Enriching The Inner Person

By Linda Kaye



"It's fine to want to look attractive. But it feels best when you do what seems natural, not phony, and when you start, not from a position of self-hate and insecurity, but from one of self-love and acceptance." ("Celebrate your womanhood Therapy" by Karen Katafiasz)


I
n today's world, we are flooded with perceptions of beauty, and in most cases, it seems that it is perceived as always young, always thin, and facially perfect. As I have written before, I see these perceptions as ridiculous, cruel and at times, frightening.

Beauty comes from within oneself and has absolutely nothing to do with the outer appearance. If you are beautiful inside, it shines from within you, through your eyes, through your heart and through all you do.

It takes a long of self-love and self-acceptance to come to that realization, and as you grow older, it is a vitally important thing to remember and to continue to tell yourself.

Physical beauty was never something that I felt I had. In my mind's eye, I was too fat, with an uneven nose, too small a mouth, and beady eyes. I look at photos of me as a baby and child and I see a beautiful child. If that's the case, what happened? I look at photos of myself in my 20's and early 30's, and I dislike them all. I see nothing to recommend me in them and I can't imagine what others saw in me.

Unfortunately, the person in those photos had no self-love and no self-acceptance, and it is very apparent. There is no glow coming from within me in those photos, and I look back now to see that I was not a very happy person inside during those years. There was a lot of insecurity, shyness and no awareness of who I was as a woman or what I could become. There was no knowledge of my capabilities and I had done nothing to nurture them.

I reached a turning point back in 1988. My husband at the time suffered a major emotional breakdown, and suddenly, I had no one else to depend on. I had to be the strong one, and to do so, I had to recognize my inner strengths and abilities. In order to do this, I had to learn to like myself, and to realize my own worth as a human being and person. It could not be a gradual growth; it had to be immediate.

Virtually at the same time this was happening, we became involved in the gender community. Although I first fought this involvement, I rapidly realized that I had "come home." This was an environment where everyone was fraught with fear, denial, insecurities. I could relate to the people I met, both the transgendered and the partners. I suddenly realized that I was not alone anymore, and as I nurtured my friendships and relationships with these people, I began to nurture my inner self. I learned that it was okay to be scared, to be human.

In getting to know the people of the "gender" community, I learned humbleness. In many cases, I was in the presence of greatness - people who genuinely cared for others, who spent time and money and tears in reaching out to others. It no longer mattered what they looked like, for their beauty came from within and flowed from them to encompass the rest of us. It was as though they had looked all their lives to freely love, and be loved. This was my beginning exposure to the community, and it became the most important part of my life. The support I felt enabled me to put aside the shyness; the love I felt allowed me to look inside and realize that I was worthy of being loved. They taught me their unselfishness, and it was a lesson that I hope I have been able to pass along. I also learned that happiness cannot be obtained from someone else; it has to come from inside yourself. Only you can make yourself happy, and acceptance of self is a path to finding this happiness.

When you are free to be who you really are, it becomes so much easier to give to others. You must first give to yourself, learning who you are, changing things you don't like about yourself. Behavior can be changed if you want it to be. In myself, I found things I disliked, like selfishness, lack of self-esteem, refusal to acknowledge that I was a smart, capable woman. I changed these behaviors, using others I had met as role models. It was growing up, finally.

Not everyone in this community is unselfish; not everyone is a nice person; and not everyone is likable. We are all human beings, and the diversity is not limited to race or creed or nationality. We are as diverse as we are many. No one person is exactly alike another. The difference in our community from others is that a good portion of the community is transgendered, which is its uniqueness. If you look beyond selfishness or arrogance or foolishness, there is a human being with feelings. The key is to take the time to look for who lives inside and not judge them first by outer appearance or conduct. The problem is that we don't want to take the time to look; it's easier to not bother. In doing so, we are losing out, just as they lose out if they don't take the time to look within us.

Find and nurture yourself first, then enrich your life by finding the beauty that comes from within others who touch your life.


Linda Kaye is married to Vanessa Kaye, who also writes for Transgender Forum. They have their own web site you may enjoy.

Linda and Vanessa have completed their first book together, entitled:
"Life With Vanessa"
Straight talk about integrating transgenderism into
a loving, caring and positive relationship.





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