Sincerity is fearless. There is a great deal of beauty in someone revealing their less than flattering side. It’s one of the things that most attracts me to movies made in Great Britain. They are not afraid of their physical imperfections. We see wrinkles, the ugly cry, tummy paunches and all things that make us human.
I don’t normally add pictures or video to my social media. In part because I’m a wordsmith, not a cover model. In part because I spent my entire life being judged for the way I look. It’s a huge hurdle.
Our world has turned toward images representing our words these days.
“Everyone wants to be in pictures”, Louis B. Mayer said during the first Hollywood boom. With our social media being what it is, images are safer than words.
I love the art of words
Most fiction writers like the anonymity of the work speaking for us. I don’t like the way I look in pictures. I have plenty of self confidence to go around. I’m extremely pragmatic when it comes to telling the truth. I’m a bit of a Simon Cowell when it comes to the vulnerable side, or the truth of a thing. I am not photogenic particularly. And yet, when I own that, too many people assume that I lack self courage, or self esteem.
In fact, the opposite is true. I have a great deal of self worth. I love myself very much. I like life. I’m very confident in both my strengths and my limitations. Knowing both, engaging in both makes me stronger than most people because I’m not at all hesitant to know my flaws. I rather like them actually.
I am very comfortable with who I am as a person. I don’t like that we have become people who are hell bent on putting a perfect image of ourselves as perfect people out into the world. It’s exhausting.
Embracing ‘ugly’
I also don’t like our cultural trend toward everyone feeling obliged to look, sound, feel, and act deliriously happy all the time. That’s not normal. Unless someone released laughing gas onto the planet and I’m immune to it.
There is a desperate need to belong to the point that we’re hiding our ugly cry, instead of celebrating our imperfections. We are fostering an insincere world that will only get worse if we don’t embrace the human side that isn’t pretty. When we learn to love ourselves, ‘as is’, we strengthen everything else. Society is pushing back.
Sincerity is the sincerest form of flattery. If you want to flatter someone, tell them you love their imperfections and brilliance. Just, don’t lie about it. Be real. Real is the gift of love.
When we love ourselves, in all our imperfections, as John Legend sings, “All of me, loves all of you”. Then, and only then, can we become happier, healthier and whole as a society.
Love,
Karen
About the Author: Karen Henry [Daly], MA CRM owns Henry Healing as a holistic well-being practitioner and writer. She’s a former university professor and current scholar practicing the infusion of positive, existential and community psychology. “Wednesday is my Tuesday.”