What Does Beauty Mean to Me?

January 6, 2016

What Does Beauty Mean to Me?

This is a tough question and even as I write this, I don't know entirely what I want to say. As women we are forced into this categories. We're girlie girls or tomboys, sluts or virgins, skinny chicks or fat girls. We're forced into specific categories and then we struggle to live into that categorical box. But we are so much more than these narrow definitions of what it is to be a woman. 

I know there isn't a woman alive who hasn't felt the pressure to be thin. In the last year since beginning my Ayurvedic journey, I began loosing weight. It wasn't the purpose of changing my diet but it was an outcome. All of a sudden people started commenting on my body and the way I looked. I felt really uncomfortable. My husband reminded me that for most people, this would be considered a compliment. When people change their diet and start loosing weight, many people want praise from others on their weight loss. For me, it felt like something was wrong with my weight before. I wasn't unhappy with my weight prior to starting an Ayurvedic diet. 

I don't weigh myself. I don't own a scale and I don't voluntarily step on one outside of the doctors office. Even when I go to the doctor, I close my eyes on the scale and tell the nurse not to tell me the number. I don't want to know the number. It doesn't matter to me. What matters is how I feel in my own body. People have asked me how much weight I've lost since changing my diet, and I couldn't tell them. I have no idea how much I weighed last April and I don't know what I weigh now. And I don't want to know. All too often, we let that number define us. 

Beauty is about being yourself. It's about feeling comfortable and confident in who you are. It's about being a whole woman. We don't need to conform to some narrow definition of what it is to be a beautiful woman. We are beautiful just the way we are.