For many years, practising as a Professional Make-up Artist and more recently advising and offering Inner Image Consultations, I’ve noticed that as women we’re still apologising for the way we look. Why do we resist accepting and embracing our own true beauty?
The most beautiful make-up of a woman is the love that she is.
Until we truly claim the woman within, we will continue to mask and hide our Divine Beauty underneath layers of protection that no amount of make-up can penetrate.
For close to 30 years I have sat with women being ‘made-up’ for anything from a fashion photo shoot to a debutante. In that time I have never seen two faces the same and I have loved every one of them. Not just for the way they look, but for the person living inside.
When women first sit down for a treatment they will often apologise for how they look. The younger women masked in make-up, sit in anxiety that I may reveal their flaws. The older women tired and unseen, sit in fear that they will be exposed for not being true to themselves and giving up. Both fear being judged.
I want to speak to them and say that when I see your face…
I see the sum total of all your daily choices both loving and otherwise. I see your exquisite beauty either claimed or unclaimed emanating out from your eyes. The map of your past is etched in your features and across your face. This is either a map of disconnection, disregard or a celebration of your life lived. Sometimes even a mixture of all. No amount of hiding can ever mask the energy that emanates from you. The beauty within is absolute but often not yet claimed.
Your eyes are extraordinary. Like windows letting the light out they have been many things including disconnected, dull, sad, angry, anxious, and the list goes on but the fact remains: they are a truthful account of how you have been connected or disconnected from your own inner beauty.
I appreciate the Angel that lives inside every face and the difference in all our faces just confirms the sameness within us all.
Like pieces of the Divine puzzle… we all have a place to make the whole.
We work together to rejoice in our beauty long before any make-up brush is even seen.
The face we have, whether it is plain or pretty, unusual or exotic, classic or quirky is precious and to be celebrated for its purpose.
Yes, the way you look does have a purpose. That purpose is to bring your unique expression to the world.
When we all look different we can all celebrate the wonder of being in human existence. We hold a reflection for each other, which gives us all an opportunity to learn, grow and evolve together.
We take a moment together and the love that we connect to melts away all the insecurities. Then the magic of the treatment begins.
With not one apology accepted, together we unravel all the old ways and the woman sitting there before me begins to step into the truly precious woman that she is. I am blessed and in awe of her eyes that reconnect and sparkle with true joy.
Whether it’s playing with make-up or an energetic facial release, her face begins to let go of the strain and tension and her features seem to soften and align with the stillness within. As we connect, the barriers are dropped and we feel no protection or hardness between us. This is true sisterhood. Then the treatment can be lovingly applied and joyfully felt. It is expressed as an honouring of the woman and not as a corrective procedure. Balance has been restored.
All the make-up, lotions and potions in the world will never heal a woman who is disconnected from herself. But once claimed, and with her internal spark re-ignited, a woman in a great lipstick could melt a glacier.
We are all beautiful when we smile from a deep sense of self-worth and self-acceptance, claiming the person that we are. This includes all men, women and children.
Apologising for how we look is not only absurd, it is a highly manipulative game we play with ourselves that keeps us small and insignificant.
The game is up. We have been conned into believing that being naturally beautiful in our unique ways, regardless of our past choices is somehow unworthy of love. This is incorrect because we ARE love and nothing can ever take that away from us. So why do we not accept and embrace our own true beauty?
Let’s face it.
That beauty is the love that we are.
By Kathryn Fortuna, Inner Image Consultant, Melbourne. Australia
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The True Beauty R-Evolution by Kathryn Fortuna
I Am Beauty-Full Just For Being Me – A Message from The Author by Tanya Curtis
Is True Beauty Really In The Eye Of The Beholder? by Adrienne Hutchins