Reflections on receiving a beautiful compliment …
I was recently on holiday in Koh Samui in Thailand. Most mornings I would go to the swimming pool at the resort I was staying at, and swim laps before any other guests arrived to swim. One morning as I got out of the pool, a woman, a stranger who was sitting by the pool, approached me and with the help of Google Translate on her phone said this ….
“Excuse me, I am Russian and my English is not good, but I just want to tell you that I think that you are a very beautiful woman. My daughter says you are very beautiful too, and that your style is like Vivienne Westwood, and when you walk into a room your energy lights up the room. I just want to tell you this.” So unexpected and so lovely of her to make such an effort to come and offer me this delightful compliment. I said “thank you so much” (with the help of my Google Translate). Later, I googled Vivienne Westwood 😇. A few days later I saw her and her daughter in the pool and went over to meet her gorgeous fourteen year old daughter. They were travelling together from their homeland in Russia for the school holidays.
I loved the compliment of course and felt the pleasure of it, especially at my age of seventy-four! She and her daughter had seen me around the resort, at dinner the night before, and at the fire dance display one evening. Mind you, when she told me this, I had just got out of swimming laps in the pool and was in my bright pink bathing cap and wanky looking swimming goggles lol ! Yet, much as I enjoyed it, this compliment also stirred up deep sadness within me, aware of not even knowing, let alone being able to embody my own beauty and power in any shape or form when I was younger; in my teens, in my twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, or sixties. That it is only now in my seventies that I am able to even begin to consciously embody such knowledge (and then, only sometimes). Better late than never to be sure!
For me, the insidious legacy of sexual abuse, sexual violence, including intimate partner violence in my first marriage, have all contributed to this complete lack of awareness of being and feeling beautiful in my life. One internalises the ugliness of the perpetrators, their objectification when they use you like a piece of meat, a piece of flesh for their own gratification. I know that I am not the only one. Many women who are survivors of sexual, emotional and physical trauma will tell you something similar. I hear it many times in my clinical work as a psychotherapist.
Furthermore, women often struggle with their own sense of beauty and power for different reasons, such as internalising the unrealistic standards of the fashion industry, the pressure on women to look a certain way to be considered beautiful, to be a certain size, and then as older women, the pressure to be ashamed of one’s wrinkles and less supple bodies showing a few extra rolls of fat. It is important to note that this is especially true in the Western world, not necessarily true of other cultures. For example, I loved that my new Russian friend and many other European women who I saw on my holiday in Koh Samui, were on the beach and in the swimming pool in their bikinis and two pieces, all bigger women who appeared to be very at ease with their bodies. I found this very empowering to observe.
Below is a photo of Gloria Steinem in older age, a woman I admire greatly, a feminist icon who recently died. She spoke of the importance of women telling our stories. She said her favourite kind of writing is when you feel that you are bringing attention to something that has not received enough attention, or that you are helping somehow to make the invisible visible. I like that very much.
What are your experiences around ‘owning’ and celebrating your own beauty and power ? 🙏
