Lit from Within
A Simple Guide to the Art of Inner Beauty.
Featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
True beauty isn't skin deep: it's soul deep. Lit from Within shows how you can bring your inner beauty out.
In Lit from Within you'll learn how to:
• Decide that you're beautiful already and watch the world agree with your decision
• Accept yourself as you are right now and allow - never force - greater health and beauty to reveal themselves
• Tap into the "glow" that can actually make you look more beautiful, whatever your age or body type, starting today and lasting all your life.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction: The Inner Side of Beauty
Part I: Attitude
1. Let Your Exterior Reflect Your Interior
2. Think Well of Yourself
3. Give Yourself Positive Messages
4. Surround Yourself with People Who See Your Light
5. Have an Ageless Outlook
Part II: Actions
6. Adopt One Better Habit
7. Look Good Enough Every Day
8. Groom Yourself Impeccably
9. Move Your Body
10. Take a Saturday Night Bath
11. Get Your Beauty Sleep
12. Bring Your Body to the Silence
Part III: Body and Soul
13. Befriend Discipline
14. Explore Yoga
15. Purify the Instrument
16. Help Your Form to Function
17. Speak with Your True Voice
18. Avoid the Uglies
Part IV: Just for Fun
19. Dress Like Yourself
20. Give Yourself a Name That Suits You
21. Select a Symbol
22. Establish a Self-Care Fund
23. Take Yourself Lingerie Shopping
24. Develop Your Sense of Style
25. Play with Songs, Stones, and Flowers
Part V: Quality of Life
26. Handle Small Things with Care
27. Preserve and Protect
28. Immerse Yourself in Beauty
29. Every So Often, Do Something Thrilling
30. Map Your Dream
31. Master Simple Living and High Thinking
Part VI: Quality of Character
32. Regard Others as Significant
33. Become Magnanimous
34. Let Other Women Be Beautiful Too
35. Understand: "Beauty Is Truth and Truth Beauty"
36. Be Trustworthy and Tolerant
37. Forgive Someone Something
38. Go Graciously Through Your Day
Part VII: Nourishing Yourself
39. Invite Your Soul to Dinner
40. Dine Like a Yogi
41. Consider a Gentler Diet
42. Get Past the Weight Thing
43. Stay Hydrated
44. Breathe the Best Air
Part VIII: Nurturing Your Spirit
45. Dedicate Your Life
46. Trust the Process
47. Memorize Words of Inspiration
48. Respect Who You Are and What You Value
49. Watch for Light Times
50. Look for Connections
Read a Chapter - Let Your Exterior Express Your Interior (Chapter 1).
The first step toward bringing your inner beauty out is to have only one goal for your physical self: that it be an accurate representation of your spiritual self.
When the light of your spirit shows on your face and in your life, you are a beautiful human being, a beautiful woman. For this to happen in an enduring way, you need to take exceptionally good care of both your body and your soul. You just have to get the order right: the soul came first. A new theory edging its way into science is that of Aenformy, @ the notion that something - what religious people have long known as soul - exists prior to the formation of a physical body. This immaterial essence Aenforms @ matter, resulting in something magnificent - you, for instance.
In opting to take on physical form, your spiritual self didn't make any mistakes. The body you've got is the one you're supposed to have. From the vantage point of your soul, it is the perfect body to carry you through this lifetime and accomplish what you came here to do. And whether your body type is the delicate ectomorph, the curvaceous endomorph, or the athletic mesomorph, you're Amorphed@ just the way you're supposed to be.
This can be hard to swallow in a culture suggests - no, shouts - that certain bodies are acceptable and others are not. The message these days is that women are supposed to be tall, thin, and have large breasts. When I was a teenager, they were supposed to be tall, thin, and have no breasts. When my grandmother was young, Clara Bow was the "It Girl," and 5 foot 2 and curvy the ideal.
Whatever a particular era's "perfect body" is supposed to look like, its purpose is to sell things: clothes, make-up, beer, movie tickets. Your body, however, has a higher calling: to give your soul, your light within, a way to show itself in the world. This undertaking is supposed to entail more ecstasy than agony. The Vedic scriptures of ancient India say that human bodies were engineered to experience bliss, and that even the angels envy them.
The first step toward bringing your inner beauty out is to have only one goal for your physical self: that it be an accurate representation of your spiritual self. Unlike the defeatist goals of the "lose ten pounds" school, this one is freeing. You're giving yourself permission to be precisely who you were meant to be, externally as well as internally. Once you let go of all objectives for your body other than to have it express your essential self, you allow it, along with your mind and spirit, to work for the good of the whole. If being ten pounds lighter is part of that overall good, it will happen. And it will last.
When you are committed to showing the world who you really are, you will start to play up what makes you special. Actress Bette Middler has been quoted as saying, "If only I'd known that one day my differentness would be an asset, my early life would have been much easier." If you celebrate your differentness, the world will too. It believes exactly what you tell it - through the words you use to describe yourself, the actions you take to care for yourself, and the choices you make to express yourself. Tell the world that you are a one-of-a-kind creation who came here to experience wonder and spread joy. Expect to be accommodated.