Beauty from the Inside-Out

Growing up, I didn’t feel pretty. Far from it.

When I was 7 years old, in pure comedic fashion, I ran into the glass doors separating our living room and the balcony, and broke my front two milk teeth.

I ignored all warnings to not touch my teeth as they were coming out, and sure enough, my front two teeth came out protruded.

From that point on, I became “the girl with the buck teeth.”

Once I entered my teens, I grew increasingly conscious of my crooked teeth, to the point where I would never smile in pictures.

I would often look in the mirror and cry. Just cry. Eventually, I decided I needed to stop wallowing in self-pity, and got braces to straighten my teeth.

Fast forward to now age 21, my mom thought it would help my self-image and my confidence to enter a beauty pageant. And so I did.

And, I won. In 2001, I became Miss India New York.

For the next few years, my life was full of glamour – speaking engagements, modelling gigs, acting gigs, fashion shows, stage performances, hosting TV shows, emceeing Charity Galas, you name it…

I now had all the external validation my former self desperately wanted. But, the question is – was I now happier?

Not really.

I felt like I was a part of some surreal musical chairs exercise, and any minute, the music would stop, and I would be the only one left standing – the one wondering if I belong.

I didn’t understand what was behind the unsettling insecurity, at least, not until I decided it was time to leave my cushy life in New York behind in search of what my true purpose might be.

I moved to India, and over the next few years, dove deep into a spiritual exploration of what helps any of us feel more rooted in our sense of self.

What I learned is this. As American philosopher and psychologist, William James, shared, each of us had two selves – the “I” self – the one who sees, and the “me” self – the one who is seen.

Both are essential to your identity – you need to spend time observing the world, and equally you need to be mindful of how you are being observed – how you are coming across to others so you can adjust your behaviors and your actions accordingly.

You need a healthy balance between the two, but one of these is more essential for our well-being.

As happiness researcher and professor at Harvard, Arthur Brooks, highlights in Build the Life You Want, research shows when you spend more time seeing yourself as “the object” looking at yourself from the outside-in, and not enough time looking from the inside out, as “the subject” with agency to take action in the world for the benefit of others, you sense of self will be unstable.

But once you shift your focus from asking “How do others see me?” to asking “How am I looking at the world?” or “What am I doing for others?” you then experience greater well-being, and happiness.

And that is a shift that made a world of difference for me. The more I began to consciously live and lead from within, I began to see beauty everywhere – beauty in others, beauty in my purpose, beauty in every aspect of this short but precious life.

Most of all, I finally saw beauty in myself – not the fleeting kind that goes up and down in relation to others, but the deep-rooted kind that makes you feel utterly secure, comfortable and blessed to be inside your own skin.

My question to you, how can shift your focus from the “outside-in” to the “inside-out”?

Warmly,
Bhavna Toor
Chief Mindfulness Officer
Shenomics