Value Yourself As You Are.............

There are many different standards of beauty and beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.  What one person finds attractive, other person won't like as much!  It happens with makeup all the time - some people find a smokey-eye with red lips sexy and sultry, others will say its heavy and unnatural!  Furthermore, there are many countries where beauty and wealth are determined by looking healthy and 'heavy set' and others where being a size 0 is some sort of weight loss accomplishment!  Every person will value attractiveness differently and there is something really awesome about that.  I have struggled with my weight and finding makeup looks that suit me my entire life.  I have questioned my value based on how I look - am I thin enough?  pretty enough? am I wearing the right colours? what do people think of my blog? what size am I in clothes?  The self validation questions sometimes never end, but what's even worse is - what am I validating or not validating about myself???

I had a life changing 'a-ha' moment when I felt an intuitive shift in my understanding of colour and my own personal colour palette.  I was at the institute of art in Chicago when I saw a Renoir painting called 'Child In A White Dress' - I felt an instant connection with the palette and shades used in the painting and I instantaneously felt 'this is my best colour palette' - this led me to understanding that the Soft Autumn palette is so very right for me!  This was the first step in truly valuing my intuition and myself.

I recently had another major a-ha moment, once again thanks to Renoir.  I've been very interested in his use of colour and painting technique.  I even watched a foreign film called 'Renoir' based on his painting subjects and how elegantly he captured the female form.  I couldn't believe that since the late 1800's to early 1900's, how our ideal of a beautiful woman has changed:

In almost all of Renoir's paintings of a woman, her form is voluptuous, curvy and beautifully 'full'!  The more I looked at all of his paintings, the more I realized that we often let others and our society 'assign' to us a model of beauty.   What's even worse is that we judge ourselves as attractive, thin, fat or unattractive etc etc based on this assigned societal model.  However, what if we decided as a society to simply celebrate our bodies just as they are!!!  I've been watching a lot of TED talks lately and the more I watch various talks concerning diet, health, weight etc, the more I'm learning that our body has its own natural compass of its perfect weight and form.  We destroy this inner compass every time we diet, use food to mask our emotions or simply deny our own intuitive appetite and hunger.  Shouldn't we know our bodies the best?  Shouldn't we know when we are full, hungry, when we feel healthy, sick?  If only we valued ourselves and accepted ourselves just as we are - no more diets and trying to be something that we're not.  Acceptance and self-validation and respect of ourselves needs to be what we as a society value in each other.  Personally, I think Renoir's women were perfectly themselves - natural, full, healthy.  Starving ourselves to fit into a size 0???  I'll let you as readers decide what you value and think - but as for me, I've learned a valuable lesson in acceptance and appreciation!!!