The Underbelly of the Beauty Wound

by Lian Brook-Tyler

The Underbelly of the Beauty Wound

How women speak to me about their tummies…

“It’s gross.”

“I can’t look at it.”

“I have to hide it.”

“It’s huge and bloated!”

I don’t just hear these kinds of things now and then… they’re the norm. Tummy-hate shows up in almost every group I run with women, and in most of our 1:1 work too.

I’ve often thought I could create an entire offering just around helping women go from hating their tummies to loving them…

…

That’s how I began a post I wrote five years ago today.

Back then, I went on to list all the reasons I *wouldn’t* be creating an offering for tummy-love. I ended by speaking to the ripple effect of my Waking The Wild Feminine work at the time:

“Little by little, we become women who love every last inch, freckle, curve, emotion, bleed, need, and desire of our precious bodies… and really ourselves.”

And that was true.

And yet… I can see now I still hadn’t fallen fully in love with one of my own deepest desires… to allow my endless fascination with Beauty, my personal wounding around it, and my study of our collective pain, to bleed molten, medicinal gold.

Now, five years on with the creation of Beauty Potion, I realise I am doing what I said I wouldn’t… only not just for tummies, but for:

Faces with “a crooked nose”, “a double chin”, “a gummy smile”, “crooked teeth”, “a massive forehead”, or that are “too round”.

Hair that’s “thin”, “flat”, “lifeless”, “frizzy”, “greasy”, “witchy”, “grey”, “dull”.

Skin that’s “blotchy”, “crêpey”, “saggy”, “leathery”, “pale”, “turkey neck”, “wrinkly”, or “old-looking”.

Breasts that are “saggy”, “flat”, “droopy”, “too big”, “too small”, or “uneven”.

Hips and bottoms called “chunky”, “wide”, “lumpy”, “flat bum”, or “saddle bags”.

Thighs and legs described as “cellulite-ridden”, “thick”, “stumpy”, “wobbly”, “tree trunks”, or “veiny”.

Arms shamed as “bingo wings”, “bat wings”, “flabby”, “soft”, or “saggy”.

And yes, of course… those tummies… “flabby”, “bloated”, “muffin top”, “jelly belly”, “fat”, “round”, or “pouch”.

(And the deeper, archetypal terrain beneath all of this…)

As is often the way, I’m now meeting in other women the kind of resistance I once had myself to focusing on beauty. I’m hearing, directly and indirectly, things like:

• Isn’t focusing on physical beauty just serving patriarchal ideals?

• I don’t have time for beauty, there are more important things in my life.

• It feels shallow and a bit vain… not exactly soulful or spiritual.

• I’m not sure I’m ready to face the pain I carry about how I look.

• I can’t justify spending money on beauty, it would mean new clothes and things I don’t need.

• What’s the point? I’m never going to look or feel beautiful anyway.

Maybe these are very good reasons not to focus on beauty.

Some of them were once mine too… and certainly formed a big part of the reason I’ve taken alllll this time to finally honour the deep soul-calling to make beauty an undeniable aspect of my work with women.

And yet, perhaps you (like me for half a lifetime) might actually already be spending your time, energy, and money on beauty… or on avoiding it, managing shame, hiding, and armouring yourself against being seen.

So how would you know?

• You use words like “gross”, “ugly”, “disgusting”, “fat”, “flabby”, “bloated”, “saggy”, “chubby”, “chunky”, “cellulite-ridden”, “blemished”, “uneven”, “crooked”, “weird”, “abnormal”, whether out loud or in your mind

• You either avoid the mirror or fixate on the flaws you see in your reflection.

• You’ve studied diets like an academic discipline… from the classic Cabbage Soup to the Human Being Diet.

• You could open a museum of shapewear through the ages.

• You scan rooms and compare yourself negatively to other women

• You rarely wear what you’d consider “feminine”… instead choosing what feels safe, shapeless, anonymous.

• You avoid make-up… not because it doesn’t appeal, but because you don’t want to draw attention to your face (and especially not *that* part).

If any of these are true for you, then can you see that you’re *already* spending your time, energy, and money on beauty, or the denial and avoidance of it?

And if you’re ready to turn and face beauty - to gather everything you’re already expending on denial, control, restriction, comparison or hiding, and pour it instead into healing your beauty wounds… into understanding and accepting how you look (and also *why* you look that way… Spoiler: It takes us deep into soul territory)… then I invite you to come.

Come and alchemise it all into something rare, precious, and necessary in this world…

Your own unrepeatable expression of beauty.

Which is to say… the expression of your unique soul.

Beauty Potion begins on the 13th of May.

All my love,

Li ♥️

Image: My own tummy - it's certainly not as taut, flat, and toned as it was in my obsessive martial arts era (I was once the proud owner of a 6-pack), or before carrying two children and then marked by c-section scars, and yet, it's mine, I love it, and it tells my story so far, and the one still to come.

Want to become more intimate with us? If YES, click any or all of the buttons below.