"Blessed" with good looks? How does THAT work?

[danas]

I believe we choose our looks, just as we choose our parents.
I believe we come here to grow and learn specific lessons, and we choose the whole set design that could best help us grow and learn these specific lessons in this life time. Looks influence how the world responds to us.
For instance a very over weight person who looses a lot of weight can see how people react differently to them.
I also believe we choose if we want to be handicapped etc...
Our higher self chooses this for us, in the hope that during this life time we will grow best using these exterior tools.

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by Aware

I have being wondering about this lately, it comes in and out of my mind, do our physical "looks" have anything to do with our choice or our life path? As in, they obviously directly or indirectly, however you want to put it, affect our lives.

I definitely feel the way we look has a powerful correlation with what we might end up doing in life.

In my experience, based on what I know about the non-physical and the soul, you appearance is just a reflection of the energies you're expressing, and I believe those energies are part of a broader, bigger, collective "package" of energies that make you who you are.

To quote Abraham-Hicks:

"You also launched desires about your physical experience from you Non-physical vantage point before your birth. And sometimes those desire, or intentions, did include such specific things as creative traits or talents, specific things you wanted to do, or specific people you intended to co-create with."

And I believe those energies can change (can be amended), to some degree, and that if they do, your appearance, in some way, will reflect it. I know Rose Rosetree, who has her own unique style of an ancient art called physiognomy--i.e. face reading--says that wrinkles aren't just things that randomly show up with age; rather, she says that "wrinkles are God's makeup" and reflect our innate energies and, to use an analogy, sort of show where we've been "training," much like muscles show what type of training we've been doing, and where we've targeted that training. That's a perspective that makes a lot of sense to me, and is congruent with my understanding of how reality works).

When I use the term "appearance," I use it very generally. You see, I feel all perception is interpretation of energy, so we look the same to so many people because, naturally, we're really good at interpreting energy and, to a large degree, we interpret what we look at similarly (to some degree; I'm kind of simplifying it a bit; there are quite a few factors involved. I believe two different people can look at someone and see two different things, but it's hard to say because I've never "seen through the eyes" of someone else before--and I believe more to interpretation than just looking through the physical senses we call eyes).

On a purely biological level, which is indeed part of the reality we experience--part of the "agreement" we enter into when we choose to focus physically--men and women will find certain attributes more attractive than others, but I feel that's mostly a fairly "superficial" thing.

To explain what I mean when I use the term "superficial," in my experience, as I've explored and been exposed to relationships with people (relationships in general, not just romantic relationships), while appearance is a factor for me, it's only one factor. I'm more interested in the collective energies I sense from a person, which I feel is--or at least, might be--reflected in more than just their physical appearance. Some women, for example, can be very physically attractive to me, appearance-wise, but since I'm not just a physical body--I feel there's more to me than that --I might feel a much more powerful attraction to someone who is more of a match to the type of energies I find attractive (I'm still not sure at the moment why we find certain energies more attractive than others, although I do feel there are lots of factors involved--far more than just physical appearance).

In my experience, you can't really isolate appearance from these energies (which, I know, sort of contradicts what I said above if you look at it from a purely logical point of view). This is a phenomena that isn't so easy to explain, but I'm sure you must have experienced it--that you find yourself strongly attracted to some people, even though based on what we're conditioned to believe humans are "supposed" to look like, they might not match up (which, of course, isn't a bad thing. I believe it's a bit limiting to feel that everybody should match up to one, agreed-upon appearance... that'd be well boring! ).

Attraction is more of an experiential, energy thing that bypasses any sort of conditioning we have (conditioning is a factor, but at least in my experience, it gets eclipsed pretty easily), which reminds me of a quote I read somewhere--I think from David DeAngelo: "attraction isn't a choice." I feel that quote is coming from a different, more pick-up-artist-y perspective than what I'm coming from, but it makes a good point (I'm looking at things more from an energy and soul-as-it's-expressed-physically perspective; you could argue they're the same at the core, though, just different perspectives to look from).

I feel the whole appearance thing, as society looks at it, is a bit flawed. Beauty isn't so much a physical characteristic, but a perspective--a "place" to look at the world from; a frequency you tune to, and then perceive in other things. When you stand in that perspective, everything's beautiful. I know that sounds cliche, but it's really my experience--not all the time, obviously, but when it is... oh, that's the stuff of life. But more than that, I start noticing that physical appearance is one aspect of something larger. (Again, this is hard to express... it's very experiential. Maybe one day I'll be able to describe it better, but if you sort of relate it to your experience, perhaps you can relate to what I say).

Perhaps a good way to look at it is this: when you look at someone, their appearance is definitely a reflection of their energies, but since we're more than our physical body--since we also have a sort of 'escrow' of what we want to manifest, and a connection with the broader, non-physical part of us (our connection to All That Is), appearance can kind of get fairly "trumped" in the "broadness" of all of that (especially since, from that broader perspective, I don't feel we're expressing all of our energies--I feel we sort of choose sort of "lens" to focus through, and express energies through that... if that makes sense), and since beauty is more of a perspective than a condition, it's a matter of tuning into that energy of whoever we're looking at really is.
Again, there are lots of factors that come into play when it comes to whether we're attracted to this person or not, but I feel when we're powerfully attracted to someone, it's about more than just their appearance--I feel we recognise something deeper in them that, on some level, we deeply resonate with.

[It raises a good question of "what is attraction?" I don't feel our current answers to that question are holistic enough; they're mostly rooted in biology and the scientific paradigm, which is just one way of looking at the world that, in general, can make it hard to see some other, more awesome things that you can see from other, more right-brained, experiential paradigms. I believe attraction might just be an indicator of resonance and alignment--alignment is kind of another way to describe resonance.]

As for people who are "disfigured," I'd say that the idea of "disfigured," kind of like the idea of "disorder," comes from a perspective of (speaking generally), "what I'm looking at is not like what I'm used to looking at, so there must be something wrong." That's a fairly common belief in society, but from a more soulful perspective, I feel that what we may label as a disorder might indeed just be another form of variety that we're not yet used to. (There are other factors involved, but I'm not really referring to more "extreme" cases, nor do I--at least, at the moment--fully understand them).

Autism, is a good example. From what I've heard, many people are quick to label children who behave a certain way with the label of "autistic," but that's a bit of a negative, remedial label. From what I've seen, people who actually connect with and form relationships with these children learn that they're not "broken," but "different," and in some cases, different in a very powerful way. You might even call them advanced (not in a "they're better than the rest of us" sense but in a "they come more powerfully, more differently focused, and so to some degree, they can do more, and they do things differently" sense).

So yeah, you bring up an interesting topic, and also stirred up an interesting question in me: to what degree is physical appearance, as we perceive it, a reflection of the total energies a person has to express?

I feel appearance it's probably a reflection of a few different energies (which you could all call "our intentions"--both pre-birth and after-birth, but the way they interact and manifest seems pretty interesting and not so black and white), and that there are quite a few factors involved.

Another good question is "in general, we tend to look at people who look younger as more attractive; to what degree can we maintain that appearance in the physical, and how would that alter our perception of beauty and our experience of attraction?"

Good thread; you asked a good question.

[vartann]

beauty is a variable
physical strength is a variable
intelligence is a variable
etc. ...

you can "upgrade" your high-ranking variables - or not - and "shore up" your low-ranking variables
every one has a hand to play, just different cards, like in poker (although i would not advocate "bluffing" in case ur hand is ****'y, but rather "showing up upright")
beauty is
a- but ONE variable amongst others
b- not necessarily the most desirable (very good looking girls are more prone to fall prey to sometimes dangerous predators/ men engaging in vanity oftentimes -- i say PRONE to, not necessarily, of course)

for instance,
i am 5'5'' - so ♥♥♥♥♥♥ at basket or pole vaulting but great at martial arts and horse riding
i am hairy (hey i didn t say "hairy-over" LOL), so not a "ladykiller" in western cities gravitating towards androgynic guys, but Ladies from the Asian countryside find me real appealing (heyyyy, everyone his own perversions )

(all right i somewhat awkwardly overlook the preponderance of the inner factor here but you got my point)

i hate details, but i am great at designing big systems

i am short sighted so when it s freezing in Northern China (i mean FREEZING) there s mist on my glasses, BUT i have hot blood that allows me for several hours in SHIRT by below 30 degrees C)
i am quite adventurous so get involved in accidents or wounds occasionally but my body regenerates at a stunning pace

yes i definitely think we chose most, most of our variables before coming (back), according to the hurdles we are meant to pass and the Life we are meant to conduct in alignment with our Higher Self's "plans"


Pace e Salute