What Body Lens Are You Using?

How can a woman who isn't what our culture typically considers "beautiful" learn to see herself as beautiful? A reader asked me that question recently, and I've been thinking about it ever since.

The truth is that most of us have been brought up to appreciate certain female attributes as beautiful and when we don't see those attributes in the mirror, we can't help but feel we come up short somehow. But I find it easy to see beauty in other people - even those who don't fit the standard cultural definition of what's beautiful.

It's all about the lens we look through.

Let me give you an example: I've got a friend who doesn't think she's pretty at all. But she's the most caring person I've ever met and when she asks me how I'm doing, her big dark eyes fill with genuine concern. She also has a great laugh - the kind of laugh that makes me laugh when I hear it - and she shares it liberally. Her face lights up when she laughs, and I see her beauty. Even when she doesn't.

How about you? Do you have friends who might not be considered classically beautiful, yet you're able to see what's attractive about them? I bet you do. If we could all see ourselves through a lens of kindness and friendship, we might be more apt to see our own beauty, too.

I'm always uncomfortable when women speak unkindly about each other's appearance - as Kathy Griffin did recently about Bristol Palin. I'm no therapist, but I suspect that this kind of put-down has much more to do with the insecurity of the person delivering it than the person at whom it's aimed. I even wrote about how uncomfortable "bodysnarking" makes me feel earlier this year.

Learning to see ourselves as beautiful requires that we learn to see the beauty in others, too.