Internal Bling

  • By: Trish Berg
  • January 12, 2011
  • 338
                        
I am like every other girl out there. I like bling. Bling is anything shiny, flashy, ostentatious or elaborate. Bling can refer to jewelry or accessories. They even have bling cases for cell phones now. My daughter has bling on her jeans with diamond-like crystals on the back pockets. I have a purse with bling, earrings with bling, and a bracelet that is all bling. I have been thinking a lot about the bling in my life lately. We live in a society that is saturated with bling. We continually focus on the outside, the external, on how we look. All you need to do is stand in the checkout line at the grocery store to be bombarded with anorexic models wearing bling head to toe preaching about ten tips to losing that extra weight so you, too, can look like a star. Why are we so concerned with the outside? We judge others by how they look. We make snap decisions on how nice or cruel a person is by how big or small their waistline is, what designer names they are wearing on their labels, or the size of their diamond ring. We judge people from the outside in. What’s even worse is that we judge ourselves even more harshly from the outside in. We constantly compare ourselves to those around us and usually we end up feeling worse about who we are. We hate it when the only jeans we can squeeze into are our “fat” jeans. When our hair looks flat, frizzy or greasy. We plaster on makeup, stuff our sore feet into heels, and let how we look affect how we feel. I am just as guilty as you are in this outside-in approach to life. I buy bling. I wear bling. I judge others based on their bling. And I let how I look to the outside world impact how I feel about myself on the inside. I let it steal my joy. Can you just imagine the positive impact we could have on the world if we let go of the external bling and focused on internal bling? We could let go of stressing about how we look. We could stop judging others based on how they look. We could let go of the outside-in approach to life and begin to focus on who people are instead of how they look. We could begin to wear internal bling. Internal bling is not a new thing. It’s just a sometimes-forgotten thing. We could start by accepting ourselves just as we are, loving ourselves even though we have that extra twenty pounds, a pimple on our chin and no designer label to be found. Then we could extend that love and grace to those around us. People we meet throughout our day, known and unknown, family, friends and strangers. We can look for their internal bling. Each and every day we have a decision to make. A decision to smile at those we pass, say an encouraging word to our spouse, and praise our children for who they are, not what they have done. Just like you, I like internal bling. That flashy, ostentatious joy I feel when someone shines on me from the inside out. I am passing it on. I am going to accessorize my life head to toe with kindness and encouragement. You look beautiful this morning. Have you lost weight? I love your smile, which, by the way, makes your eyes shine like the moon, and makes me feel right at home. Catch up with Trish at www.TrishBerg.com


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