Sometimes I wonder if I’m chasing beauty, or if beauty has been chasing me all along. My favorite kind of beauty lives in the in-between. …
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Am I Investing in What Makes Me Come Alive?
There’s a question I return to again and again, both in beauty and in life:Am I investing in what makes me come alive? It’s easy …
The Mirror of Desire: Beauty and the Pull of What Others Want
Why do we want what we want? René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire says our desires are rarely born in isolation. We don’t simply want something because …
What Color is a Mirror?
We like to think of mirrors as neutral, faithful witnesses to what’s “really there.” But even science tells us this isn’t true. A mirror leans …
The Gentle Art of Seeing Ourselves Clearly
Acceptance is often misunderstood. It isn’t giving up or apathy. And it certainly isn’t about pretending we love every single thing we see in the …
Bartering with the Body We Love and Fear
If anger is a war cry, bargaining is a back and forth dialogue with the Self: Maybe if I just… We strike deals in the mirror …
War Paint: Anger in the Mirror
If denial is a veil, anger is a blade. Beyond grieving the passing of time, we can also rage against it. The mirror becomes an …
Painted Veils: Denial in the Mirror
Denial doesn’t always sound like No. Sometimes it sounds like Not yet. In beauty, denial shows up as a soft-focus lens we place over reality. Denial lets us …
How Grief Shapes the Way We See Ourselves
Grief and beauty may seem like distant concepts, but they share a deep, tangled root: loss. Grief can dull beauty in the way our eyes appear …
The Anomaly
Our brains love patterns. They keep us safe, efficient, and comfortable. But when something doesn’t fit — an anomaly — we notice. That double-take is where fascination …