different ways, vanity is related to fear.

To some extent, Vanity comes from feeling worthless or unworthy and trying to prove you are not. So, every step toward finding your true worth is a step away from vanity.

Both vanity and false pride seem to come from pretending you are something you are not. Let’s give this up! Every single woman I’ve ever met had her beautiful qualities. Very few women realize their beauty fully, and some have not realized their beauty at all. They are all just at different stages of learning their worth and beauty.

Realizing our beauty is not something that we were ever taught to do. And we were never shown how to do it. To top it off, we live in a world and society that teaches us that it’s bad to think too highly of ourselves. We are also told that we can never be perfect but should be perfect. So, it should be no surprise that women have many mixed emotions about these issues. Beauty, the way society has defined it so far, is a pretty impossible goal.

The problem with the common notion of beauty is that we often see it as something comparative and competitive. This is a very silly idea that we don’t apply to the rest of nature. We don’t go to the zoo and discuss, “Which is more beautiful, a giraffe or a zebra?” When we hike in the mountains, we don’t analyze or evaluate, “Which is more beautiful, an oak tree or a pine tree?” But for some odd reason, we apply this strange thinking to our appearance as women. Let’s stop it.

Women must realize how much of a lose/lose situation this is. No matter how much you perfect your appearance, there will always be someone thinner, prettier, younger, etc. All women lose at these limiting, either/or type of comparisons. Let’s leave the competition for sports.

I used to say that we needed to redefine beauty. I’ll buy that. But in the dictionary, you’ll see that “beautiful” means “generally pleasing; excellent.” “Beauty” is “the combination of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit.” That sounds better.

If we can accept the idea that all flowers and mountains are beautiful, why can’t all women be beautiful? We shouldn’t have to stretch our imagination too far to include ourselves with the rest of nature!

It’s a matter of harmony. Just as there is beauty and peace in forests and deserts, there is already beauty in people. They need to realize it. Would you change your opinion if you went on a walk with someone who did not see beauty in the woods? I don’t think so.

Harmony is a pleasing or congruent arrangement of parts. It knows that you are put together well as part of nature. That’s exactly what I’ve seen in studying thousands of women (and men, too). We are put together very congruently. Nature is very consistent in giving giraffes long necks, and zebras get stripes. There are patterns in women, too.

The pattern in you is there whether you see it or not. Just because a flower doesn’t see its harmony doesn’t mean it’s not there. Fortunately, unlike a flower, you can discover your harmony. And when you do, you’ll be able to have the experience that you’re already beautiful. Then your clothes don’t make you attractive; they enhance the beauty you already have. Your make-up doesn’t make you attractive; it brings out the beauty you already have.

Finding true beauty will never occur until you stop trying to be anyone else. Just be you. But you have to look for and discover beauty and harmony. Ever since I found the patterns in people, people have become beautiful.

Finding harmony in yourself does not create vanity because it is not about undue or excessive pride. It’s about finding your true worth and value. Remember, we said that “true pride” is self-respect. Every woman’s goal should be to find her true worth. It’s an area in which most of us have no training, but it is possible, and thousands of women have learned to see the harmony in their natural pattern.

Discovering your harmony leads you to find your true value and builds your confidence. Confidence is the quality or state of being certain. Confidence stresses faith in oneself and one’s powers without suggesting conceit or arrogance. You can learn to find strength in being you.

Rebel Holiday has 25 years of experience establishing and developing companies. At age 22, she started her first company on the proverbial shoestring and built it into a successful business in just a few years. She originally began speaking to share her business ideas. Now a professional speaker, Ms. Holiday has internationally presented to hundreds of diverse audiences in corporations and associations, traveling to 43 countries. She assisted over 200 entrepreneurial companies launch early-stage venture funds in the Washington D.C. Metro area. Ms. Holiday has taught classes on topics related to entrepreneurship and business to graduate students in MBA programs at American University, Georgetown University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the University of Maryland.

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Alcohol scholar. Bacon fan. Internetaholic. Beer geek. Thinker. Coffee advocate. Reader. Have a strong interest in consulting about teddy bears in Nigeria. Spent 2001-2004 promoting glue in Pensacola, FL. My current pet project is testing the market for salsa in Las Vegas, NV. In 2008 I was getting to know birdhouses worldwide. Spent 2002-2008 buying and selling easy-bake-ovens in Bethesda, MD. Spent 2002-2009 marketing country music in the financial sector.