Today I want to talk about something that’s been on my mind for a long time. I suppose I will dip my metaphorical toes in the water by talking skincare. But really it goes beyond that into many areas of life, I think.
It’s about the pursuit of perfect skin rather than healthy skin. It’s about looking good verses feeling good. About comparing our insides to everyone else’s outsides, and allowing insignificant feedback on social media to tell us who we are, what we’re worth. It’s about constantly judging others, and ourselves, based on the tiny flashes we see of a life – without taking into consideration who that person is, where they are in life and in the world, what they’ve been experienced and survived, how hard they’ve worked and/or are working.
But mostly is about how these things are stealing our joy. And perhaps even stealing our purpose because we let all of the above hinder us.
We’ve said it a dozen times – we aren’t trying to sell you perfect skin and eternal youth here. We’re here to help you support your skin so that it’s healthy and strong, and to help you find your inner knowing. To protect the wildness in the world and in your soul, because we need them.
And yet we’re constantly being bombarded with the illusion of perfection instead of the real. Our society is fixated on prestige and achievements, so it’s no wonder we hold ourselves and others to a standard of perfection that does not exist in human beings or in the world we inhabit.
Here’s a photo that my 4-year old snapped of me yesterday.
I’m in the 4th decade of life now, so hello to everything I’ve experienced in life – it’s all beginning to show on my skin, particularly my face and hands. From the generational trauma I inherited to the health diagnoses I’ve overcome. My babies have made their significant marks on my face too – can you see them? Yes indeed, those are some dark circles. I still don’t sleep nearly enough. And the sun damage has caught up with me. For the first 25 years of my life, I spent way too much time in the sun, never protecting my skin, never really even caring about the future to be honest – and here is that angsty recklessness and apathy, they’re materializing on my face, even though my heart is right now, it’s so alive and cares so much. I was also a runner who didn’t know when to stop. I put my body through a decade of disordered eating, to the point of being hospitalized. At age 21, I weighed less than I did at age 12. I was born indigenous, and then became an immigrant as an adult. I’ve lost it all many times. And I do mean all. When my partner and I moved from Copenhagen to Stockholm twelve years ago, we had 35 kronor (around $3 USD) in our pockets combined, not even enough to buy a coffee on the train. But we were following a dream, although it felt like a bad dream for the first few years. How to even describe our first years in Sweden? It’s all here in my face now, can you see it? Oh there is so much more. So many other stories, loves, losses. Tears, ah-ha’s, wows. Can you see them? I have seen a lot. Some of these lines come from joy too. From wondrous awe and nonstop laughter. And I had absolutely no skincare ritual until very recently. Only in the last few years have I started taking care of my skin. I can’t hide it. I can’t undo it. It’s all me. It’s a life well lived. There are so many, many journeys – both inner and outer – here in the lines and marks on my face.
Since I started Wyld, every single marketing advisor has told me, “Hire a model to represent Wyld” – that is to say, buy a face. “You can bring all of the heart and soul and knowledge,” one said. “But you need someone else to bring the image, because that is everything.”
In other words, the outside is more important than the inside.
This is the culture we live in.
In our image-and celebrity-obsessed culture we often equate looking good to feeling good. We confuse electronic “likes” and “follows” with success and well-being.
And it’s a shame because it leads into the traps of comparison and competitiveness, blinding us to our own beauty and power, which are far bigger and better than the slick profiles on today’s digital platforms. And what is a platform exactly? It’s a raised floor or stage we stand on so that we can tower above everyone else, ensuring that we are seen.
What is behind this insatiable desire of ours to be seen today?
All of us need and deserve to feel seen. Children, in particular, need to feel seen by attentive and responsive parents and caregivers. Partners in a marital relationship need to feel seen by each other. Employers need to be seen at work. The list goes on. This is normal human stuff! So where has it gone so wrong, become so addictive? Why are we looking for love in all the wrong places?
I’m not sure, but I wonder if the same digital apps which demand our attention also prevent us from being seen in real life. We hardly make eye contact anymore, much less even acknowledge any non-peopled beings. We don’t offer our real undivided attention to many, or any. Instead of communicating a real message, we offer an emoji. We constantly disconnect from the real world and the people right around us in order to feel “connected” in a strange, abstract way, trading intimacy for cheap attention.
Another thing is, no matter how often people post on social media, they are only communicating small percentages of themselves and their lives. And often there is an enormous about of time and energy put into those images that we rarely acknowledge. Not to mention that the “likes” do not translate into real life. As a very successful instagrammer recently admitted: “The more followers I gain here, the more empty I feel in real life.” She was trying to figure out a way to free herself from the many tendrils of that sticky web.
I know that emptiness. It’s exactly how I felt as a teenager trying to attain the perfect image. That was a decade before social media! But there were other media outlets to contend with then, including TV which my father was always engrossed in. This, plus a few other factors, caused me to feel unseen as a child. This unmet need – and a fear that I’d always be unseen – led to addictions of all sorts. I became addicted to the feedback others gave me about my performance and my appearance. I worked tirelessly to achieve it all, from top academic scores to that perfect size. But it was never enough. So I kept going until I became so incredibly thin. Until people recoiled and said, Oh you look sick. And in a way, I’m lucky that it went that far. Because I had no choice but to heal. Too many people are engrossed in their appearance, feeling more afraid and empty by the day, but they never cross that line from beautiful to ugly, and so they never have to address what’s driving them.
This former experience is probably why I haven’t hired models and don’t invest enough in social media (I feel like I invest so much energy and time, but people say it isn’t nearly enough).
Because here I am at age 40 writing about something that I could have written when I was 17. I’ve been wondering why. It occurred to me recently – social media is like high school in a way.
The popularity contests and anxiety about being “liked” or getting “engagements” – no real relationships there, but we agonize over those numbers and statistics as if they can somehow define us. It’s the worst parts of high school all over again! So-and-so wears this brand. Lives in that neighborhood. Knows that person. Living in a tiny bubble, lacking any perspective about there being a huge, rich world outside of those high school walls, or outside of those curated profiles on a screen. Not to mention the big industry algorithms that pressure all of us to be “users” of their game, desperately clawing for feedback so that we’re validated even by their system.
So how does this all relate to skincare, you ask?
Well, just as the perfect life, or the perfect home, or the perfect size doesn’t actually exist – neither does perfect skin. The idea of perfect skin is an illusion that is being perpetuated by many. Not only big commercial media, but millions of ordinary people on social media, where every imperfection is polished, touched up and/or treated with filters. That’s just how it is there. It can also be a harshly critical and judgmental place, where we don’t feel safe enough to show our real unfiltered selves anymore. And yet we fail to convince ourselves that it’s not real.
This sets us up, right? We can’t show our real selves, but we think everyone else is being real – which makes us so disappointed in our own reality. When actually it is the real, authentic us – with all of our marks and lines and breakouts and breakups and breakthroughs – that is most beautiful, most valuable. No matter how many “likes” we may or may not get.
And what I’ve discovered after many conversations with people is that everyone’s definition of ‘perfect skin’ is different anyway.
Which brings me to the real point of this whole post…
How can we embrace our imperfections and find joy?
Like, what are some practical tips?
Healthy skin over perfect skin.
If we can’t really define perfect skin, then can we define healthy skin? Kind of, actually, yes.
Healthy skin is alive. It’s soft. It has a glow. It can breathe. It can tell the stories of a life, perhaps a bit of your mother and grandmother’s lives too. It will have lines and pores. It may even have scars.
Healthy skin is comfortable. There’s no burning or pain or itchiness. It is a home. Just as you create a physical home that feels right for you, you can create a bodily home as well.
If you have skin issues, try to see them as messengers, not problems. They can help guide you in identifying where you are and what kind of support your skin needs. I don’t believe in fighting and controlling, but in listening and learning. And from there it’s must easier to find the way forward.
Prioritize feeling good on the inside over looking good on the outside.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with looking good. I’m not suggesting that we all stop caring about and caring for ourselves. Quite the opposite in fact! Take good care of yourself – please.
I’ve written about this before in Finding Your Ritual because finding the right self-care rituals to support your skin and overall health will help you feel your best.
This will look different for everyone, as it should. And it may change throughout the year, or throughout life. We don’t eat the same foods all year round, do we? Our bodies need different nutrients depending on the season of life, season of year. Why would it be any different for our skin, the largest organ of our body?
Caring for your skin doesn’t necessarily mean slathering your skin with hundreds of chemicals and concoctions. Nor does it mean booking an appointment for laser treatments or botox injections, or whatever people are doing these days.
It could be mean trying to find the right product and applying some extra TLC.
It could be something as simple as slowing down.
It could mean creating a space for you to retreat to, so that your skincare rituals are not laden with stress and disorganization.
Once while working with client about her skincare needs, I literally told her to get a haircut instead. Throughout our conversation, I realized that that’s what she needed. Not another product.
Observe yourself within your environment so that you can begin to understand what kind of support you need. Who are you today? Who do you want to be tomorrow? What power and beauty do you contain? What gifts have you been given, and how should you be cultivating and sharing those gifts?
This is just as much an inner journey as an outer, because that inner state of being accepted, loved, seen, happy, healthy, strong – it will all flow onto the outside. People will “see” it in you, perhaps not on social media, because people can see so very little there, but in real life, where life really counts, people will respond to that authentic light.
Delight in the details of you.
Is there a feature you don’t like about yourself? Really look at it today. Then do something kind for it.
I see you, I told all of the freckles on my face this morning. And then I gently rubbed them with sunscreen rather than concealer, because I knew I’d be out in the harsh sun all day. Protecting them felt kinder than hiding them.
Is there a scar you just hate? Find a way to honor it. Own that story.
Dim the screens of illusion, comparison and game-playing, and instead use your precious time and energy to become the best version of yourself.
Social media can be a wonderfully inspiring place. It can even be a tool for self-improvement and self-empowerment. I haven’t deleted my account yet for this very reason. There have been many days when a heartfelt post from someone else has impacted me deeply. It can be a place for expressing, creating, sharing – and there are people who can make it feel safe enough there to do these things in a healthy way.
BUt… if it’s stealing your joy… if it’s stealing you away from your loved ones… if it’s making you dissatisfied with everything about yourself, dissatisfied with everything you have… if it’s stirring negative emotions, petty judgements and divisions… then perhaps it’s time to dim those screens and bring yourself back into the enormous, rich life going on around you. Feel the warmth from real bodies. Listen to the sounds of creatures and plants who are simply alive. Come back into your own body and back into a wildly pulsating life.
Fuck the algorithm. Fuck the game. Life is short, my friends. Life can be so good when we’re evolving in the right ways. Some things may not be popular on social media, but post about them anyway if you want to. Face your fears of not being “liked” – knowing that the number of likes you get does NOT in any way tell you how valuable you are.
This kind of authenticity is a gift not only to yourself, but to everyone around you.
Abandon their perfect life and start creating your own. Honor that wild beating heart inside of your perfectly imperfect body.
Take good care and stay wyld!
