Feeling Beautiful
As a child， I felt I was an ugly duckling. You know， the kid no one would play with. Who was considered odd. Too skinny. Did nothing athletic. My few friends and I constituted the outcasts at my grade school.
Later， as I began to develop a figure and a smile， I still never could shake the feeling that I was substandard. When the prettier girl got the guy， I figured that was only fair—she deserved to be happy. I didn’t.
When a guy did give me some attention， I figured he was doing me a favor， so I reciprocated obsessively until he got tired of me. Even when I looked in the mirror and saw something pleasant looking back at me， I figured it was a fluke.
Years passed， and I went through some bad relationships， up-and-down weight loss， extreme self-hatred. Then there came a time when I was living in Los Angeles， the land of “everyone looks perfect”. In my own contrariant way， I decided to differentiate myself.
I stopped coloring my hair and let all the gray show. I stopped wearing makeup. I stopped wearing clothes that I thought would make me look attractive to men. For about three years， I stripped away all the disguises I’d been using and tried to show only myself.
And I discovered something. I am beautiful.
When I couldn’t rely on my externals to communicate my beauty， I had to turn to internals. I think of internals as spiritual qualities. These qualities are linked to qualities such as love， patience， caring， listening， fun-loving， joy， creativity， peace. Since these are spiritual qualities， each one of us has access to them wherever and whoever we are.
And what was fun to realize is that no one has any more or less of these qualities. I had been thinking of myself as not having enough beauty， as being deprived somehow. But when I began to express those spiritual qualities， beauty became natural and effortless. I don’t think you can help being beautiful when you’re being loving or when you’re at peace， when you’re having fun or expressing creativity.