"Inner Beauty: Coming Home to Your Authentic Self"

By Patricia Varley, BA, MHSA

“Who am I to show up?” screamed the voice inside my head as I was about to go on stage and do a presentation on WOMEN AND SELF – LEADERSHIP to an audience of 100 businesswomen in New York City. I looked professional,  polished, perfect and outwardly attractive as I radiated the image of selfassuredness and confidence.

As I smiled and walked to the podium listening to the applause, I hesitated for a moment and wondered if they would find me out. My fear subsided some because I had could rely on the fact that I had put so much energy into my outer beauty and appearance, as well as my presentation materials. I breathed a sigh of relief when it became clear to me that these women did not recognize that inside I felt like an impostor to my own success. After all, when what I presented to the world was an “image” of a professional so put together, how could they possibly think anything else?

It was as if I had nothing to do with the fact that I was a true accomplished speaker who had worked and studied hard to get where I was and had earned the right to be there. I had something to contribute but felt like I was surviving. I still felt some inner trepidation as that voice in my head said “Are you really worthy of being in front of these women?”

Is it YOU they are eagerly awaiting to learn how to manage and lead their personal and professional lives?”

“It’s interesting to me that we so often teach what we need to learn,” I expressed to the group with inspired enthusiasm that was truly coming from my heart. For when I got out of my head, and ignored those voices of fear and limitation, I could lead my self and others from my heart.

If they only knew where I had come from, the courage, patience and perseverance it took to survive and even thrive on this life long continual journey home to my authentic self, my inner beauty, to this stage in New York City. Only then I could possibly embrace and take in the recognition I have so desperately sought after all 40 years of my life.

The dramatic “stage” of my own life began as a young child, the oldest of 3 girls, growing up in New York. In order to escape the yelling and chaos that my parents expressed on a continual basis towards one another, I would retreat into my room and behind closed doors escape into the world of fashion magazines.

I felt hopeful as I flipped through page after page of photos of thin and beautiful models who gained approval, acceptance and success in the eyes of the world. They emulated such confidence, self-control and worth that I knew that if I could look like them I would feel like them.

I remember the exact moment at 12 years old thinking ” If I could only lose 5 or maybe 10 pounds” then my life would get better and I would feel happier. I felt in control of my future. This decision to lose weight and chase that elusive image of beauty and fame started a vicious and life-long cycle of excessive and obsessive exercise, climbing the stairmaster and wasting away in aerobic class, hoping that the sweat would melt away the pain.

I barred myself from the refrigerator, believing that deprivation and skipping meals would lead me to greater rewards in the future. However, much to my dismay, the rewards never came. Months of starvation and wearing out my body had resulted in my weighing 35 pounds less than when I began the journey of controlling my life. All that stared back at me from the mirror was an 85-lb. body on a 5’4″ frame.

It still wasn’t enough. Not only did I not look any better (though the distorted voices in my head said I looked great and needed to get thinner and thinner to feel better and better) I felt confused, anxious, depressed and even more unhappy than when I started. I felt like I wanted to die and disappear, and I was succeeding.

I mastered the self-defeating behavior and mind-set of anorexia nervosa. In the search to find myself I had taken a dangerous detour in the road and by abandoning myself I got lost.

“I teach women how to empower themselves by embracing their inner worth, owning the fact that we are each here for a unique purpose.”

“We matter and can make a difference,” I explained as the 100 executive women listened and watched as I walked around the room.

“True success isn’t just about managing the outside, it’s about having the courage to look inside your heart and soul and master the inside, claim you authentic inner beauty, and shine from the inside out.”

I took a deep breath and allowed myself to take in the applause and accept the fact that I had been seen and heard. I felt this was the truth as some women were smiling and nodding their heads in recognition, while others had tears in their eyes, remembering their own pain and struggles. The lesson for me in that moment was that the acceptance I was feeling was not just from my audience but from within myself. What they were seeing and feeling was the inner spirit shining from the inside out in my message of truth and self-love.

It actually enhanced my outer appearance as I was radiating true confidence and self-worth, like a diamond in the rough that has polished it’s facets to discover it’s inherent brilliance. The strength it took for me to be vulnerable with a group of strangers as a speaker and coach, has been an integral part of my own healing. Climbing out of the depths of despair and unhappiness is a journey that has taken me most of my life. The years and dollars spent going in and out of therapist’s offices, spiritual retreats, body workers and nutritionists still resulted in reoccurring bouts of anorexia at the ages of 12, 17 and 28.

Now, when I look at my 40-year-old body today in the mirror, what stares back from my 5’4″ 115 lb. toned frame is a women who feels not only her unique and authentic talents and worth, but a mature and spiritually aware adult who has embraced and learned to love the wounded little girl that needs MY recognition and acceptance and always has.

Running from myself and abandoning her kept me in the never-ending search for perfection. Like the leaves of the artichoke I have and will continue to peel away over time the pain and limitations that are not who I truly am. I was lost, and like the heart at the center of the artichoke, I have come to discover that what I was constantly searching for outside of myself, what I did not recognize and could not see was with me all along – my inner beauty.

©Patricia Varley