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We never thought we'd ever see a women's magazine cover this stunning. For the July issue of The Australia Women's Weekly, burn survivor Turia Pitt stares out at you on the cover. And you'll notice she looks quite different from your typical cover model. Five years ago Pitt was burned over 65 percent of her body when she encountered a brush fire while running an ultramarathon. After over 100 surgeries she still bears dramatic scars from her accident -- yet she calls herself "the luckiest girl in the world." And you have to hear what she says about beauty. It's truly inspiring. But first, the cover.
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Wow, now that's confidence! What a powerful pose.
So how did Pitt manage to bump actress Rachel Griffiths and Miss Universe for the cover shot? Editor Helen McCabe says Pitt was selected to serve on their panel in selecting the magazine's Women of the Future scholarship award recipients. But they were so impressed with Pitt they wanted more from her. In her editor's letter McCabe writes, "The July cover had to belong to her. Any attempt to describe the magic and beauty of Turia seems to get lost in platitudes or clichés. Yet I have never met a more remarkable person."
Wow ... now I want to meet her, too! Pitt isn't just a burn survivor -- she's also an ultramarathon runner (an ultramarathon is a race longer than the typical 26.219 miles of a marathon) and an engineer, and since her accident she's become an author and a motivational speaker as well. She continues to train for athletic events to raise funds for the reconstructive surgery charity Interplast. I mean, it takes a certain kind of resilient person to take a life-threatening and disfiguring incident and turn it into a source of courage, spirit and, well, magic. Something tells me she may have had that magic in her all along.
But it's what she says about beauty and being a cover model that I like the best. "For me, it sends the message that confidence equals beauty. There are a lot of women out there who are so beautiful but don’t have the confidence, and that's what gets you over the line." Confidence is beauty -- I do believe there's a certain kind of striking energy confident women give off, and that people perceive it as beauty. How do you get that assurance? Imagine if we spent more time cultivating that in ourselves than we spend trying to make ourselves look prettier in more superficial ways. We'd all be stunners.
Do you think confidence makes you more beautiful? What do you do to make yourself feel stronger?
Image via The Australian Women's Weekly
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