The other day, as I was preparing myself and my daughter to
go out for a walk, it took me quite some time to ‘find’ something to wear. This
is because I kept asking myself; do I look good in this outfit? First, I would
think of what to wear and think of how I would look in what I will wear. Then I
would go into the imagination of how will other people see me in this clothes, I
would imagine them complimenting me or looking at me. Then I’d put the clothes
on, go to the mirror and check myself out and I would have these internal
conversations/backchats:
·
Hhhhmmm, this makes me look old,
·
Or these is too sexy and not mother like,
·
Or these makes my ass look bigger
·
Or these makes me look fat
·
Or these don’t flutter my body type
·
Or these don’t compliment my skin tone
·
This I look perfect in these etc.
And finally, after finding something that I ‘liked’, I went
on to dress the baby, and with her, I also would dress her while thinking if
she looks good in the clothes, thoughts like:
·
Does she look more beautiful?
·
Do the clothes make her look darker/lighter?
These we the main point I considered while dressing the
baby. All this thoughts in my mind were because I feared not looking
good/presentable/beautiful in the eyes of other people and so I made such a big
effort to alter my physical outlook so that I can fit in as this perfect
picture presentation for others. And now, I am even projecting my beauty fears
to my child by doing the same exact things to her that I do to me. Not seeing
realizing or understanding how it is that I am already in the process of
programming this fear into the child and she will also become and live this
very same fear.
Waay back when I was a child, I had this aunty who used to compare
me and my siblings with other children. She would say that we are children that
come from Bochura the village of
thieves and that other children from other villages were better than us. From this
memory, already comparison had settled in me and as a grew older, I started
comparing other people by judging them as less or more than me. The ones that
seemed better than me in whatever way, I competed with them so as to ‘outshine/beat’
them and the ones that seemed less than me, gave me a sense of security in who I
was as EGO/self-interest, gave me the feeling/satisfaction of my superiority
over them.
The definition of who I am as beauty sprang from this source
where I compare myself to others by judging them as more or less than me. And so
this drives/propels me to this point of competition. I am competing with others for the spotlight
of the most beautiful. I compete with others for the spotlight of ‘good compliments’
for they make me feel good about myself and further reinforce the need/desire
for me to always staying in the competition so as to maintain my position in
the spotlight. And since what others think and say about me is important to enhance
or diminish my position of beauty in the spotlight, I ensure that the starting
point of that which I do in order to present a picture perfect illusion of myself
is to be noticed/fit in/approved/liked/deemed as normal by others/by society like
for example wearing sexy clothes that flatter my figure, wearing makeup.
Another point which is obvious in how I perceive beauty to
be as who I am is in regards to sex. Apparently, I just like many other women
use beauty to lure men to have sex with me or make men desire to have sex with
me. This I, just like many other women do this through clothes and makeup
whereby, I dress myself in such a way that a man will find me beautiful/attractive
and will want to have sex with me or be in a relationship with me. This is
utter manipulation where I use beauty to lure men into fulfilling my self-interest
ways/EGO through forming a relationship of and or sex with men. So I just like
many other women are participating in our current beauty system presentation/manifestation
where we compete with each other to outshine each other in picture presenting
me/us to men for a relationship or sex or both.
Another point is how the media; TV shows, the fashion world
of catwalk couture models, magazines and newspapers, has contributed
extensively to shaping my world of beauty whereby, I, just like many other
women compare myself to the skinny pretty women on TV, magazines, advertisements
and judge myself all as less than them by wanting to look like them i.e., want
to lose weight and look like them or be able to fit in tight small skimpy
clothes so that I can look appealing/attractive to others especially. Thus showing
the reality of myself within and as the current manifested beauty society where
I, just like many other women, have become a commodity through the very ways I compete
with other women by altering my physical outlook to embody the beauty picture
which is really like advertising myself as a commodity of beauty in the market
of beauty. And how do I get the satisfaction that I have sold myself and
someone has bought me? Through their/others approval of me, accepting me, getting the men to desire me for sex and women
to be jealous of me for outshining them or I get jealous when others outshine
me in beauty and hence will compete even harder so I don’t feel left out/the
outcast/ugly one etc. and what is all this? FEAR! Fear of whom? FEAR OF MYSELF.
As a parent, like many other parents, I am busy projecting
this fear to my child, so that they can also fear themselves. I never wanted to
see how it is that I am responsible for instilling this fear in my child, how
SELFISH of me as a parent? How selfish of us as parents to do this to our
children? What’s even worse is that we choose not to see how it is exactly that
we do this while it is right in front of our eyes, as daily routine, so clear,
but we choose to remain blind by playing by the rules as this is what we accept
and allow as normal. Is fear normal? NO
I have several more DIMENSIONS of beauty to write about. I shall
do this as I unfold/untangle myself from within and as the beauty system. Walk with
for more.
Day 44-SELF FORGIVENESS
AND SELF COMMITMENT STATEMENTS: Part 2
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