How do you define beauty? Is it a young, physically fit person with classic features, or is it an octogenarian working in their garden with a smile on their face?
They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and in today’s culture of acceptance and a drive toward being your authentic self, beauty has a broader meaning than ever before.
September 9 is International Beauty Day. This day was established by the Russian section of the International Committee of Aesthetics and Cosmetology to set the standards in beauty and spa therapy. While that is important, and those of us who enjoy a good spa day appreciate their efforts, International Beauty Day can mean so much more.
How to make the most of international beauty day
If you’d like to make this day have more meaning in your life and learn to be more appreciative of holistic beauty, then the following tips can help you achieve your beauty goals.
Find beauty elsewhere. Too often, beauty focuses on physical appearance. On this day, look for beauty everywhere. In the kindness of a stranger, the flight of a bird, the architectural magnificence of a spider’s web, the opportunities for beauty are infinite and go so far beyond the mirror.
Find physical beauty in yourself. Too often we, especially women, mentally beat ourselves up for not looking the way we think we should. A few extra pounds here, a wrinkle there, a crooked tooth–all of these little things become exaggerated in our minds, and we never stop criticizing.
Take a break from the negatives today and fill your head with the positives. There has to be something you love about the way you look; is it your eye color, the curl of your hair, the strength of your legs?
Find the things that make you happy you’re you and proud of the way you look and fill your head with compliments about these characteristics.
Make someone else feel beautiful. Find a reason to compliment someone else, or many other people, and try to use the word beautiful. “That dress is beautiful.” Or, “I think it’s just beautiful the way you helped that person.” Spread the love and brighten someone else’s day.
Create a plan for future beauty. Health and happiness are intrinsically tied to beauty. Developing a life plan that boosts your health and happiness will instantly make you feel more beautiful, and you’ll appear more beautiful to others.
Focus on healthy choices, quality sleep, natural products, spending time with loved ones, and doing things you enjoy.
Introduce yourself to nature. This might be a reintroduction for some, but nature abounds with beauty, and joyful moments are found at every turn. If you can, go outside and walk in a park or a natural area. If you’re not able to get out, sit by a window and watch birds play in the wind currents.
There’s a beautiful simplicity to nature and the cycle of things. Learning to embrace it, and your role in it, expands your capacity to exude beauty.
Treat yourself. Treat yourself to something that you feel is tied to beauty. It may be a new scarf, an all-natural beauty product, an orchid, or it might be spending time working on an art project.
Give yourself permission to have some little treats, and spend time doing the things you love. The more you love, the more beautiful your world becomes.
To put it simply
This year, make international beauty day about more than physical beauty, make it about you. Beauty is all around us and inside of us if we just know where to look.
Don’t get too caught up in what the latest influencers are telling you is beautiful, define it for yourself, and then go out and live that beautiful life you dream of.
Start making your life more beautiful by focusing on the little miracles that happen around you every day. Skip the negative internal dialogue and create a positive one, then spread that positivity around to others by complimenting them.
Create a healthy lifestyle goal, and then work toward it with a strong focus on connecting with nature and natural products. Try rewarding yourself for simply being you. You’re beautiful, and you deserve it.