Beauty And Mental Health — Interview w/ Angela Karanja, Psychologist and Parenting Teenagers Expert
Angela Karanja is the lead Adolescent Psychologist, Parenting Teenagers Expert and Founder of Raising Remarkable Teenagers. Like a lotus that thrives from the dirties deepest mud, Angela was born in dire poverty and extreme childhood abuse, in a village in Kenya, it remains a wonder she survived, leave alone bloom in those circumstances.
Talk about a kid embodying Eleanor Roosevelt’s quote, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” Angela dreamt that one day she’d go to a school where she could eat 3 meals a day. Right there was a dream, a beauty that motivated and inspired her to have dogged focus that would take her to a high school where she indeed was having 3 meals a day and that was the start of her journey to becoming a psychologist in Oxfordshire UK.
Not only did Angela believe in the beauty of that dream, she believed she was beautiful. Yes, beautifully, and wonderfully made despite wearing tatters and walking miles and miles to school shoeless and on an empty tummy. This is the inner beauty, self esteem, self efficacy that Angela empowers every teenager to adopt, and encourages parents to teach their teens.
This is a beauty that’s in everyone waiting to be nurtured, a beauty that no one can take away without your permission, a beauty that can’t be bought in a bottle, (although can be enhanced beautifully with makeup and clothing) a beauty that respects own magnificence and understands other’s magnificence too!
What is the role of beauty in life?
Beauty breeds delight in the observer or beholder. It ignites a fondness, a marvel, an ineffable feeling that makes the beholder respond more positively towards the object or person deemed as beautiful.
What are common misconceptions about beauty today?
Beauty is surface and superficial. Whilst most people believe we see beauty with our eyes, beauty is more than that. True beauty appeals to all of our 5 senses and also ignites the spirit, the very core of a person. If beauty was just visual, how do one explain how visually impaired people are able to enjoy beauty?
Beauty is a social construct. A lot of what people call beautiful has been classically conditioned. In truth if this was to be rationally evaluated a lot would be found wanting.
Beauty that is positioned to demean another form of beauty is no beauty at all. True beauty should never feel the need to compare or compete. It stands unique.
Beauty is about make up and clothing. Whilst these can enhance inner beauty, beauty doesn’t necessarily need these to be beauty. Beauty is a confidence that spews from within.
Beauty is perfection hence the popularity of filters and airbrushing to attempt to make someone look perfect. This is a world wide self deception to those doing it and those observing. A sad phenomenal which makes impressionable minds very vulnerable to self image distortion and feelings of inadequacy.
How does a child perceive beauty?
Depends on the age of the child and what they have been socialised to adopt. Children will believe to be beautiful what their environment regards as beautiful. However, before the age of reason (around 6–7), children see authenticity, a positive attitude, calmness, a none threatening attitude, a smile, all sorts of colours as beautiful.
That’s why for example younger kids have friends from all backgrounds, all shapes and sizes and looks, but as they grow up because of social constructs they begin to segregate and stick with what their “family” deems to be acceptable. Although this is changing massively as kids begin to break social constructs and follow their authentic hearts.
How can beauty/self-care practices empower mental health? Please give an example.
When one has the belief that they are beautiful and worthy, they truly take great care of themselves. As they take care of self, this reinforces the fact that they treasure themselves. From inside out. This then becomes a cycle. It is also possible for selfcare practises to lead to treasuring self as one feeds on the other, outside in. Biologically, when you engage in selfcare activities including eating well, massaging your face, treating yourself well, spending time with people you love and doing things that you love, spending time in nature, going to watch shows or arts you love, listening to music, dopamine, oxytocin, endorphin, and serotonin hormones are released. These mitigate the effects of cortisol and other stress hormones. When the body is in a state of well and rest, we experience peace, healing and repair, heightened growth, and creativity. Because these hormones cause a good feeling one can get addicted to them and therefore keep doing the things that cause these good feelings. This is the good side of addiction. When people get addicted or in the habit of doing good things that serve them positively.
How can beauty standards affect mental health?
Flawed beauty standards can contribute to people having feelings of inadequacy and not enough-ness. This stress damages self-esteem and image. This feeling of insecurity causes overbearing mental stress. The problem with a damaged self esteem is it can prevent someone from bravely going for even their goals even in fields unrelated to beauty. Because there’s that niggly demon constantly cutting you down hanging over your head reminding you “you are not good enough.”
What is a healthy way to approach beauty?
Beauty should be popularised as diversity and representation. (i.e.) every type of person on this earth should be valued and they should be able to look out and see another that represents them. Now this does not mean popularising unhealthy lifestyle. Now at all. For example, someone who is starving themselves to death should never be positioned as beautiful, neither should be someone who is eating themselves to death.
What are trends in beauty that you find healthy, which are trends that are unhealthy?
Trends that promote healthy living (i.e.) physical, mental health, psychological and social health. Anything that promotes deterioration of physical, mental health, psychological and social health including demeaning other people is unhealthy. For example, a trend that elevates a certain group of people over others creates a corruption in humanity where one group feels more worthy than the other and can end up disrespecting the one looked down on. On the other hand, the one that is lowered can disregard themselves and end up not fulfilling their full potential due to a lower self-image. Both groups however are likely to suffer mental health problems because human beings were made to live in harmony and cohesion and when one suffers the other suffers too as the Native American Proverb states, “No tree has branches so foolish as to fight amongst themselves”
What needs to change to create a healthier image of beauty?
I think media is a big influencer and representation is very important. Real beauty and healthy self-esteem lessons need to be taught and reinforced in schools. For example at Raising Remarkable Teenagers we teach about a deep respect and appreciation of self.
Additionally, adults who have grown up feeling marginalised need to shift their minds and take back their power because they are the teachers in these classes, they are the parents, the doctors etc that our younger generation are looking up to. If and when we don’t feel enough children feel us, they feel our low vibration and we lose positive influence over them.
For example, I can’t be telling a black kid to be proud of her hair when all I do is burn mine straight or wear weaves and wigs. Now I’m not saying wearing wigs and weaves is wrong, I have some in my cupboard, but they are there not because I don’t like my hair or don’t feel enough in my afro hair, but because I can choose to wear whatever I want when I want.
Also let’s promote more real looking people in media not the airbrushed, filtered unreal people. Now again, I’m not saying make up is bad, but let make up be to enhance our creativity and expression as whole human beings not to hide our inadequate selves.
What do you wish people knew about beauty?
Beauty is in everything and is everywhere if we dare to drop our blinkers and remove filters. As I share this, I’m reminded of Viktor Frankl the holocaust survivor. He said that in his daily experiences he had to find beauty in everything, in order to survive. When he was brought a bowl of cold, dirty water with a fish head in it as his only daily meal, he had to see the beauty in it. And he did. And he survived.
Seeing beauty in everything can save a life, our own and others. This is my deepest belief. Thinking I was beautiful no matter how I appeared and believing in the beauty of my dream saved me. In the same breath, when we regard others as beautiful, we value them we are more likely to come out of our way to enrich their lives.
Is there anything you would like to share that we have not asked you here?
It takes bravery to break deep rooted beauty standards (like any other social norms) and although those that pioneer to disrupt a long established colony may meet resistance, they must not be defeated for every human being was born beautiful and affirming this is what representation is all about.
THANK YOU!
Connect with Angela Karanja on LinkedIn.
Demee Koch about the MEDIUM interview series on Beauty And Mental Health:
Hello! I am a serial entrepreneur with more than 2 decades of experience in the health & beauty industry. This interview series is about the effects of beauty, self-care and the beauty industry on mental health.
For me, beauty is a way to love — it is about self-care, art, nutrition, exercise, life, self-love. With this interview series, I invite experts to become part of a movement that re-defines beauty with its trends, standards and practices. Let’s empower beautiful minds.
Thank you for being the change. I’m looking forward to learn from each one of you. Reach out to me via LinkedIn.
Demee ❤︎
