Dear Meli,

This is maybe going to sound weird, but is it unspiritual to want to look good? I used to be really conflicted about my gender expression. But lately, I’ve been dressing exactly how I want to, even though it doesn’t fit with society’s views of how an Assigned Male at Birth person should dress. I love dressing up! I love looking at myself in the mirror! But I also worry that I’m attaching too much importance to my physical form instead of my spirit. Do you have any ideas about this?

Fancy Free

Dear Fancy,

Congratulations on finding your way to dressing your outsides to fit your insides! Yay YOU!

When it comes to Self-expression, I believe that the more fully you align your outer experience with your inner experience – your soul, if you will – the better!

As humans, it is in our DNA to look for attractive people. It’s a survival thing. Some of what society calls “beautiful” are qualities that reflect healthy genes and gene expression. By finding ourselves drawn to people with those traits or qualities, we are more likely to mate with someone with healthy genes. A survival thing.

I am NOT saying that society is all healthy in their revering of beauty, or of their airbrushing and editing photos to create unrealistic humans who don’t look like that in their un-altered life. Nor am I suggesting we should strive to look like someone off the front of a magazine!

What I AM saying is that it is absolutely human and natural, and not at all unhealthy, to think and care about how you look. Especially when your pondering and exploring is in a quest to dress like the real you! And…our culture has created a sometimes not-so-healthy obsession with our appearance by showing us images that conform to a narrow and unrealistic conception of what is attractive.

I often think about the insanity of how we’re conditioned to want to fit in (again, good for survival) and that we are each completely unique beings, each a fabulous artistic expression of the Divine. But if we squelch who we are in our attempt to be more like others, we are minimizing the Divine’s expression!

It takes courage to go against the grain. Survival, once again. I mean, if we did that long ago, we might be kicked out of our community/tribe and die a sad and lonely death. So the fear is founded in reality. And it runs deep.

But today, there is more and more acceptance for unique expressions of the Divine. When we express as our true selves, we are more beautiful because our appearance is more congruent with our inner selves. And then? Then our right people, our best family of beloveds, can recognize and find us!

So dress UP, my dear! And look in that mirror. Celebrate the you that you are. Let them out to shine their incredibly beautiful light in the world! Revel in the glory of your innate goodness!  Don’t forget to take a snapshot for your heart. A keepsake of your you-ness, growing in its aligned perfection, along your Self-expression journey.

Be your Fancy self!

Blessings and Love to you in all you do!

In Joy,

Melissa

What is your experience with Divine self-espression? Share your comments below!

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