Beauty for life along with changes and imperfections
[Music]
a few years ago
i learned i had a genetic mutation that
predisposed me to breast cancer
at my doctor’s recommendation i had a
prophylactic bilateral mastectomy with
implant reconstruction
in simpler terms my breasts were
amputated
and i had implants inserted so that i
could look normal again
there were two huge problems
with all of this the implants
they made it feel like my chest was
tearing
apart from inside with every breath i
took
and i couldn’t lie down flat at night to
sleep
because of the pain so i slept
propped up surrounded by a pillow
fortress
and it cut me off from my husband
looking normal wasn’t worth this
i wanted deconstruction i needed to
breathe and sleep
comfortably i wanted to reach across the
bed to hold my husband’s hand
as i fell asleep at night but my plastic
surgeon was concerned
he was concerned about the impact that
removing the implants
that my appearance would have on my life
it brought up a few major questions
if i was flat and scarred
would my husband still find me
attractive
and want to be with me what would my
family say
would my friends still want to hang out
with me or would my new body make them
uncomfortable
this choice between the implants
and looking normal or being comfortable
in my own body
came with a potentially profound cost
of connection and this is an incredibly
vulnerable
position to be in
but i said yes i had the implants
removed
because my health is more important than
someone else’s
opinion about what makes me
beautiful
so what does my story have to do with
you
well changes in our appearance can be
hard
regardless of what they are they can
make you question and doubt your
attractiveness
or question the strength of your
relationships
maybe someone’s negative comments that
were said to you
years ago are still stuck
in your mind so what do you do
how do you deal with physical change
and still feel beautiful
well my goal today is big
i want to give you beauty for life and
it comes with a fairy tale
a mirror and a little bit of magic
so let’s start with what you want to get
from beauty
i propose that what you hope to get is
connection and relationships you want to
be someone that other people
want to be with so you do your best to
be attractive
and beautiful but what does that
mean what came to your mind first
was it your looks or was it your
personality
did you think about both
if you feel like this just became
another superficial conversation about
beauty
stay with me
most of you will
when asked what beauty is most of you
will tell me that it’s what’s inside
you’ll generously describe others as
beautiful based on their
personality and their actions
but you can also think of someone
as unattractive based on their
personality
and actions think about the evil queen
in snow white
you meet her as the most beautiful woman
in the land
but in the end her actions are anything
but beautiful and because of that we
never
think about her or describe her as
beautiful
inner beauty influences your perception
of outer beauty but let’s talk about you
things get complicated and they get
messy when you start to describe
yourself
and this is because you don’t see
your inner beauty and it makes you
a much harsher critic
it makes you a harsher critic because
all you see is your physical appearance
when you look in the mirror
and this inability to see
your inner beauty with your outer beauty
creates a double standard for you that
sets you up
for failure
you are human
and you were not born in a static body
to be human is to change
so you need
to change the way that you look at
yourself
and embrace a beauty philosophy that is
realistic and not
what we’ve been doing see
your energy and your body are a dynamic
duo
that make up the wholeness of your
beauty
and this duo has nothing to do
with perfection beauty
has room for imperfection
the evil queen didn’t have a talking
mirror
she leaned into her mirror and she got
lost her story
could have been radically different
if she had allowed for change with some
grace
we are not wax figures they might be
perfect
but they don’t have our spark and
you would never say i want to meet up
with a wax figure
for a cup of coffee my guess
is that you’d much rather meet up with
an imperfect friend
for that cup of coffee why well
those wax figures don’t offer any
opportunity for connection
relationships need energy
not perfection
and i get it sometimes physical change
can be overwhelming
and we do have those moments maybe
you’ve had one yourself
where you’ve looked in the mirror you’ve
seen the changes
and you’ve thought i don’t look like
myself anymore
so there’s no point in what i do
but if you do this you lose
because you’ve forgotten that there is
more to your beauty
than your body or the one thing
that you’re dissatisfied with
being unable to see your beauty
damages your ability to believe that
other people want to be with
you and that that is
terrifying because we need
connection
this fear of being unattractive
usually creates a few different
reactions
we try to find a solution to whatever it
is
that we think is a problem
we might try to pull back from our
relationships maybe
you refuse to be in the family photo
or you do a combination of the two
i want to share a story with you
back in the 1960s there was a 19 year
old actor who was starting to go bald
and he was convinced that
everything in his life was over
acting women everything
was over and to give you some context
this was long before the hashtag
bald is beautiful back in the 1960s
balding was something that
maybe you tried to hide whatever
the perception was at the time he
was terrified of the change that was
happening to him
and he started slouching to hide his
baldness
he was ashamed and this shame and
embarrassment
was killing his career as an actor
because he needed to be
confident and to stand up straight and
to portray
him
well luckily he had some friends who
genuinely
cared about him they cared about the
potential that they saw in him
and so they staged an intervention this
intervention
helped him regain his confidence and it
changed the course of his life
in the last 60 years sir patrick stewart
has been knighted for his acting and
gotten married
he found career success and love
we got captain picard and professor x
everybody won
it was never the baldness that would
have held him back
it was shame
and i get it nobody
wants to feel less than they were
but part of that is how you choose to
think
about beauty
so how do you do this
well first of all i want you to know
that you have more control over how
people perceive you
and connect with you then you think
so in order to feel beautiful
in the midst of imperfection or change
i have a secret i want to share with you
i want you to pretend that your mirror
is magic and ask it to show you
all of you step back
from your mirror so that you can see the
wholeness
of your beauty when you look in the
mirror
and you ask it to show you all of you
i want you to ask yourself
what energy do i bring into the world
how do i make others feel what
makes me me look for this
when you look in the mirror
this will make all the difference in the
world
it will allow you to
see those changes that have happened but
still
recognize that inner beauty as well
it allows you to be a whole
person and that is what people
fall in love with
as you start doing this
you will hear voices putting you down
but those voices aren’t from the mirror
that’s your inner critic so when you
have bad days
and that inner critic pops up because it
will
i want you to
write down one thing on a note card that
is beautiful about you
and keep it close to your mirror and
when that bad day comes
i want you to take it out read it look
in the mirror
and ask it to show you all of you
see your inner and outer beauty
and if someone else says something
negative about you
remember that you don’t have to accept
everything that is given to you
you can choose to let some of it go
when i lost my breasts and
my clothing didn’t look the same and i
was questioning why it even mattered
what i looked like or what i did anymore
i ended up finding heart
i looked in the mirror i chose
to see all of myself and i adapted
my personal style to include things that
i hadn’t really worn before such as off
the shoulder blouses
and it made it much easier to let go of
the things that i loved
and could no longer wear i discovered
that being flat doesn’t stop
me from being me
and i’ve become friends with my mirror
i ask it to show me all of me and day by
day
i’ve learned to feel beautiful
and whole again
with scars and without breasts
but i had to step back and adapt your
beauty
never leaves you
you just need to learn
to step back from your mirror ask it to
show you all of you
and accept what you see as beautiful
i am beautiful with my imperfections
and because i believe i’m beautiful i
can believe my husband
when he walks in the door and says hello
beautiful do you believe the people in
your life who tell you that you
are beautiful
beauty doesn’t lie in perfection
it lies in wholeness and a willingness
to find heart
when change inevitably happens
so take a step back from your mirror
be you and be
that imperfect and beautiful friend
that says yes to meeting for coffee
thank you
you