Does the North Star Serve Gelato?

I recently was given a book called "Finding Your Own North Star" by Martha Beck. It's all about evaluating how you make decisions in your life and figuring out the different voices (she refers to them as "selves" - essential vs. social) which help (knowingly and unknowingly) you to make those decisions, so that you can live the life you were made to live. It all falls in line with this theme in my life: wondering what makes me tick.

So there is this part in the book that I just read which is all about establishing what my self perception is and the fallacies within it. She shares this beautiful story about when she was in college, she and some friends would pitch in, rent a studio, hire a model, and draw. Most of the models matched the social ideal - slender, fit, perfectly proportioned. But one day, they got somebody really different...

"She looked well over sixty, with a deeply lined face and a body that was probably fifty pounds heavier than her doctors would have liked. She'd had a few doctors, too, judging from her scars. Shining purple welts from a cesarean section and knee surgery cut deep rifts in the rippled adipose fat of her lower body. Another scar ran across one side of her chest, where her left breast had once been. When she first limped onto the dais to pose, I felt so much pity and unease that I physically flinched. But we were there to draw her, so I picked up a pencil.

And so, as I began to draw this maimed old woman, the most amazing thing happened. Within five minutes she became a person of absolutely wondrous beauty. She didn't look like a supermodel; she didn't have to. Her body, in and of itself, was as beautiful as a piece of polished driftwood, or a wind-carved rock, or a waterfall.

When this perceptual shift happened, I was so surprised that I stopped drawing and simply stared. The model seemed to notice this, and without turning her head, looked straight into my eyes. Then I saw the ghost of a smile flicker across her face, and I realized something else: She knew she was beautiful. She knew it, and she knew that I'd seen it. Maybe that's why she had consented to pose nude in the first place. Knowing that a roomful of artists couldn't draw her without seeing her--I mean really seeing her--she may have decided to give us a gentle education about our perceptions."

Mmm, self perception. Makes you think, doesn't it? How to truly become in tune with what I've got and what I love about myself vs. what people/society deems lovable and acceptable.