Superficiality – Happiness is an Inside Job
Superficiality – Happiness
is an Inside Job
The Peninsula Woman
May – Jun 2004
Imagine a woman…… A woman who believes her body is enough, just as it is. Who celebrates her body and its rhythms and cycles as an exquisite resource. A woman who celebrates the accumulation of her years and her wisdom. Who refuses to use precious energy disguising the changes in her body and life. ~
Patricia Lynn Reilly
Recently I have noticed a tremendous surge in the media on cosmetic surgery, extreme physical makeovers, teeth whitening, botox, and weight loss programs. This advertisement is specifically designed to help you believe “if you are physically transformed and beautiful, you will be happier and more desirable.”
If this were true, some of the most beautiful people in the world would be happy and content, and there would be no reason to do anything else in life. What history shows us – is just the opposite.
The Problem Explained
What is happening? Why is it happening? We have always been a culture that worries obsessively about changing the shape of our bodies. We are led to believe that the fat on our bodies indicates weakness and we can control our lives by controlling our bodies. Body esteem and self-esteem are very closely linked. Our obsessive worries about body inadequacy interfere with many of our relationships and, in the end, help to create a distorted sense of our true selves.
Our culture has lost its core values. People become focused on the Superficial when a society loses its core values and principles. Many of our society’s values and rituals have become lost. When a culture loses its values, individuals have to fight for a sense of what is important to them. We are now forced to decide for ourselves what is truly important. We live in a fast-paced information-hungry society. We can receive information at the touch of a button on our computers. But information can become overloaded, and our poor sensitive systems need a break!!! Superficiality is a result of an overloaded Information society. Because you cannot absorb all the information you are bombarded with daily, you are forced to choose the easiest thing of all, Superficiality.
Value Yourself-Taking back your Power
With summer just around the corner, this topic will predictably increase in the media, and frantic women everywhere will, once again, be running around starving themselves to get into their bathing suits.
The National Eating Disorder Association says: “Media messages about body shape and size will affect how we feel about ourselves and our bodies only if we let them. When we effectively recognize and analyze the media messages that influence us, we remember that the media’s definitions of beauty and success do not have to define our self-image or potential.”
I have put together five things you can do to counter this media frenzy and help you put your life into perspective.
1) Love yourself exactly the way you are. The pressure you put on yourself about what you “should be” is counterproductive and can lead to many psychological disorders.
2) Don’t believe everything you read! Not all information is true. Certainly, some of the information that you read will work for you. Take your power back and decide what is true for you!
3) Read something other than the popular media. “Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel – by Jean Kilbourne” is an excellent book on how advertising sways us, even when we don’t want to be swayed.
4) Refuse to accept criticism from anyone about yourself. Tell others that criticism harms self-esteem and poisons your love for yourself and them.
5) Take time for Sacred Ritual. Determine what represents a sacred ritual for you. Whether that is taking a walk, sitting in the garden, listening to music, working with a Spiritual Counselor, or going for a drive in the car. Conscious rituals remind us that we are sacred, important, and unique. But most of all, value yourself first.
Remember, “Happiness is an Inside Job!”
