Have we had our fill of fillers?

And are lip injections a red flag? 🚩

Let me qualify what I’m about to say with the recognition that I am a member of the gender largely responsible for the fact that women feel like they are not allowed to age and that their perceived value rests in their attempted maintenance of youth.

If I am part of the problem, I would like to be part of the solution.

So, let me also preface every other word that’s about to be dropped with this:

I am not telling you how to live. I’m not telling you what to do. And I’m certainly not shaming any choice you’re making… BUT, I want us all to discuss the impact these choices have and, if we’re doing it to raise our *value*, and/or our mate value, then we should at least acknowledge all the messages we’re sending to ourselves and others when we’re overly invested in injecting our lips, faces, tits, pecs, calves, butts, and whatever else we’ve decided to inflate, other than our self-worth.

AND, someone’s got to say it. Does it need to be me? Maybe. Maybe not.

The beautiful thing is, you don’t have to listen! So either 👋 or ✌️. Either way, sending you love.

I just got back from a trip to Orange County and I just had to write this. Because deeeeez lips 👄, were everywhere.

I’m sorry, but the inflamed lips are not good. Every time I see them I can just see the skin holding on for dear life. I see a beautiful human who has decided that their lips are not good as they are.

Engorged lips are meant to indicate arousal… and no one is supposed to be aroused twenty-four hours a day.

Now look, the surgical and aesthetic interventions we are sold are correlated to what we have evolutionarily been drawn to which are signals of both fertility (for women) and power (for men). Shiny hair, a specific hip-to-waist ratio (butt implants), the appearance of youth (childbearing), and so on. For men, it’s steroids and fitness and cars and fancy suits and all the things that will have a lady believing you’re a baller.

First, we need to acknowledge that it’s how we’re wired.

Secondly, we need to acknowledge that although men have perpetuated it, and there is certainly blame there, we are all consenting to continue to participate in the exploitation of our evolution by opting into these interventions.

“Start now, stay the same age.”
— A billboard I saw advertising plastic surgery.

Now look, I’m not shaming getting plastic surgery. I’m not shaming desiring to look more vital and young.

I’m inviting us to look at what our deepest intention is when we consent to being injected/altered.

If you have a birth defect, go for it. If you have something you’ve always hated about yourself, sure. I don’t get to decide when it’s right and wrong for anybody. However, I do think it’s important to get to the root of the motivation.

Are we doing it to expand our self-worth, or chase it? Are we doing it because we believe without it we’re no longer valuable? Or because it’s something we just want to do because we can?

On top of the fact that we are putting foreign and toxic substances in our bodies, we also need to acknowledge that no choice is free of consequence. When you alter your being, you are inherently saying your being is not good as it is.

I get it! We live in a superficial culture.

I see dudes getting injections now too running around looking like Ken dolls. When I was in my 20s I took a hair loss drug, terrified I would be bald one day… (got some beautiful culdesacs on the dome now)

But it was when I went to the doctor and had a routine exam and I was waiting for the blood results that I thought… holy moly, I am taking a drug to keep my hair — and choosing to put my health at risk and impact the symbiotic nature of my body and its brilliant systems. Because of my own vanity. FUCK THAT.

I am not a woman. And I can not even begin to come close to understanding what it’s like to be one. BUT, I cannot stand idly by and let the ducklip revolution continue.

They are not hot.

And it makes me sad that people think they are… that they’ve been convinced that they need to alter themselves to an extent that is excessive.

I was speaking to a friend recently about this who has had lip injections and she shared this, “When your friends are getting lip filler and botox you see them and you think — I need this too.” We discussed how it’s interesting that body dysmorphia becomes contagious. That when a group of people can’t see the truth in their own beauty it starts to spread… and what was normal and natural is now what is perceived as deficient.

Wild that this contagious deficiency also happens to be extremely profitable.

Here’s the thing… this subject is complex. But it can’t be ignored… the cost is too great.

I am a firm believer that when we reject aging, we reject the wisdom that comes with aging.

When we treat our elders poorly or don’t have reverence for them, we won’t want to become one.

When we treat our women as commodities, they treat themselves as commodities.

We need to bring back love, respect, and grace for the feminine. We need to honour the aging process, no matter our gender.

As Alan Watts said, “What we want is to control everything: to create girls that don’t grow old, apples that don’t rot.”

We are not afraid of appearing old. We’re afraid of dying. We’re afraid of being discarded. We’re afraid of feeling/being insignificant.

But significance and worth are never found outside of ourselves. They can never be found, they are created… by the choices we make and the grace and love at which we hold ourselves and our value.

What needs to die is the belief that we are not lovable as we are… that when we finally get ______, then we’ll be enough.

Elders know this. If we honoured them, they’d tell us.

~ An Elder Millenial. 🤪