Culture encourages us to put value on the self's exterior, be it in the shape of our bodies, financial success, or professional achievement. Billions of dollars are spent every year selling the virtues of this external success, teaching us how to attain it, and rewarding those who do. I call this the world of the outside-in.

THE WORLD OF THE OUTSIDE-IN:

• This is the world most of us live in. This is the world our children are growing up in.
• In this world, the outside -the veneer, the shell- is most esteemed.
• The world's rules are black-and-white: perfection and beauty on the outside symbolize perfection and beauty on the inside; imperfection and "ugliness" on the outside symbolize imperfection and "ugliness" on the inside.
• Focus your energies on perfecting your exterior and attain love, acceptance and success; fall short and create shame, rejection, and failure.

There is another truth, another world. Here, what matters and what is considered valuable lies inside of us. Little in our culture supports this reality, though it has been known for thousands of years. I call this world the world of the inside-out.

THE WORLD OF THE INSIDE-OUT

• This is the world many of us long for and rightfully deserve to live in. This is our true home.
• It is the world where value is placed on the interior of a person or a thing rather than his or her exterior.
• There are no black and white rules in this world, for this is not a black and white world. Instead, there are thousands, if not millions wonderful shades of gray.
• Focus your energies on perceiving the interior of a being or a thing, and feel awe, gratitude, and love; close off to it and know isolation, compulsion, and despair.

HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO THE BODY BELOVED?

The Body Beloved teaches us that there is more to us than our body image. It shows us that our exterior is but a fraction of the miracles that our bodies and our Selves really are. It encourages us to look below the surface to find what's really there. And it opens us to a world where being our Selves is always valuable no matter our exterior.

HOW DOES THE BODY LOOK FROM THE INSIDE-OUT?

• In our bodies live trillions of cells who perform miraculous functions every second of the day, including digestion, creation, and respiration, to name just a few.
• In addition, each of these cells is able to perform a variety of energetic functions vital to our survival, such as holding on to feelings and memories we are not yet able to process, intuiting things we could never consciously know, and possessing wisdom beyond any intellect.
• Our bodies allow us to love, create, feel, hear, touch, and see the wonders of the world; to travel to extraordinary inner realms; and to experience peace and bliss, pain and sorrow. In short, our bodies allow us to live a full and rich life.

HOW DOES THE SELF LOOK FROM THE INSIDE-OUT?

• Each of us is made into a unique and precious individual; no one is exactly like us. No one will ever be.
• We are given the capacity to be extraordinarily loving, unspeakably cruel and everything in between: the choice is ours.
• Each of us is an essential piece of the universal puzzle. The world cannot not exist without all of us.
• We have all been given a life task, our own specific "job" whose fulfillment is designed to help the world's evolution. Whether you are a Mother Theresa or a carpenter, a mother or a doctor, your task is vital.

HOW DOES LOOKING FROM THE INSIDE-OUT TRANSFORM US?

When we live with reverence, when we see beyond the surface of things into their very being, we cannot help but live in our hearts and behave with kindness, patience, and compassion. By opening our eyes to our bodies' wonders, The Body Beloved teaches us to be in sacred partnership with them, a partnership where both the Self's and the Body's needs are met in an ever-changing dance. The days of feeling hate and shame in front of the mirror are gone, replaced instead by awe, gratitude, and an intense desire to care. This is the gift and the promise of the Body Beloved.