Woman of the world, yes, you are beautiful.

You are pure-spun, deep-flowing magic.

It’s undeniable.

But, beauty cannot comprehend you.

It fails to capture the complexity of your spirit and the fierceness of your soul.

There’s so much behind your eyes.

Let’s talk about that.

Your essence, shy or sparkly, how it peaks through the sun-streaked windows of your soul.

Your knowledge, the things you’ve studied or experienced or suffered that imprint themselves deep into your being.

Your never-cried tears and unspoken words, how they swirl beneath the surface like a salty volcanic ocean.

Your pain.

The cracks in your spirit, from when you fell apart but made it through because you kept f*cking fighting.

Your inspired laugh, the way you smile softly sometimes, unapologetically sometimes.

Your bold bravery, flowing rivers of resilience and endless streams of empathy.

Your vulnerability.

Your mistakes and misgivings, the things that are easy to regret but so damn hard to swallow down and digest.

Your heart, even battered or broken or bruised, how it sails on brilliantly.

Your voice, how it shakes sometimes, screams of determined self-confidence sometimes.

Your soul.

Your jealousy and rage, the way your veins pump with seemingly poisonous feelings sometimes.

Your intuition, those instant impressions from the deep, shadowy recesses of your very wise gut.

Your love, how it roars fierce as a lioness and whispers soft as silk all at once.

You.

Just you.

Even when all those characteristics are stripped away.

And it’s just you standing there naked, with your soul showing.

Every last inch of you is stamped with that sacred flavor of you-ness.

Yes, you are beautiful.

You are pure-spun, deep-flowing magic.

But, beauty can’t comprehend you.

You’re a force, a spinning collection of memories and emotions and thoughts and impressions and loves and hates and failures and successes.

I can’t call you beautiful because it’s not enough.

So, I’ll call you brave.

I’ll call you intelligent, fierce, inspiring, talented and witty.

And it will still so f*cking fall short.

Because you are breathtakingly divine.

Divine.

Because when everything is stripped away…

And it’s just you, standing there naked and raw, with your soul showing.

That’s when you’re most divine of all.

“I want to apologize to all the women I have called pretty before I’ve called them intelligent or brave.” ~Rupi Kaur

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Relephant read:

10 Ways to Take Care of Ourselves when we’re Suffering from Burn Out.

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Author: Sarah Harvey

Editor: Ashleigh Hitchcock

Photo: Flickr