Susan walks in the room, all long legs and raven hair, in an LBD and delicate jewelry, all eyes on her – including yours.  You’re feeling a little blah in your dress, it’s definitely not getting the attention that Susan’s is.   You compare yourself to Susan, and the next day run out to buy the same dress, the same shoes, the same jewelry… but somehow that Friday night, you walk into a room and it just doesn’t work.

You have some choices here…

A) You can beat yourself up and indulge in a lot of self-recrimination.  “I’m so …” Congratulations, you just added to your burden of self-hatred.

B) You can call Susan nasty names in your head and make up motivations for her.  Hey, you’ve just convinced yourself to hate someone you don’t even know!

C) You can sit back and observe Susan, and take notes about not just what she’s wearing, but how she’s wearing it, and what effect she’s having on her audience.  Then, you can analyze your own outfit and figure out what you can change to get the same results.

Obviously, I vote for option C.  A and B are counterproductive.

So, let’s look at Susan.  First off, Susan has endless legs, and she’s choosing to showcase them in her dress and stiletto heels.  Second, Susan has raven hair – so the black dress she’s chosen looks great on her, especially with the bright red lips she’s rocking.   Yeah, yeah.  Susan’s gorgeous.  But what about you?

Well, maybe you have an hourglass figure, luminous green eyes, and strawberry blonde curls.  Instead of feeling inferior about your “cute” looks, make them work for you.  How about a bias-cut wrap-dress in ivory silk?  A statement necklace to match your eyes, gold heeled sandals, and a soft updo with just a few curls drifting down and all of a sudden you’re in the spotlight.

And better yet, to my way of thinking, there are two beautiful women in the room tonight.  Every night, let’s have a few more!  Let’s take over the world!  -ahem-  We all have goals… 😉

In the meantime, you’re there, you’re sitting in the club … observe.  Enjoy.  Isn’t Susan pretty?  Isn’t that a nice necklace?  What a great effect!  She’s like a piece of walking art!   Oh look, here comes Veronica – meow, girl… check out that jacket!  Fierce!

We have this really weird thing going in our society today where beauty = sexuality.  And sure, endless legs are pretty sexy – but how about just enjoying the art?   Appreciating other women doesn’t mean you want to bed them, and it doesn’t lower your social status.  You don’t have to compete, you don’t have to compare, you don’t have to push someone else down to raise yourself up.   That relaxed enjoyment is going to affect your attitude in a positive fashion, which is going to affect *your* beauty – in a positive fashion.

As far as I’m concerned, one of the highest compliments you can give is, “You really look like yourself today”.  If Susan is capturing Susan, enjoy.  She’s sharing part of herself with you.  You don’t want to copy her style, you don’t want to buy those clothes, you want to emulate her achievement.  And that is done by learning to work with your own raw materials… not hers.

Admire, don’t acquire.