I was recently published in a book called, "365 Ways to Connect with Your Soul" with 200 other contributors. This book has so many different ideas on how to connect with your soul, and live a more joyful, thriving life. I wrote 3 pieces for the book, and one piece was called Beauty Alchemy. Beauty Alchemy is a term i use to describe a philosophy or sacred process. It has been a major life lesson and a beautiful discovery for me. I am honored to share something so dear to my heart with others, and i hope the information finds the right people, who it may be most useful to and bring comfort to. For my Beauty Alchemy piece, and many other inspiring writing and suggestions on how to more easily connect with your soul, you can get the book here:
365 Ways to Connect with Your Soul (365 Book Series) (Volume 1)
Below is a more in depth version of "Beauty Alchemy".
One of the most beautiful parts of regularly and consciously connecting with your soul is that eventually your perception begins to shift into that soul perspective. Walking over that bridge from “ego mind” to “soul mind” through meditation, in whatever way you do it, will start getting easier and more graceful with practice. You find more of a rhythm and ease getting to that perception and staying there longer.
In my experience, a deep shift in perspective is what healed my very negative body image i used to have. That body image i held wasn't just about my appearance, it was even a lack of awareness of what truly loving my body was and what that really means. My body image was very tied to my self-worth and that is something i know a lot of people, especially women can relate to. When you grow up with misguided cultural messages on beauty and power, you get misguided messages on where your real self-worth really stems. We often get brainwashed into believing it's our body and looks that control how we should ultimately feel about ourselves.
I think it's very important to respect the body, take care of it, and it is important to feel attractive, but your self-worth should never be only dependent on or too dependent on your physical appearance.
When i was younger I was entirely too identified with my shell and its comparison to my perceived beauty ideals, rather than with my soul’s authentic beauty. As I began seeing more from my soul’s perspective, I identified less with my physical body and gave it less power over my self-worth. Also consequently, i learned to care for my body better and appreciate my body more for what it is meant to do, be, give, and receive.
When you are criticizing your body all the time you aren't appreciating it. When you don't have a body that works properly, criticizing your body for it not looking like society's supposed beauty standards becomes vastly unimportant. My new perspective views my body as a borrowed, gifted vehicle that holds my soul. I have the responsibility to care for it to the best of my ability. I care for it and love it like it was a child or the body of anyone i loved and wanted to be healthy and feel good. If you think you are only your body, rather than a being separate but occupying it, it limits the capacity of what you can do with it and what you can do for it.
We are a soul having a physical experience, that’s what I believe. Starting to identify more with your soul is the key to truly seeing life from a soul perspective, giving way to having a more healthy and balanced perspective on the body and life as a whole. That is why I feel it is so important to start finding a way to align with and make soul contact.
Get to know the soul, your truest most potent beauty, through whatever way comes most naturally to you(writing, dancing, meditating, running, sports, singing, praying, yoga, boating, etc) Getting to know the soul and allowing that to change our day to day perspective may seem overwhelming at first, while we are so caught up in limited ideas of who we are or who we think we need to be. We all have been so conditioned in one way or another to look at ourselves and others through the ego lens, which is, we are bodies first then souls. It's the opposite really.
When you become a beauty alchemist, you basically rise from the ego minds limitations and into the soul’s limitlessness. You embody your soul perspective in a more conscious way through your mind and body. Those voices in your head and your society that tells you, you have to be smaller or larger, darker or lighter, or less or more of anything, start to lose power and get farther away from your conscious reality. You start seeing those negative voices as nonsense, the more you start tapping into your soul’s sense of reality.
When your mind aligns with your soul's viewpoint, you are asserting your power to love what is and transcend to what is possible. You start leading reality rather than letting it lead you. You begin experiencing the magic of bringing the soul’s beauty out through the physical. It will begin transcending all perceived "flaws" and imperfections. Soul perspective is beautiful. It’s full of acceptance, honor and compassion for yourself and others.
The "soul perspective" is not just limited to how you feel and what you think, but it begins there, and then you will see how it transmutes the physical dimension of your life too. Beauty in Truth, is like Art. You start seeing life as art, everything as art. You start seeing your body as art and other’s bodies as art. Art does not have to be perfect or all the same, to be beautiful.
In Tantra, the body is treated as a sacred temple, where you honor the divine soul that resides there in every cell. So everything you feed your body, say to your body, do with and to your body, or allow to be done to your body, becomes part of your soul expression or your soul repression. In my experience that is a very healthy and enlightening perspective of the body. But that perspective is still not the dominant one in our culture. So we must give that mindset more focus and attention to empower it.
The more beauty you look for, the more you will find. The more beauty you find, the more you will reflect. You will feel it and see it, and then others will too.
We can never truly receive what we don’t believe is possible. Our eyes are closed to that which we don't believe exists or is tangible. So it's important to be like children and be open to what can be. We must try and cultivate a space within us for allowing, for expansion. Meditation is really good for cultivating that space. Surrender to the creative process within you to become both the creator of beauty and a witness to it.
At that point, you will see magic happening. The Alchemy occurs. You transcend perceived limitations to beauty. You will find that your soul, body, and mind start to connect. You start feeling the way your soul exists and then you start shining that brightly in the physical. It can be a radical physical change or a subtle physical change but always a beautiful one. It can make any changes you want to make with and for your body, a more graceful process. It can also help you be more accepting of some things you may have been trying to change, but now you realize you don't want to or need to change them.
You will feel different, more radiant, and more at peace with who you are. The right people will also notice the soul’s beauty in your eyes, in the way you speak, in your smile, in the way you move, in your hips, no matter what their size. Everyone else who can’t see this, will not seem worth the effort anymore. Their power over you starts diminishing.
Your lucid soul perspective is so much stronger than that limited, judgmental ego perspective anymore. You begin seeing the power and potency that truly is within the unseen. You then give birth to it, to that soul beauty, physically, not only with your body but with your life. The way you treat your body and live life will become more balanced, beautiful, and kind. Your new perspective changes everything for the better. That has been my experience and I’m always expanding more into that still as time goes on.
This is an important and beautiful shift in perspective for all of us to make and create from. And i'm going to be so bold as to say i think it is necessary for us to make this shift to be healthier, happier, to live longer, to be better lovers, and to care for each other in a more conscious and tender way. We then feel and experience more beauty everywhere. We all have the power to be beauty alchemists in our lives.
365 Ways to Connect with Your Soul (365 Book Series) (Volume 1)
If you have made it this far... ;) Here is a few links to a few more contributors to our book. Those also writing blogs today for our #365soulbook blog tour is Aliza Bloom Robinson at http://www.divine-awakening.org/ and Cat Williford at http://catwilliford.com/
Other contributing authors and writing tomorrow for the #365soulbook blog tour is... Carolyn McGee at
http://carolynmcgee.com/, Stacy Hall at http://www.chi-to-be.com/, Gina Karas athttp://californiascrappin.com/, and Dortha Hise at http://prettysmartvaservices.com/
And a special thanks to Fiona-Louise for her blog on December 7th athttp://www.fiona-louise.com/blog-truth/do-dreams-really-manifest
I hope you check out their websites and get to know the beautiful souls behind the soulful words.