Tag: self-care

Beauty equals…

lily

“The real sin against life is to abuse and destroy beauty, even one’s own – even more one’s own, for that has been put in our care and we are responsible for its well-being.” Katherine Anne Porter, journalist and author

I’ve been trying to position myself towards the topic of beauty for a long time now. I have been brought up in a home that did not celebrate beauty. “Beauty is only skin-deep” was probably the most often used statement about beauty that I heard as a child. It was of course used in order to show that assigning importance to looks is superficial but I think that more often than not we were quite confused about the statement. Because if it was superficial and we generally should not care about it, why did we have to look good when we were visiting relatives?

Anyhow, ‘Beauty is only skin-deep’ was a saying that many liked to sing when we were growing up and, to be honest, I see it now as more damaging to children’s understanding and appreciation of beauty than helpful in building their characters. What I do not like about this saying is that it discredits beauty per se, it discredits the need for looking after it, it discredits the need for creating it and if said too often, it basically stops us from looking after the beauty that we are surrounded with and the beautiful people that we are.

Beauty requires effort. It takes work and purposeful, regular practice to create it. It also takes knowledge and dedication. I only truly understood this through my life experiences over the last few years: growing a child, making things for our house and garden, writing and photographing. What I have learnt is that beauty thrives with care and creativity and care and creativity entail effort. Creativity is effort, it’s seeing details, it’s being able to mould materials until they take the shape that we want them to take, it’s also about learning how beauty is made and about practice. It’s about spending time and often exerting ourselves to reach the outcome that we want to have, and finally it’s about tending to it regularly, taming it’s wildness. Beauty can be shallow but usually it is not. Usually beauty is work. It’s a lot of work nurtured with love and affection.

Shouldn’t we therefore teach our children that beauty should be respected rather than disparaged?

The more affection we have towards who we are, what is within us and what is around us, the more beautiful…

everything becomes.

Uncoil your spine

time together

Over a month ago a physiotherapist very kindly and thoroughly examined my reflexes and muscle strength and firmly recommended Pilates. It was this or no hope to my overstretched and exhausted backbone. I left the physiotherapist’s room relieved. I had my signpost now – to how to look after myself and tend to my body. I don’t know about you but I feel I need a bit of direction in that matter. Over the years I got somewhat detached from my physicality as other things just were much more important. Now, three years after pregnancy and this extensive period of lifting and moving around with a child, my body decided to remind me of itself. And it’s lovely that it did. Pain is such a beautiful thing sometimes, it’s a call for personal attention, a call that we just must eventually answer, embrace and respectfully respond to.

So I did. I responded to my battered back with a respectful tone of Pilates and… a new way of life and thinking has opened before me.

It’s interesting how often our body reflects back the quirks of our personality and how at times it calls for changes in our behaviour.

A month ago I lied down for the first time on my Pilates mat and as I was stretching my back I heard the warm voice of my instructor: Less haste. You must be carried by stamina not by momentum. Do it slowly. Stretch slowly.

My whole world view collapsed. And a new one started forming.

I observed people who exercised with me. There was a man and a girl who were stretching themselves with wonderful grace, and with wonderful control and technique. I admired them. No jerky movements, no rush to complete. Just grace.

Yesterday I was there again and while with some exercises I did not struggle at all to the extent that I almost felt that just after a month they became my second nature, some other exercises really pushed me hard. The contrast between the two experiences was so strong that it shocked me. How can one thing feel so easy and the other so difficult? One muscle overworked, the other left untouched. Can they not work in congruence? My instructor bent over me again: The strength will come. Just do it. Slowly. Progressively. You’ll gain control over it.

Ever since my son was born I feel that we all have been going through a lot of growth. That together we have been uncoiling our spines to become confident and straight-walking people. His spine has been uncoiling mainly in a physical sense as he slowly progressed from being a newborn to a walking and running child, my spine has been straightening and strengthening through a lot of questioning, personal challenges and strong internal debates about my values and place and vocation in life. Perhaps the reverse will need to be happening now: as my toddler enters the questioning phase, I will need to look after the practicalities of life and the physical side of my vertebrae.

Now I know how to. By stamina, not by momentum.