You are beautiful.

'Oh no! Not me,' you say. 'Other people are beautiful. Not me.'

You know I'm not talking about physical beauty, right?

'I'm still not beautiful. You can't see my ugliness, because I'm too scared to show you. But, it's there. Oh yes, it's there!'

You're scared? It's only the fear that's ugly. You are beautiful.

I once heard that we are all diamonds, encased in manure – with a thin coating of nail varnish on the top. We are terrified the varnish will crack, and the smell of the manure will come through. We see only the manure and do not know about the diamond beneath. We see the gemstones in others, though: we even call some people "rough diamonds."

Think about it: all those things about yourself, that you don't like, are caused by fear. Furthermore, many of those things are just nonsense. It is the fear that is manure.

I think I'm lazy – but other people say they don't know how I can do so much. I know, however, the "so much" is only displacement activity; it means I don't have to do what I should do. And I don't do what I should do because I'm scared. But calling it laziness is more comfortable than calling it fear.

Yet fear is not a vice, like laziness. Your vices too, are only fear.

Fear doesn't respond well to anger or violence: so, beating yourself and up and calling yourself names is unlikely to help.

If you were trying to encourage a timid animal to come to you and trust you, then you would use gentleness and patience and rewards for small steps. Maybe we should try that on ourselves.

What would happen if we could see our own beauty? What would happen if we could see the diamond and not the manure?

Think about what we could give to the world.

The world needs you and your beauty, because nobody is as uniquely beautiful as you.

I started to write this blog about life purpose. Maybe one day I'll post that one. My life purpose is to create beauty and to generate joy. I try to do that in many ways, but one of them is in my work. As an image consultant my work is not about "image" or even the clothes people wear. It's about self-knowledge and self-acceptance and people seeing their own beauty. The purpose then of that is they feel confident enough to give the gift of themselves to the world.

We say Christmas is a time for giving. In the words of the carol, "What can I give him, poor as I am?" But we are poor only in our own minds. We see the manure, not the priceless diamond beneath.

It's okay to give the whole package to the world. The manure is only the wrapping for the diamond. And well-rotted manure is good for roses anyway.

And roses are beautiful too. Just like you.

Mary

A Moodscope member.