Beauty will not save me

I mean, no this one

Hello you all!

Again thank you, THANK YOU, for everything that is happening here.  Your comments are touching me and make me think.  Sometimes I make mistakes, I think again etc. (isn’t it Michelle?Super!)  It’s incredibly rich… Thank you!

This is a post that I have been trying to write for a very long time (yes like many of my posts.)  We started tackling it with respect to beauty and cosmetics, but I have advanced another step lately.

Yes, there’s been this photo on IG, showcasing me without makeup, because I’ve stopped wearing any for a few months.  It’s not final, neither militant, I still like makeup a lot, but as usual I like to listen to myself and this time I don’t feel the need.

There was also this deep questioning about the fashion world and a conversation I had with Geraldine Dormoy about how sometimes this high fashion world caused unwanted feelings within her.  Why is there so much wickedness in this world which is suppose to create beauty?

There was also, about 2 years ago (yes it goes back far), the comment from someone close “this blog, it’s great and all is great, but it will never replace the love I never gave you.”  And Bam.  It was tough but at the same time so correct.  Thank you again.

So yes, there was a whole cluster of questions, of wishes, about beauty, about things that should have a space, a fate and are taking a whole other one… why?

Words spawned from a conversation with my naturopath.  She works with Bach flowers (about the power and the memory of flowers) so right there we are at some next level shit and I can’t encourage you to do it so much that I don’t even know myself if it works “in general.”  It’s just that having conversations with this woman are making me do great forward leaps every time.  Therefore I visit her from time to time when I have issues that I can’t resolve alone.

In short we get to the tail end of a session where I dropped it all on the table, my recent changes (you know most of them), my troublesome relation with money, to my health, the rivers… and she tells me:

“Consequently if I summarize it, you are functioning like this, this and that… and then this and this happened with your family.  Between those events, there is an exile, a loss of landmark, of roots, and we can admittedly say “lots of suffering” and therefore a longing to fix it all.  So you are looking for beauty… is that it ?!

-… (Weeping coming)

– But this so called beauty that you wear with makeup or clothing, all this “wearable” beauty, with these codes that are not necessarily yours…

In short all that you invest on the surface, does not fix, can’t repair what is deep inside.  What you are doing on one end doesn’t do anything on the other.  Do we agree?

And if you aren’t wearing makeup anymore or stopped filming people doing this ritual and explore more their intimacy, it certainly is because you have unconsciously understood it already.”

Oh whaaaa… THANK YOU, THANK YOUOUOUOU! I have had already understood this need to repair, while observing myself and so many people around me who are obsessed with this “surface” beauty. I have had already understood the deep woods, notably narcissique ones, woods of ones’ image. Though, i never understood, neither it was coming from so far, nor… it would not repair anything. I mean deeply. And since it does not repair anything, and that I did not know it, I could keep going on and on and on… without being saved.

All this to tell you that sometimes the desires that animate ourselves in a crazy powerful way, too powerful, are hints of another desire, another grief, another need.  And as my mum says “nothing replaces nothing.”  Therefore beauty is vital, yes, but it’s nice when it has it’s rightful spot, not when it generates a self-destructing desire (ok yes lets accept these 400 new video contracts even though you are exhausted… it’s a must), not when it generates a perpetual frustration (I must have this €4000 jacket, absolutely must have it, I will be so pretty with it, you can’t understand…) or even feed falling out of love with yourself (I would be so much prettier if I lost 12kilos, 2 ribs and a few wrinkles, wouldn’t I?) etc.

So I am not saying that I no longer care about colors and beautiful clothes… and I thank this kind of beauty to lead so far into myself. But with fewer holes in my pocket and good health, I will really be able to say that I know how “to take care of myself.”  Yes, yes.  I still would love to inhabit myself completely, from deep down to the very surface and why not help others to reconnect it all just like with Melissa. It’s just that I don’t feel the excitement around those desires anymore, I no longer have this “I must have it” frenzied state.  And I swear.  It’s amazing!  Let’s invest in psychoanalyst (so much less expansive than a €4000 jacket) and self love.  With or without flowers… no matter the path.

Come on, love to you all!  And thank you again.

 

There is7 years / Bouche 3 comment(s)

3 comment(s)

  • Dearest Mai. It strikes me again and again. Being your one boss, being freelance, your products and values changes as you change yourself. Being a freelance designer I have clients which logos I have changed so many times, during the years, to let it reflect who they are ‘now’. A client have had a rosa colored logo for the last 12 years, but as she had changed from single girl to a mature woman and mother, we have gone from light Barbie pink to dusty deep grey-ish powder rose, and all the light pinks in between that. It is a beautiful journey. Love, Louise

  • It is about taking good care of yourself most of all, diving into this journey about really getting to know what life means to you/ what makes you happy/ how to deal with great loss/ how you can connect – in many new ways/ how to do good work – what you are good at (maybe without knowing it yet, although you are good at quite many things already!) and how to refine that.

    That is what I hear most out of your post.

    And I find that I haven’t done it in a good way often too. Rewarding myself with an expensive, soft, big, colorful pullover for example (shitty example, but still) when my account is low? What’s the point? I feel good wearing it a little – and then the surface starts to get brittle again and I am right where I started. And have even less money…

    I don’t work in the fashion industry but asthetics are very important to me, or might I better say beauty. And that does NOT mean perfect makeup or a perfect outfit, on the contrary, it is more about nature, true nature. It just brings me joy working with shapes, colors and scents and so on. BUT: it only resonates and lets me do good work (or create a nice surrounding at home), when I am truly aware, when I am “home” in myself.

    Have you ever heard of the term “highly sensitive persons”? It was eyeopening and actually relaxing to read about it.

    I enjoy your courage to open up about your change. It really makes your blog stand out to me.

    Thank you for being such a wonderful and inspiring woman – by being you.
    Wishing you a wonderful new year, Mai

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