Learning to live with the physical self

[Fleur de Frost]

If I perceive any aspect of my physical self as 'off' - makeup, hair, whatever - I subconsciously push happiness away. Negative attitudes become my default. People around me can clearly tell something is wrong. What's worse, I want nothing to do with spirituality. It's like I won't allow myself to experience beauty in the universe if I'm not beautiful.

More of the issue arises when I actually do like the way I look. When I feel attractive, I am so gung-ho to say, "Yup! This is me! This is who I am! I'm beautiful so I can finally feel the beauty in life again." I flip flop between disassociating and associating with my appearance when it's convenient.

Where's the neutral thought process? How do reach the part of ourselves that cares about our physical 'vessels', but not enough to judge it as attractive or unattractive? Can that balance ever exist?

Thank you so much for your help!

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by Fleur de Frost

If I perceive any aspect of my physical self as 'off' - makeup, hair, whatever - I subconsciously push happiness away. Negative attitudes become my default. People around me can clearly tell something is wrong. What's worse, I want nothing to do with spirituality. It's like I won't allow myself to experience beauty in the universe if I'm not beautiful.

More of the issue arises when I actually do like the way I look. When I feel attractive, I am so gung-ho to say, "Yup! This is me! This is who I am! I'm beautiful so I can finally feel the beauty in life again." I flip flop between disassociating and associating with my appearance when it's convenient.

Where's the neutral thought process? How do reach the part of ourselves that cares about our physical 'vessels', but not enough to judge it as attractive or unattractive? Can that balance ever exist?

Thank you so much for your help!

By being ok with how you feel rather than push away how you feel. You are being you even as you associate or disassociate, so allowing and acceptance begins with how you feel and wish to be first and foremost.

Your inner judge will arise at points to let go of what aspects don't fit you. The neutral point is often when you no longer have attachment to what you feel and how you wish to be in yourself. You can just be the way you want to be.

Don't forget we are a whole creative vessel so how you wish to create yours is your call and its about your individual self and expression.

You cant ignore any part of you, so just be ok with how you feel and let go of what no longer fits.

[wolfgaze]

An affirmation:

I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts.
I have emotions, but I am not my emotions.
I have a body, but I am not my body.

[Mr Interesting]

Just get old. Often it takes those years of declining beauty for people to realise it realise it was just a waste of time... and it really is. Old age gives you the freedom to just be you whatever you are but you don't actually need to age to learn that.

One father said to his son 'The only thing you ever got to know is no matter who you're talking to you'll only ever be the second most important person in the world'.

Not necessarily true but it's getting to the truth of the matter. Go out there and try not caring and see how much fun it actually is. If peoples only care is what you look like and what they look like... it's not worth being there anyways.

[LadyMay]

You can't lose beauty, you can only perceive in yourself to have beauty, that is, the perception of not having beauty is an illusion because beauty is always there, we just have to be willing to see it.

Of course it probably doesn't need to be said that beauty is more than skin deep. The skin is superficial, the soul is the most important. If there's a part of your soul you are not content with then it will manifest as not being content with the skin, as the skin is an extension of the soul energies.

So in the desire to feel more ok with yourself you look for external beauty to fill that void. But the void can only be confronted deep inside and filled with love. Then you feel ok, you see yourself as ok, and it becomes about how the external reflects the internal beauty that you know to be there, rather than how the external covers up the sense of lacking that persists on the inside.

[LadyMay]

By the way, I used to hate how I look, and I really had no reason to as I was blessed with great physical appearance. I used to try and cover myself up with all the make-up and hair stuff, tons of accessories too, but in the end as my self-esteem grew and my belief in myself and my own worth became more prominent I could start to look in the mirror with less and less judgement as to how I looked. It was really just a matter of internal perception, deep down I hated myself so I hated my appearance as a reflection of that despite the fact I've often been told I have the looks of a model. But as I started to love myself more I started to notice how I loved my appearance more. But not an unhealthy vain love but rather a "wow, that person in the mirror is so beautiful, her skin shines and her eyes are so alive"... and it becomes more about what allows the beauty to show which isn't the body, but the soul.

[nummi]

If you ask yourself "what is beautiful and what is not?" and "what makes one beautiful and what makes one ugly?" Can you answer them, do you know or see the answers?
Might be you have no idea what beautiful really is.

I once had no idea...

If I feel bad about myself, I look immediately for the reasons and causes. Because I know I'm not supposed to feel bad or look ugly.
I know what makes one feel bad and ugly. I've found out. There are many things, of which at present diet is the most important.
I can see that almost every person I lay my eyes on is ugly, and this is the truth. People have no idea what really is beautiful nor can they see themselves for what they really look like.

Default and "neutral" state of everyone is beautiful. If you see yourself as not beautiful, then there's something wrong. Wrong is not that you feel bad, but what makes you feel bad.

"Feeling bad" is a way for your body to notify that something is wrong, that something needs correcting. Your sense of self has identified a problem. Now you need to identify reasons-causes. You cannot correct whatever it is if you don't know what the cause is.
It is far worse to not have this sense, like most humans as good as don't and thus get uglier by the day until they finally rid the world of their abominable self, than to have it. You have this sense for a purpose. The purpose is bettering yourself. Put it to use, find the causes-reasons and correct yourself.

Feeling bad and feeling of ugliness might not be about physical appearance. It might be about something internal (primarily the food you eat and what it does with your interior, but also other things can affect). Usually it's rather something internal, in reference to the cases where physically is beautiful but feels like is ugly.

Feeling bad is a symptom. Like an illness, essentially the same thing. It has a cause, just like illnesses do. And just like illnesses are cured if causes are addressed and corrected, so will this.

Originally Posted by Fleur de Frost

Where's the neutral thought process? How do reach the part of ourselves that cares about our physical 'vessels', but not enough to judge it as attractive or unattractive? Can that balance ever exist?

Thank you so much for your help!

There are two questions whose answers still eludes me and not one of the great minds in this forum have ever been able to answer them. They have told me which is which but have never offered an insight as to discerning for myself.

What makes negative negative and what makes positive positive? Far be it for me to say that their Truths are judgement.

Those are not wrinkles on my face, they are the writings of a language you cannot translate so please allow me. It says "We, the willing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have been doing so much for so long with so little, we are now able to do anything with nothing."
My hair in not unkempt. My head is not up my backside and I have exposed it to the winds, the winds that blow the cobwebs from my head. What you see it not unkempt it is the outward reflection of a mind that has enjoyed freedom.
They are not grey hairs, they are wisdom strands that come from Life experience.
Without my physical vessel, would I have been able to take the Journey and have a recorded journal of it? My physical vessel tells me I've been there and experienced that, it is my T-shirt that says "I've been to the third dimension and all I got was this lousy T-shirt."