We’re Better Together
As the owner and founder of Re. Pose Therapy, the decision to partner with the Health and Beauty Collective of the Refinery House started with two important questions: What does beauty mean to me? And, How is beauty connected to health and healing, and ultimately our mission at Re. Pose to come along side all people as they discover rest and trust in their selves, relationships and the world?
As I reflected on these questions I realized that I have been on quite a journey of my own with the meaning of beauty and how I am in relationship with beauty in my own life. That may sound funny to you to talk about being in relationship with beauty, but the truth is our world is full of beauty and we choose how we relate to this truth and what it means for our life. Sadly, my relationship with beauty begun like many young women, probably around the age of 8 watching the woman around me and the media, I was quickly taken into what society say’s is beautiful: thin, sexy, trendy and perfected. I spent all my teen years and into my 20’s buying hard into the idea that this was the only image of beauty and that if I wasn’t beautiful in this way I had no value or worth to the world. I began to resent this relationship with beauty and fight against it containing my worth and so in my mid 20’s I stopped wearing make-up all together, gained weight and was a typical dirty hippie type. I definitely found some freedom in not conforming, but I also judged others who tried to appear more put together and my judgment was just a reflection that I still was not owning my intrinsic value and worth. It’s only quite recently in the mid 30’s through a lot of internal observation and healing that I have come to own my relationship with beauty as one that is not dependent on my appearance, but that can be expressed through my appearance. I can feel beautiful with a raw face and comfy clothes, or with my hair done and in a trendy new outfit, either way my relationship with beauty does not dictate my worth in the world. I can finally say that however I choose to express my inner or outer beauty it’s not to change and conform but rather to ‘become better at being who I already am’.
So what does this have to do with health and healing?
Everything. When I think of this relationship with beauty I picture a tree or a plant and how necessary the roots are for the fruit and leaves to have full expression. The roots are our inner beauty and intrinsic value and worth as human beings, and the fruit and leaves represent our expression of outer beauty, not just in our appearance but also in all the creativity that flows from the core of who we are. I often have thought of how we can only expand and express as far as we can root down, but the truth is it is both the soil and the sun that nourishes our plants, and sometimes as the sun shines and leaves grow, it is then that the signal comes for the plant to root down deeper. Just the same, there are times that it is choosing to move into the expression of who we are that signals us to look internally at how to grow deeper roots, and so this action is reciprocal, and can take place first internally or externally, both are necessary for growth and well being.
Refinery House’s tag line is “Becoming Better at Being who we Already Are”. When I first read this a few years ago I honestly was a little jealous that I didn’t come up with it myself because it absolutely encapsulates our vision at Re. Pose Therapy. It’s not about changing who you are, it’s about digging deep into who you were naturally created as, and moving, healing and growing from this place. In partnering with Refinery House our hope is that you could come to own the values of beauty and health, in a collective environment that desires for you to feel rest and trust in whatever service you are choosing. It is my hope that just as people do not hesitate to take care of external appearance of themselves, that with the same ease they could choose to pay attention to their internal experience of themselves.
We are very excited to expand and grow with Refinery House, to continue the process of digging deep while enjoying the expression of all of who we are!