Embrace your Face…

My Mother was a true natural beauty; perfectly symmetrical with gorgeous full lips, enticing Big Brown eyes, lush lashes & in her younger years, a rockin body… Blessed was she, no doubt about it!

I on the other hand, never felt so lucky growing up partly because of my heart-shaped crooked mouth and freckles. I can recall feeling anything but beautiful when studying my reflection in the mirror, that is, until I discovered the magic of cosmetics especially lip liner and foundation which hid those freckles (which I now realize are perfectly adorable). Now at 49 I realize these imperfections are what make me interesting looking and authentic.

I’m not quite sure my Mother felt the same way due to the fact anytime she’d see me without a full face of makeup she’d make the remark “why didn’t you put on your face today?” I have to admit my heart sank each time I heard this. It took me close to 40 years to conjure up the courage to finally speak up and so the last time she made this remark, I walked into the room and she said “why didn’t you put your face on?” …For which I replied, “Mom, this is my face, and I feel beautiful!”

by Angela C. Ragosa

Why do women hide their real age?

by Vera Chidi-Maha

When it comes to the issue concerning a man and a woman, the intrigues involved cannot be overemphasized. Especially when they are both romantically inclined a lot is really involved. They try to impress each other with everything within their reach. They try to look and act good just to get the other party to fall deeper and deeper in love. Then comes a time in the relationship when the man needs or wants to know how old the lady he is involved is really is.

Dear Every Woman I Know, Including Me…

I feel the following article articulates with such precision  how many of us as women verbally butcher & emotionally assault ourselves into depression over each and every line on our face,  & the number on the scale. I have found myself at times literally crying while in the shower after weighing myself; now how sad is that! It is without a doubt time to stop emotionally & physically abusing ourselves and begin embracing the beautiful human beings we are… I hope you enjoy the article.

There’s never a better time to start loving yourself than right now. Author Amy Bloom tells women everywhere how.

By Amy Bloom

A few years ago, I was at a lunch for the launch of a TV show called How to Look Good Naked. (Do I need to say that the host was a slim gay man and the soon-to-be-almost-naked were all women? Can we even imagine a show in which men try to improve their appearance before the big reveal in the boudoir?) The middle-aged woman sitting next to me almost spat out her white wine. "How to look good naked?" she said. "Wear clothes!"
I wish that helped. But after 58 years of being female, I’ve come to the conclusion that a healthy, positive body image is hard to find, and neither caftans nor liposuction nor photoshopping is the answer.

Stop Being So Hard on Yourself

From the June 2008 issue of O

By Valerie Monroe

Everywhere we turn, there are images of gorgeous women, constant reproaches to the reality of us, with our real bodies and un-Photoshopped flaws. We’re not buying it anymore. We’re tackling the critics—from the parents and teachers who favor the prettiest children to look-ist employers to the most hurtful of all, that nasty, catty girl who lives right behind our eyes.

Not long ago, I sat in my office, chatting with a friend. “I want to talk to you about your face,” I said. “Oh my God,” she said, looking stricken. “Do I need a facelift?” (I forget that people think I have a right to be openly critical of their appearance because I’m a beauty editor.) No, no, I said; I only wanted to know what she saw when she looked in the mirror.

It doesn’t interest me

“It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

metamorphosis

“Any transition serious enough to alter your definition of self will require not just small adjustments in your way of living and thinking but a full-on metamorphosis.”
— Martha Beck

Movie Quote…

Sometimes the brightest light comes from the darkest of places.

-from the movie Puncture

How to Handle the Narcissists in Your Life

Photo: Thinkstock

By Martha Beck: O, The Oprah Magazine

Esteem is a warm, accepting quality, and directing it toward oneself is a fine thing. However, not all aspects of human behavior merit this cozy welcome. Positive-thinking guides rarely draw the distinction between healthy self-acceptance and the malignant narcissism characteristic of tyrants who dominate relationships and households, if not entire nations. Think of someone in your life who seems to have an abundance of self-satisfaction. Now think about the way you feel after an interaction with this person. If you feel warm, nourished, and valued, you’ve probably encountered someone with healthy self-esteem. But if the conversation leaves you feeling ashamed, confused, self-doubting, or invisible, break out the red flags. It’s highly likely you’re dealing with a narcissist. Asian philosophy might call narcissism the “near enemy” of real self-esteem; something that looks like the genuine article but has opposite results. Learning to spot narcissists and deal with their destructive behavior can save you the world of hurt that awaits anyone who mistakes the near enemy for a friend.

Becoming the Person You Were Meant to Be: Where to Start…

We begin to find and become ourselves when we notice how we are already found, already truly, entirely, wildly, messily, marvelously who we were born to be. The only problem is that there is also so much other stuff, typically fixations with how people perceive us, how to get more of the things that we think will make us happy, and with keeping our weight down. So the real issue is how do we gently stop being who we aren’t? How do we relieve ourselves of the false fronts of people-pleasing and affectation, the obsessive need for power and security, the backpack of old pain, and the psychic Spanx that keeps us smaller and contained?
Here’s how I became myself: mess, failure, mistakes, disappointments, and extensive reading; limbo, indecision, setbacks, addiction, public embarrassment, and endless conversations with my best women friends; the loss of people without whom I could not live, the loss of pets that left me reeling, dizzying betrayals but much greater loyalty, and overall, choosing as my motto William Blake’s line that we are here to learn to endure the beams of love.
Oh, yeah, and whenever I could, for as long as I could, I threw away the scales and the sugar.
When I was a young writer, I was talking to an old painter one day about how he came to paint his canvases. He said that he never knew what the completed picture would look like, but he could usually see one quadrant. So he’d make a stab at capturing what he saw on the canvas of his mind, and when it turned out not to be even remotely what he’d imagined, he’d paint it over with white. And each time he figured out what the painting wasn’t, he was one step closer to finding out what it was.
You have to make mistakes to find out who you aren’t. You take the action, and the insight follows: You don’t think your way into becoming yourself.

At The Door

Stalk the Clock

Shake off the Shock

Highs and Lows

And So it Goes…

Sleepless Black

The papers Stack

Words that Spill

While she Heals

Break, she May…

Vows to Stay

In the Game

Without the Shame.

Layoff

Calling Him Back from Layoff

by Bob Hicok

I called a man today. After he said

hello and I said hello came a pause

during which it would have been

confusing to say hello again so I said

how are you doing and guess what, he said

fine and wondered aloud how I was

and it turns out I’m OK. He

Albatross

The Albatross

by Kate Bass

When I know you are coming home

I put on this necklace:

glass beads on a silken thread,

a blue that used to match my eyes.

I like to think I am remembering you.

I like to think you don’t forget.

The necklace lies heavy on my skin,

it clatters when I reach down

to lift my screaming child.

I swing her, roll her in my arms until she forgets.

The beads glitter in the flicker of a TV set

as I sit her on my lap

and wish away the afternoon.

I wait until I hear a gate latch lift

the turn of key in lock.

I sit amongst toys and unwashed clothes,

I sit and she fingers the beads until you speak

in a voice that no longer seems familiar, only strange.

I turn as our child tugs at the string.

I hear a snap and a sound like falling rain.

Walking Wounded

 

“The real voyage of discovery consists

not in seeking new landscapes

but in having new eyes.”

by

Marcel Proust

 

I consider myself to be among the walking wounded (as I believe… we all are)… and if we as a people have never felt the infinite void caused by losing a loved one… perhaps a Sister, Brother, Mother or Father or quite possibly, your Mother and your Father within a span of six months as I recently did…or you’ve not yet felt the sting of personal failure, the humility while asking for financial assistance, or needing a handout of food and/or possibly food stamps in order to feed your belly that’s been empty with an ache which seems like an eternity… or had to ask for help feeding yourself because you’re too sick to lift the fork. We all get a turn if we’re blessed to live long enough and that’s a fact… I