SOMETHING TO REMEMBER
Many years ago I would come across some special friends as we started our journeys into recovery. One had these words
PUT YOUR LIGHT ON THE HILLTOP BECAUSE YOU ARE TRULY BEAUTIFUL INDEED.
I say this to all here who have known what it is like to doubt yourself and your worth.
Replies
I am struggling with my financial life.....so yes I understand that saying...but I feel odd with feeling I have any beauty....unless I have money I feel I am nobody.....and I know money can't buy you friends....
Never felt like I was Beautiful...more like a survivor, yet I know for sure there are many who have had worse challenges than me. <3 Hugs
Bill and Miro and VQ,
I am going back to some memories of my mother who had many struggles but was also beautiful in ways she wasn't aware. I remember French families typically telling their children as they misbehaved to Sois sage---be wise. It is instructive to me in my older age to remember her telling me as I misbehaved, not to be "ugly". which would have been what her parents told HER, and I guess what her society may have especially told her which she had to (or thought she had to) take as a women.
If it is less foreign or not to be confused with a physical sense of "beautiful" maybe you Bill, and Miro, an VQ may be served better in your language by looking to yourselves and seeing in bits that you have nobel hearts---people who brilliant in the struggle and have a handsome beauty that emerges from engaging in being knocked about by circumstances and regaining one's feet again and again and again and inspiring others to try as well.
What that statement means to me is that people who love themselves have a certain aura about them. You can see it in them when they smile and are very loving and compassionate. They know they are not just a body. They are a spirit or a soul if you will and the love that comes from knowing that gets projected outward to everyone around them and it makes them feel really good to be in the company of that person and yes I believe you are one such person. You laugh alot and you smile alot and you can always make a positive out of a negative and that's why we all love you here at DS.
Bob, first of all thank you. I believe you summed it up well. Ouilliam you are right in suggesting that this is more inside.
In this group, they would all learn that I was made to feel fat, ugly, stupid and discounted. We all worked through some bad situations we endured and I was finally allowed and encouraged to speak up and that I had a voice and opinions.
When that was said to me, I believe it was focused more on what I have inside and telling me that I need to put that out there for all to see. And yes, that Aura does shine through and perhaps the beauty is just projected from there.
I think the world focuses too much on physical beauty and beats us down because of that. To me, that is part of what sometimes isolates so many of us. WE NEED TO KNOW THAT INNER BEAUTY AND STRENGTH MEANS SO MUCH MORE.
Many hugs to so many of us who thought we could never be beautiful. WE CAN BE whatever we want..
Our state has a US Senator who is a pretty boy....but man he is messed up in his take and thinking.....but the media features him because he is handsome and I think the guy has anticipation of running for President in his future....he is a nutjob....but guess who voted for him in 2020? ME.....he is republican and I bought the bs he fed us....this year I did not vote for him because he is now lunatic fringe in my opinion on conservative political spectrum....but I bet you he will try to run for President at some point....Josh Hawley.....
so looks do not make you less of a nutjob when you are trying to control our government....
Thanks for sharing Kim. I struggle with how I look on a regular basis. I am learning to accept that I have many good qualities that make me a good person. My therapist tells me all the time that I am so much more than the shape of my body. Sending hugs to all who struggle, know that there is beauty in us all.
BobinMaine,
I am agreeing---that people who love themselves have a sort of aura that reflects that image of beauty to others. More so (and I expect you meant this as well) in my friends who not only love themselves but have huge love for others, all that eclipses any physical feature they may have. I confess that I don't REALLY know how the people I love and respect the most look to anyone else, because I see them as SO beautiful/handsome/noble
And Bill, yes, we do have folks selling themselves politically by appealing to images. Those images aren't sold much differently than child predators use to groom children. Most of us want to be loved and affirmed and made to feel important and special, and this works personally and politically, and without shutting out wonderful people who can be trusted to give us these feelings genuinely, we have also as adults have to learn to look carefully at what and who we give ourselves to personally and politically so so we don't set ourselves or others up to be harmed. We all have lessons to learn in that area.
Thanks for that thought. Take care.
Liam