Do You Have a Healthy Perception of Beauty?

Vivian Diller: I have a daughter and I feel a responsibility to have her see what’s ahead of her with less fear than what our culture imposes. In New York, I speak to dermatologists who are espousing the great new things they can do so that young girls never get wrinkles. They have a waiting line, young girls on prom week, and they are proudly saying, “I have 19-year-olds and it’s quite exciting because we can avoid maybe ever seeing a line on her face.” So this is the kind of culture we are being brought up with. Californians, especially, are exposed to more of a style and beauty-obsessed culture.  It’s up to us as parents, we only have so much influence on our young girls, but we have a big one. Partly it’s how we live our lives, not just what we say, but how comfortable we are with our changing appearance.

 

To get this conversation going we have to uncover what has been there, this cultural paradox, which is not spoken about. In the book I call it a beauty paradox. We have to open it up to discussion because it’s keeping women from having a comfortable conversation that leads to better choices. We were brought up with two opposing pulls. Many of the women in their 50s 60s and even 70s are remembering the hard-fought battle of the feminist movement, which was based on putting looks in the backseat because they had to make a statement that there are more important aspects to our character. So, in that hard-earned fight, it was very difficult for women, these baby boomers who are now reaching mid-life, to be able to acknowledge that, in fact, looks do matter to them and, in fact, we’re living in a culture that tells women over and over again that unless they pay attention to their looks, or return to their youthful looks, they’re going to become invisible. So, those two currents that are colliding just as the boomers are reaching mid-life is a conversation starter. If you don’t have that then people feel embarrassed or they feel shameful, or as if they are betraying some belief system, giving up on their sisterhood. And I don’t think it has to be that way.

 

 

Vivian Diller: There is a long list of what people like Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren share that other women don’t. What makes for those different choices? “What is that belief?” This could be a long conversation, but it might be the most important point. I indentify with three (or four things). The first thing I say is, whether they’ve learned this, know it from their own families, or have worked on it in themselves – that paradox that I’ve described – these women have come to terms with it. They don’t seem to feel pulled or that they have to take sides. They don’t say looks don’t matter, or that looks really matter. That’s the backdrop. It’s not just movie stars, its women that come into my practice. It’s the women that say, “I am really ok with...” Somewhere along the way they have worked that out; either by struggling with it, or they had a model in their mom and it happened naturally. The next thing I see is these women have flexibility in their definition of what is attractive. They don’t seem stuck on one very fixed, useful image of themselves. And next, they have an internal dialogue that sounds kinder and gentler. When they look in the mirror, it’s not that they don’t notice those lines, they have those moments. They’ll even say, “I look older,” but it’s not with as much self-flagellation. They don’t condemn it. The women who seem to get to that place have an internal dialogue that’s kinder. The last thing I find: they have found a balance in the role their looks play in their life. Sometimes, from early on in their lives, looks were never that meaningful to them – in their identity. We say to put your beauty in your identity, and not your identity into your beauty. The women who seem to be able to gracefully move into their next phase of life, even if their beauty was a large part of their identity, have learned to gradually shift the balance. This is where I feel that I was very familiar with that experience, because I was a ballet dancer and then I was a model and by nature of those professions, beauty had to be a large part.

 

 

Vivian Diller: It has something to do with the ability you seem to have to relate to those things that I just mentioned. The ones who are able to say, “Forty means freedom, forty means I know myself more.” It means you have shifted in that balance that many women have not been able to. If you’re stuck at 40 feeling like what makes you feel okay is looking in the mirror and seeing smooth skin, going out and wearing a skinny dress and having men look at you – if that is what makes you feel good and not having other reliable sources that make you feel good, 40 becomes an “Uh oh,” because men will not look at you the way they looked at you in your 20s. It you’re still working to get them to look at you, that’s something I think needs to shift. That’s something that women can give to each other as a gift. We can look at each other with admiration. That’s something I do now, partly because I’ve written this book. Where do I look? I look at their eyes, their smiles, their accomplishments, their strengths – I see that as beautiful. Do other women? I think women are very critical of one another.

 

 

Vivian Diller: Having gone through several careers, I’ve had a couple of “aha” moments, first being when I injured myself in dance. There was that moment when I recognized physically that I would never be able to do what I once did before. And it was a great loss because dance was such a big part of my life. But it was an “aha” moment recognizing that there were other things I could rely on than just my body. It was then that I went back to school. I started modeling while I was in school to support myself. In modeling you have an “Uh oh” in almost every job you do because there is always someone younger to step into your place. My “aha” moment then was that I decided I wanted to be in a career that I could get better at as I get older. I think many women in the public eye, those in entertainment, are put under pressure. They don’t have that comfort that I do as a psychologist knowing that I get better the older and wiser I get. That was an “aha” moment to me: realizing that your education and career choice as a woman is longer and wider if you can do something that doesn’t rely on your appearance. Women now have so many choices and they are living longer lives than ever before and I want to help women get more comfortable with that

 

When I bring this book around women in their late 50s and 60s they are reminded of the conscious-raising groups of the feminist movement. They’re saying it’s time again for women to join together to shift the way the world sees women. Back then it was about giving them greater freedom of choice, which meant really having to put their looks less in the forefront. Women of the feminist movement have said it was never the intention that our looks shouldn’t matter. It was about giving women the confidence that they could do more with their lives. Now when you say that, I‘ll say, yes, women need to join together and raise the awareness of women. Because we don’t have youth it doesn’t mean that we don’t have beauty.

 

 

Vivian Diller: I try to help people understand their personal attachment to the role of their looks. When you understand that looks have multiple layers of meaning, you have something to work with. It’s not about fixing yourself on the outside. You’re giving meaning to what’s on the outside by connecting it to what’s on the inside.

 

The reality is that looks do matter. It’s about how a young girl can find her own form of what it means to be attractive when she looks at herself. Because any mother who loves their daughter will find beauty in them. When you talk to your children, you can’t pretend their looks don’t matter. You have to say, I love the way you look. It’s different than saying, “You’re beautiful, you’re perfect.” Who else is going to say that to you besides your mother and father? That’s the base they need to be able to go out in the world, because the world does judge them by how they look. They need to have their own sense of what’s attractive. You can’t deny their flaws like acne because they won’t believe you.

 

 

Vivian Diller: I love that question because it forces me to think about it. My mother was never someone who taught me about the beauty ritual. It is something I learned. My daughter, in fact, has helped me with that. She would remind me that I could enjoy being attractive and that I could actually take pleasure in it. It’s a balance between discipline, routine and flexibility. I exercise regularly, I love to be athletic, and I play tennis. As you get older, to be athletic you have to keep your muscles strong, so I work out  regularly. I don’t love the gym, but I do it anyway. I tell women that if you want to be able to enjoy your life into your 80s and 90s, you have to take care of your body. I eat healthy, but I am not fanatic about it. I naturally eat healthy and routinely. I am up early in the morning. I take a break during the day. That is part of my routine – I keep pretty long hours but I always take a break. Know your limitations. I’ve learned you have to expect the unexpected. As you age things happen and you have to learn how to go with those changes. Ageing creates a necessity of loss and I feel like that’s something I’ve incorporated into the way I think about things. Another thing is that I put a lot of value on fun. It’s a really underrated quality in people’s lives and having fun is really very important. It’s a balance. Discipline, hard work, and drive are valuable, but mixing in those moments that aren’t about that is so important. Balancing that as you get older is a vital part of looking good and feeling good.

 

 

Vivian Diller: It’s really not about money and what money can buy. It all depends on how you feel about yourself. You can spend a lot of money trying to be someone you’re not anymore and it’s a very temporary fix. We owe it to ourselves and our daughters to find a more long-term, satisfying answer – and that doesn’t cost money.

 

 

Vivian Diller: I am a fanatic Yankee fan. I do not miss a game. My husband and I organize our life around when they play.

 

Vivian Diller, Ph.D., is a psychologist in private practice in New York City. After completing her Ph.D., she went on to do postdoctoral training in psychoanalysis at NYU. As a psychologist, she works mostly with young adults in long and short-term therapy, specializing in helping dancers, models, actors, and athletes who struggle as they age out of their professions.