Music Monday: I Like You

We’re home this week from our 6-week slice of summer heaven at our Silver Firs Cabin in the Sierra Mountains.  Settling back now into the work and life we love with all its familiarity and surprises, perfection and imperfection.

This summer, I left the cabin twice for business opportunities I didn’t want to miss:  A chance to help improve the effectiveness of Cerec Training with Patterson Dental and Sirona as well as providing a motivational keynote at the annual corporate meeting for a very unique, brand new (15 months!) women and girls clothing company called LuLaRoe.   I cannot describe to you how much I enjoyed both adventures but it did require the switching of a major gear:  makeup and heels.

Katherine welcomes Ellie and Gabriel to the cabin

At the cabin, it’s almost sacrilegious to fuss with your hair, put on makeup, wear anything white or any shoes other than hikers or flip-flops.  With no TV, alarm clocks, or schedules, the whole idea is to fall in step with the rhythm of nature… to appreciate the untouched, un-doctored, perfect imperfection of the natural world.  Spiders that co-exist with butterflies, hot days followed by cold nights, dead trees surrounded by healthy ones, full-moon nights with no stars and new-moon nights with stars so magnificent they defy description.  In this world, with sun on my skin, daily exercise, plenty of sleep, and healthy foods, I feel more glowing and beautiful without makeup and perfect hair than with it.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I love a good dress-up day (or night!)  I adore having pedicured toes and that lift in my step as I leave the salon with the grey magically gone and the “natural” blonde properly restored.  And I’m not gonna lie… I do love me a good pair of Jimmy Choo’s.  But the cabin experience reminds me that all of this is not the real beauty of me.  The real beauty of me is something that all these things simply rest upon and hopefully enhance.

On my trip to the Patterson event in Orlando, I sat next to a 72-year-old woman on the plane… Emma.  She was wrinkled and slightly stooped.  Her hair was so thin you could see her scalp and, being a dental person, I noticed her dentures were old and worn.  But she was beautiful.  So beautiful in fact that I couldn’t get enough of her.  Emma was intelligent and well-traveled, happy and funny, interesting, and interested in me.  She was so full of life and stories and happiness that by the end of the flight we had a full-on, juicy, rousing conversation going with everyone in our row and the rows in front and behind us!  It was a kick and the flight just flew by (pardon the pun!)

The reverse also happened to me when I arrived in Orlando.  As I stood in the line at Starbucks, I noticed one of the most physically beautiful woman I think I’ve ever seen walk up to the counter and become one of the ugliest within a matter of seconds.

A gorgeous face with flowing hair on a shapely body dressed to the nines might turn some heads initially, but what makes people decide whether or not they want to stay engaged, know more, do business with or fall in love is what is (or is not) underneath all of that.  Tom once told me when the Martina McBride song, “Happy Girl”, came on the radio that no truer words had ever been written:  “The sweetest thing you’ll ever see in the whole wide world is a happy girl.”   On days when I’ve not felt my prettiest or thinnest or most fashionable, I’ve tried to remember that.  And it’s worked almost every time.  When I lift my face to those around me with a beaming smile and a happy countenance, and I demonstrate unconditional love to them and to myself… no matter what I’m wearing, how wrinkled my face, or how many layers of “turkey neck” I just noticed in the bathroom mirror … magic happens.  People seem to look right past and through the imperfections straight to the perfection of happiness.  It’s a magnetic energy that even the most hardened among us simply cannot resist.  And it starts and ends with us.

On this Music Monday (always the first Monday of every month) I’ve chosen a new song, just added to my playlist, by Colbie Caillat called, “Try”.  In her YouTube video, I commend her brave choice to strip away all of the Hollywood glamour and reveal her natural beauty to the masses.  If you’re like me, as you watch it, you’ll notice how drawn you are to the real women as they unmask themselves.  As I really looked at their naked faces, unadorned eyes, and uncurled hair, I wanted increasingly to just sit down with them over a hot cup of tea and hear their stories.  This is the power of real.

This week, wear your makeup, curl your hair, and show up for work at your best… but never, ever confuse it with your real beauty.  The latest fashion and hairdo’s will never cover up a lack of inner joy, zest for life, compassion, and a sense of wholeness.  Like Colbie says:  “Take a breath.  You don’t have to try so hard.  You just have to get up and show up… and like you.”

And the real you… the real us… is pretty darn hard not to like.

Colbie Caillat:  Try

“Put your make-up on
Get your nails done
Curl your hair
Run the extra mile
Keep it slim so they like you, do they like you?

Get your sexy on
Don’t be shy, girl
Take it off
This is what you want, to belong, so they like you
Do you like you?

You don’t have to try so hard
You don’t have to, give it all away
You just have to get up, get up, get up, get up
You don’t have to change a single thing

You don’t have to try, try, try, try
You don’t have to try, try, try, try
You don’t have to try, try, try, try
You don’t have to try
Yooou don’t have to try

Get your shopping on, at the mall, max your credit cards
You don’t have to choose, buy it all, so they like you
Do they like you?

Wait a second,
Why, should you care, what they think of you
When you’re all alone, by yourself, do you like you?
Do you like you?

You don’t have to try so hard
You don’t have to, give it all away
You just have to get up, get up, get up, get up
You don’t have to change a single thing

You don’t have to try so hard
You don’t have to bend until you break
You just have to get up, get up, get up, get up
You don’t have to change a single thing

You don’t have to try, try, try, try
You don’t have to try, try, try, try
You don’t have to try, try, try, try
You don’t have to try

You don’t have to try, try, try, try
You don’t have to try, try, try, try
You don’t have to try, try, try, try
You don’t have to try
Yooou don’t have to try

You don’t have to try so hard
You don’t have to, give it all away
You just have to get up, get up, get up, get up
You don’t have to change a single thing

You don’t have to try, try, try, try
You don’t have to try, try, try, try
You don’t have to try
You don’t have to try

Take your make-up off
Let your hair down
Take a breath
Look into the mirror, at yourself
Don’t you like you?
Cause I like you”

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“True beauty is when someone radiates that they like themselves.”
~~ Aimee Mullins