Through whose lens do you see yourself; your gifts, your talents, even your beauty?
I was decluttering my house this week. I went through a box of old photo albums that I acquired when we dismantled my Mom’s house a couple of years ago. These are my childhood photo albums…and I was so struck by how happy I looked in all of the early pictures.
This week I looked at that sweet, smart, loving, blue eyed, curly haired little girl through new eyes…and challenged what was. I wondered when and from whom I first got the feeling that I was not OK…just because I was chubby.
Was it from my mother who was always on a diet, complaining about her own body, then putting me on a diet? Was it from my older brother who always called me “tubs”? Was it from a society that, somewhere along the way, riduculously and insecurely decided a woman could not be “too rich or too thin”?
At what age did I stop being that happy little girl? At what stage did I buy into all that judgment I received about being “fat”? When did I start believing that being fat made me “less-than” everyone else? When did I start blaming my body for everyone else’s bad behavior?
Today I get to revisit my own history. I put one of the photos of that smiling little girl on the dresser in my bedroom. I’m going to get to know her again, as she was when she knew what made her happy.
How about you? Could you take back your sense of self…explore who you were meant to be…could be today… if you were free of body judgment…other’s judgment… and your own?
