Written by: Kirsten Johansen, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
These simple-but-not-easy practices support me in maintaining a healthy, harmonious relationship with my appearance such that it is not tied to my intrinsic value. I do not seek to fill myself with affirmations of beauty but rather to neutralize my appearance, allowing me to face the world and make my unique contribution to it with confidence and humility.
I sat in the warm evening air on the beach in Cambodia, nearing the end of a magical trip through one of my favorite places in the world. My partner and I were having one of many conversations with the young people who sold trinkets and woven bracelets to earn money and practice the English they learned during the latter part of their school day. At only ten years old, she admired the light skin on my right arm that was not yet sleeved with a tattoo. She touched it wistfully. This had become commonplace, the demonstrable worship of lighter skin. Having been separated from my luggage for several days, my search for a bare minimum of beauty products revealed that many of them, the majority in fact, had ingredients to bleach the skin. Even in the rural countryside, the billboards promoting these products doubled and tripled down on the message that lighter skin is better. On this particular night, my partner, his skin a similar tone to hers, had enough of the light-skin worship and challenged this intelligent child to say one simple sentence to sell the brown braided bracelet amongst her selection, “Brown Is beautiful.” She thought long and hard and furrowed her little brow. She wanted to sell the bracelet but did not want to repeat these words.
Eventually, commerce won, and she begrudgingly repeated the phrase walking away looking not like she’d made a sale but rather dejected, as she’d sacrificed her integrity. She in no way believed the words to be true. I lamented the tragedy of her inability to behold her beauty. Accept herself as she is. As if we were different, she and I. We weren’t so very different. Not much at all, really.
After arriving home in Seattle, I swiped through the many photos taken on the trip and paused at a selfie. I was surrounded by one of the seven wonders of the world, Angkor Wat. It was not the marvel of the largest religious structure in the world that drew my eye; it was my eyes. Or rather, my eyelids. They looked old and droopy, a sure sign of the aging I had been fending off since I was 35 when I got my first four cosmetic surgery procedures ten years prior.
I filed the photo in the evidence file. I brought it to my cosmetic dermatologist to demonstrate this problem that required fixing. Six months later, I was home from surgery, unable to see, in pain, and relieved that the offending sliver of skin and surrounding fine lines had been removed via scalpel and CO2 laser. My fight for a youthful face and thin body would continue for another five years until I had no fight left. It had, after all, been 40 years of duking it out with the beauty standard. All that I thought I could protect, make bulletproof, by maintaining a thin body with disordered eating and rigid food management. A youthful face with surgery, injections, lasers, chemical peels, and ultrasonic therapy had melted away anyway. I could not smile for the Botox and filler at the height of my consumption of these procedures. It was the perfectly ironic external manifestation of my internal suffering.
These four decades of dysmorphic discomfort in my skin belied a symptom of a more significant disease. The disease of self-hate. Thankfully, this nasty little bugger is curable. When I set about curing it, I did not know where it would lead or what life might be like, but I knew I wanted, needed, and had to create something different. A new life. Not a similar version of the same life that I had built and dismantled twice. The third time would not be the charm. Instead, I changed everything. From the inside out. With unconditional self-acceptance as my True North.
The uncoupling of my value from my appearance remains one of the greatest and most surprising gifts of my freedom practices. I did not seek it out; it arrived quietly and persistently. Decades of disordered eating morphed into mindful eating. Fifteen years of cosmetic surgeries and procedures now seem unthinkable in their invasiveness, pain, and expense. A lifetime of militant perfectionism gave way to a gentler existence where excursions into comparison are caught and righted, and self-recrimination is nipped in the bud. It all requires routine and sustained practices to break the conditioning of “not good enough.”
Step away from the mirror to change your perspective.
We are conditioned to look at ourselves in the mirror in an evaluative way. There are good and bad hair days. There are fat days and thin days. There are days when we pull our facial skin toward our ears and bemoan the loose drape on our necks. There are dad bods and bald spots and menopause bellies. These are conditioned evaluations, or valuations, of our worth connected to our appearance. They are not the truth. They can be dispelled, debunked, and left to languish.
Start by noticing evaluative thoughts and physical actions while looking in the mirror. When you notice them, step away from the mirror and do something else with your mind and body that has nothing to do with your appearance. This will disrupt the conditioning and offer a stark representation of how often you are experiencing your inner critic. With practice, you can use the mirror to shave your whiskers, moisturize your skin, and comb your hair for public life. Don’t linger—no gratuitous gazing. Just do what you need to do to take care of yourself and move on with the essential contributions of the day. Your human value and your appearance have nothing to do with each other.
Turn off your video and gain focus.
Those three dots in the corner of your Zoom video offer the option of hiding your self-view. Once turned off, you can focus on the person or people to whom you are listening and speaking without the distraction of seeing yourself. Not only will this remove the mirror from the equation, but it will allow you to be fully present to what you are doing and the others with whom you are interacting. Sure, you need to remind yourself every so often that you are on video. Try not to pick your nose, eat ferociously, or roll your eyes as someone asks a question already answered. But do get loose and be natural. The narcissistic gaze and catastrophic criticism of our outer shells can only hamper true creativity. Your appearance is the least exciting thing about you. Trust me.
Stop weighing your body and reclaim your humanity.
The number of pounds, stones, or kilos reflected to you when you step on the body scale is but a number. Data that you do not need. Not right now, and perhaps not ever. Unless there is a specific medical reason to be weighed by your healthcare provider, it is your right to decline by simply saying, “I don’t weigh.” One could argue that making peace with the number is important. One could also argue that creating this metric, which sticks like gum in your hair and requires mental gymnastics to detach yourself from, is an arguably undeserving place to spend your energy. Leave the tape measure to the tailor making your bespoke suit, should you need a bespoke suit, that is. And lastly, ignore the arbitrary bits of fabric embossed with numbers and letters with no consistent standard sewn into the collars and waistbands of the garments you use to clothe your body. They have no bearing on how funny you are. Being funny is far more valuable and important than being a size “whatever". Wear what fits you and is comfortable on your body. Pull your shoulders back, level your chin, crack a joke, chat up a stranger. It will make you feel better and will spread joy to others.
Try nudity and shed more than your clothes.
Is there a nudist club or beach in your area? The lack of clothing, accessories, makeup, and coiffed hair has a magical effect. There is no indication of wealth, style, education, professional station, or curated image. It all disappears when one is naked. You connect or don’t, based solely on personality and communication. Self-consciousness slips away when everyone is nude. Your eyes will behold so many different bodies from every possible vantage point that appearance-based value will disappear. The sun and breeze on your body will feel like freedom. Your Body is truly your first, best and last partner in life.
You are not alone if a nudist beach, club, or event is simply a bridge too far for you. Give it a try at home. Sleep nude. Spend a few minutes a day naked. First alone. Then with your partner if you have one. Then perhaps in front of a friend with whom you are traveling. You can even tell them you are uncoupling your value from your appearance and hope they don’t mind that you will sometimes be nude. You never know; you may just inspire them to begin their own journey of self-acceptance.
Welcome Gratitude and Release Regret
Gratitude is the great disruptor. As you practice uncoupling your value from your appearance, you will begin to notice the frequency and possibly the ferocity with which your inner critic drags your appearance through the mud. When it tells you that your face looks too saggy and wrinkled, thank your face for being able to smile. Your smile lightens your mood and that of anyone who catches a glimpse of your chompers. If the little bugger tells you your body is too large, thank your body for its ability to hug your loved ones. I bet it feels snuggly to hug you. If it chides you for yielding to gravity and longs for the firmer, higher body of your youth, thank it for still being alive to carry you through this life with the invaluable wisdom you have gained. Aging is fortuitous. When you get to the end of this life, warning or none, old age, or early departure, you will never recoup the opportunity cost of rejecting your body, wishing it was different, and entertaining the inner critic. It is a bore. Eject it from the party and thank your body for letting you dance with abandon.
Kirsten Johansen, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
There is a path to freedom; a path to the life you deserve and desire. As a resilient survivor of many of life’s challenges, Kirsten Johansen is a creative, intuitive, seasoned guide. She teaches tools, strategies and practices that center your beliefs about yourself, and the development of unconditional positive regard, to get to the source of the stubborn thought, feeling, and behavior patterns that cause you suffering and keep you from living your happiest and most authentic life. Her writing, radio show and coaching practice reflect her passion for radically honest and vulnerable storytelling that builds a bridge of connection for humans to heal and be released into the freedom of unconditional self-acceptance.
