Beauty resonates within and without!  Lights shine around the world with beauty!  We are all creatures of beauty.  Oftentimes we do not allow the beauty to shine out, either within us or outwardly.  The darkness overtakes us and the world, and that is what shows.  Think about war, disease, hunger, murder, rape, crime in general…so much pain and suffering in the world that we don’t see the beauty.  We see the ugliness in life so often and cannot find that interconnectedness that keeps us filled with love, life and beauty.  Beauty surrounds us!  Look deeply into someone’s eyes.  See their beauty.  See their light.   What do you see?  When you think of beauty what is the first thing you think of?  Flowers in a pretty garden, the colors of a rainbow, a serene sunset on the beach, fresh mountain snowfall…the beauty of a young child’s smile and her expression of life.  If we look around, beauty is everywhere.  Music with which we connect, dancing your song, fulfilling your life with your love and passion, enjoying your family and friends….

What about those things of which we have no control?  They may or may not include beauty.  I had a conversation with my friend recently.  She was describing that there are things that happen at a soul level that we really do not have choice about and therefore cannot choose to make different decisions around those situations that happen.  This stemmed from conversation about feeling guilt and shame.  Our Puritan culture has this guilt and shame system of beliefs that keep us oppressed about so many parts of our lives, our sensuality, our ability to be beautiful and to shine in the world.  We are taught that being beautiful is sinful in some way, that if we shine that we are being too arrogant or too bold for our own good.  Women especially have been taught this way in our system of belief.  Men can excel and shine in the world, but when women do there are considered ‘loose with men’,

Women are not respected for being beautiful, they are treated with envy, competition and hatred.  I am guilty of this as well.  I live my life with a great amount of beauty, love, joy and light and yet I still feel competition when I’m around other beautiful women.  What is that all about?  I think it is about our conditioning in the world.  The patriarchal system is threatened by the beauty of women and does not know what to do with the energy of empowerment and beauty combined.  Even we don’t know how to manage it ourselves sometimes.  So we hide ourselves for the sake of others discomfort with us.  Does that make any sense?

This is very destructive to our higher selves.  Once we see this in ourselves, we can make choices to be more conscious about how we are showing up for ourselves and make a commitment to ourselves to allow our beauty to shine to the world no matter what.  Our beauty shining is only making the world more beautiful.  You must be a strong person, however, to allow this to shine brightly.  You must not allow others’ judgments and opinions of you override your own self-thoughts of love and beauty.

This is a complex yet simple issue.  The issue is deep-seated within us and is one that requires conscious evolution.  Self-containment is not healthy in this situation.  This is what we’ve been taught, which is the opposite of full-expression.

Allow your beauty to shine through to the world.