Where Can You Find Your Natural Beauty?

We have evolved from the animal kingdom into the most intelligent (so we think) life form on the planet, and yet it seems that we are so unhappy with our exte
al appearance that we will go to sometimes ridiculous lengths to become attractive.

In the animal kingdom, choosing a mate revolves around looking healthy and fit, showing good breeding potential, and being in the right place at the right time.

In the human kingdom, choosing a mate has become so complicated that we no longer rely on the staples of health and breeding potential, but now included in the list of desirable features is youth, vitality, beauty, wealth, sense of humour, status, power, consideration and so on....

We spend an inordinate amount of money each year, billions of pounds or dollars, buying products which promise to make us look younger, more attractive, or more vital. We indulge in treatments ranging from mud baths, to steam rooms, and oil massages, all in an attempt to make us look and feel better. We use tanning beds, barbers, hairdressers, waxing, face masks, plucking, dyeing, manicures, pedicures, make up, and not to mention the enormous amount of money spent each year on the dieting industry.

We literally devote huge quantities of time and effort to our exte
al beauty, at the same time as ignoring our internal world, where beauty comes for free.

How often do we actually spend time thinking about our bodies? It is an incredible machine that is a complex system of networks and inter-actions that work hard to keep us alive and healthy.

We take our bodies for granted. Whilst we are splashing out major amounts of money in an attempt to stop the tides of time for example, do we ever stop to think that if we treated our body with a little more respect, perhaps it would age less quickly of its' own accord?

Until fairly recently in our evolution, the only drink we had was water or the moisture that we gained from eating fruits and vegetables. Now we drink soda, coffee, tea, and alcohol, and wonder why we are dehydrated. Dehydration is one of the principle reasons that skin ages.

We have the choice to eat natural, healthy foods, but we chose to eat processed foods which add very little value to our system, so the body has to work really hard to keep us going. This prevents it from maintaining the repair and regeneration systems which means that the body ages faster.

If you add to that the sugar, additives, toxins, pesticides and herbicides that the body has to contend with on a daily basis, is it any wonder that we are ageing more rapidly than ever before? With ageing comes illness, fatigue, and a breakdown of the systems of the body.

We have only looked at food and water here, but there are many other factors that contribute to ageing and illness- smoking, drugs, stress, pain, over-eating, under-eating, sun- damage, radiation, lack of exercise, lack of sleep, self hatred and depression to name but a few.

Beauty is an inside job. If we could clean out our insides and respect our bodies better, we would soon discover that they would function a whole lot better. We would need to stop plastering chemically laden make up and lotions onto our bodies to enable them to get well, but once we begin to become aware of the harm we are currently doing to our bodies, we could kick start the repair and regeneration systems and this would enhance our natural beauty.

Of course, being beautiful is also about being happy, loving, and kind, and even the prettiest person who is mean and spiteful loses their perceived beauty.

Beauty is such a personal issue. We are all beautiful just as we were created. We have been persuaded that we need to be made up, suited and booted to be attractive, but this can be challenged in the face of personal growth. Most of the hardest lessons of growth are about accepting yourself exactly as you are, warts and all. Finding beauty in what is. Being beautiful exactly as you are.

Written by Caroline Nettle

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