We've Gotta Chat
I have to ask you a question.
When’s the last time you actually thought about how much TIME you spend each day noticing your flaws in the mirror, feeling disappointed in the way you look, and creating strategies to look better? How much TIME do you spend meal planning and counting calories and filling colour coded containers? And never mind time, but how much MONEY do you spend on programs and shakes and videos and eyelashes and nails and hair and eyebrows so you feel more acceptable? Trying to make your face and our body LOOK like something more acceptable?!?!
And now can we please pretty please talk about the fact that the people who love you deeply love you for all the things beyond that? Can we talk about the fact that they love your passion for giving and your zest for life and your nurturing nature? Can we talk about the fact that they love your creativity and your smart ass comments and the fact that you know how to TAKE. CARE. OF. BUSINESS?!?! Can we talk about the fact that they love the softness of you and your emotion and that you make the BEST damn lasagna? Or that you can talk your way around a mutual fund like nobody’s business? Or the joy you get from helping someone look like a million bucks?!?!
Those who love you love the RICHNESS inside of you. We are so attached to this notion that our worth and our value is defined by the way we look that we FORGET that what we look like really has NOTHING to do with what we truly have to offer the world.
I challenge you this week to pay a little bit of attention to the amount of time you invest in putting yourself down and labelling your flaws. I hope you can take a step back and look realllllly critically at the time you have each day and acknowledge whether or not you are going to continue to invest THAT much of yourself into self-loathing. I CHALLENGE you to very CONSCIOUSLY turn that negative voice OFF the next time you hear yourself cursing your stomach or your thighs or your grey hair or the fact that you can’t make small talk to save your life. And I challenge you to COMMIT to spending a little of that time thinking about the good stuff: the smiles on your kids’ faces when you shoot them with the hose, the thank you card you received in the mail from a friend, the fact that you are the FUNNEST mom around (which I am definitely NOT!! ha!).
I so clearly remember the day I realized that when I look at people I don’t even notice a lot of their physical characteristics and I remember wondering why on earth I was so damn self conscious about my OWN physical appearance?? If I don’t look to people’s physical traits to determine their value as a person, WHY on earth would I assume others are judging MY value based on the size of my jeans or the hairiness of my eyebrows??? And what the hell am I doing judging my OWN value based on these things?!?! It’s pure and simple craziness.
At the end of the day, we want to look good because we want to FEEL GOOD. We want to feel comfortable in our skin and confident in our presence and healthy in our bodies. We can still strive for these things, but we need to understand that we can feel all of these things RIGHT NOW EXACTLY AS WE ARE, and that making better choices and taking care of our bodies and treating our physical selves with the respect we deserve is EASIER and more natural when we start from a place of love rather than a place of loathing.
So much love to you! Hope you feel it and think about it when you look in the mirror :)
Love, Elsa