Mirror, Mirror

This blog is dedicated to the Beauty is Soul Deep group, September 2011

Mirror, mirror on the wall... what do you see when you look into a mirror?  If it's a full length mirror, do your eyes jump to your "trouble" spots?  Do you judge your shape as being too fat or too skinny?  Maybe it's all about the fruit:  you are an apple or a pear, maybe even a pineapple if you didn't shave your legs!

Too tall or too short?  Not bad but the thunder thighs get in the way?  Are you asymmetrical?  Do you have an illness or a disability that affects your appearance, and in fact, filters your view of yourself?

Now let's move to a bathroom mirror, or better yet, one of those magnifying make-up mirrors.  Now let the judgments flow!  Certainly you are too old, or pale, or dark, or freckly.  You must have crooked teeth, gigantic pores, wrinkles upon wrinkles, eye bags, or those nasty age spots!  Unibrow?  Check.  Zits?  Check.

Are you starting to feel that this is ridiculous?  It would be if it weren't so true.  We tend to look at ourselves with criticism, judgment and maybe even rejection.  This is sad.

How did it get to this?  Imagine a little child, two or three, with no concept of negative self-image and see how free she is!  She delights in her movements, spinning and laughing and dancing with no self-consciousness.  What happened?

Did our parents tease us?  Did we become the "chubby one"?  Did our peers find nicknames such as Beanpole, Giraffe, Roly-Poly?  Did our teachers or clergy or neighbours make comments about our shape, our developing femininity or anything about our bodies?  School kids aside, most people don't mean to hurt us with their thoughtless comments.

I will tell you a little story about my childhood.  I was a tall, thin child with pale skin, pale blue eyes and black hair.  I was less than two years old when my mother was fully pregnant with my sister.  Mom went into the hospital, either for false labour or high blood pressure; I'm not sure.  But she came out without the new baby I'd been anticipating.  I went into a depression.  I refused to eat.  I was bribed with ice cream and candy but I would have none of it.

Finally the baby came.  It was a tiny baby girl.  My mother told me that when she came home from the hospital, I was waiting on the front step of our farmhouse and I looked so tall and gangly next to her tiny pink bundle.  I also looked so serious, as I had taken the baby's arrival to heart.  I was nicknamed "Sad Sack", after a 1960s cartoon soldier. 

So I was the pale reed of a girl while the baby grew into a rosy-cheeked cherub with curly blond hair and a cuddly round shape.  This imprinted upon me at a deep level.  I was too young to even have memories of this time, but it shaped my self-image, both my body and my temperament, for the next thirty years. 

Think back to your own story.  What seemingly harmless comments shaped your view of yourself?  What cruel and hurtful things were said on the playground that made you wish you were a different person?

It's time to claim back our power.  It's time to protect the little girl who was hurt, but it's also time to realize that most likely, no one is hurting us now.  We internalize all those messages, put them on a tape, and then play them over and over and over until they seem like truth.  Let's stop hurting ourselves!

Instead, let's change the tape.  Let's rip out the old, archaic, toxic tape and replace it with a new one, filled with love and acceptance.  It's bad enough that our innocent, angelic ears ever had to hear those hurtful words, but it's a tragedy that we keep repeating them unconsciously!

Today, let's embrace ourselves from the inside out.  Let's be grateful for the body we have.  What if, what if, we actually chose this body ahead of time, before we were even born?  What if this is the perfect body for us to have at this time, with the perfect imperfections to help us learn important lessons such as compassion, gratitude, acceptance and deep self-love? 

I have heard people say their body betrayed them by getting sick, getting fat, getting pregnant, or any number of things, but I don't agree.  I think it's the other way around.  We betray our body by exposing it to thought patterns or situations so that it can only respond to in the way that it did. 

Today I choose to see myself differently.  Today I choose to forgive, accept and love myself on all levels, and treat my temple with gentleness.  Join me?

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