Art by Aubrie Moyer, permission used and created for this article.
A woman in America wakes to a blue sky. In one area of the country, songbirds sing a melody that greets the day. In another area, the low buzz of the city begins below her window. She opens her eyes feeling refreshed. For a minute or two, she focuses on the comfort of her bed, but eventually, the drive for coffee gets her going.
Everything is grand until she lights up the screen and connects to the external world.
Damn.
She’s been pummeled with images of modern-day expectations of beauty that only five percent of women on the planet are actually capable of achieving without Photoshop, and that number drops to zero once the photo manipulation begins. Most women know what happens next. She’s now in a fit trying to decide what to wear for the day and even if she feels somewhat attractive, she still notices what it is about her body that she feels isn’t perfect and then… *sigh* … she dwells on it. It kills her spirit; her beautiful, songbird, morning buzz, comfortable pillow, happy coffee, lovely-morning spirit.
This has to stop. Only four percent of women in America think they’re beautiful. Eighty percent of college women report that their parents or siblings or both told them negative things about their body. Women with low self-esteem tend to stay in abusive relationships, they’re less likely to start their own businesses, they earn less than people who are confident. And what if you’re single and want a relationship?
Kim, a woman who signed up on a popular dating site in hopes of finding a friend or possibly something more, described what she experienced there as, “absolutely the most humiliating experience of my life.” Some men thought it was OK to comment negatively on her body, and some thought it was perfectly acceptable to ask her what size pants she wore before they went any further.
What Kim saw and internalized was a trend. Some people seemed to be ordering up the perfect date the way they would order a hamburger for lunch: hold the pickles, but extra mayo please-- and God forbid she wear a size twelve. (For the record, there is beauty at any size and those who missed out on Kim, missed a great deal. She is happily married to someone who understands her beauty better than anyone).
But people want to be attractive, and people want to feel better about themselves. So what can they do to improve their lives?
The answer is: they can choose to be happy. For those that have traditional beliefs about happiness, I have to tell you, I’m not off my rocker. Let me explain.
Traditionally, people set goals that they think will bring happiness. Is this you?
“Once I get promoted, I will be happy. When I find that new relationship I will be happy. I will be happy when I lose ten, twenty, thirty pounds.”
But the new science of Positive Psychology says otherwise. The examples above have you thinking that happiness is always over the horizon. But once you get there, there is always another goal. There is always something more that needs to be done. You meet success and when you’re there, the new goals for success are already in place. You find a loving relationship but for some reason you’re still unhappy with yourself. Once you lose ten pounds you discover the new imperfections with your body and are once again, unhappy. There is no resting point. This is called the hedonic treadmill. The happiness generated is momentary and you go back to the same default level of unhappiness.
The reality is, what happens in the external world predicts only ten percent of our happiness. We need to decide to be happy, then change our brains accordingly. I will give you the formula for synthesizing happiness further below.
What does synthesizing happiness mean?
According to Psychologist Dan Gilbert,
“Natural happiness is what we get when we get what we wanted, and synthetic happiness is what we make when we don’t get what we want. Synthesized happiness is every bit as real and as enduring as the kind of happiness we get when we get what we were aiming for.”
It is inevitable that some will claim synthetic happiness isn’t as good as natural happiness. For those people, here is why it’s important. Just like natural happiness, synthetic happiness floods the brain with a chemical called dopamine. According to Positive Psychologist:
“Dopamine has two functions. It makes us happier by flooding positivity into our brains and it turns on all of the learning centers in our brains, allowing us to adapt to the world in a different way.”
This is huge. What this means is that our brains perform better with happiness than it does at a neutral or stressed default. Our creativity, our intelligence, our energy levels all rise and we perform significantly better at work and at home. There is a ripple effect that takes place because when we’re happy, we bring more happiness to those around us. We become more confident and confidence is attractive.
So now we know that we want this, the question is, how do we get there?
Here is your recipe:
1) Scan the world every day for three things to be grateful for. This creates a pattern of looking for the positive instead of the negative.
2) Journaling. Writing one positive thing down at the end of each day allows us to relive it.
3) Exercise. This teaches us that behavior matters. It also helps to reduce stress and anxiety.
4) Meditation. This helps us get over our cultural ADHD we’ve created by multi-tasking.
5) Practice random acts of kindness. This creates positivity that’s not only meaningful to you, but to others, helping to make them happier.
6) Write one good thing that you love about yourself down on a sticky note and put it in a place where you tend to beat yourself up the most. (Like a mirror).
We can’t change the beauty standard that was created by an industry that’s worth over a billion dollars overnight. What we can change is our internal happiness and our confidence, making a lasting impact on our lives and the lives of those around us. If enough women, and men, decide to take the steps, think about the changes we can make for the next generation, and the generation after that. This is the happiness revolution.
“Confident Woman” by Aubrie Moyer, permission used and created for this article.
Original publication, "The Naked Truth: America’s Voice Unfiltered. 2016.