A Shadow of Truth

Mark described to me the other day a cartoon he saw on facebook. It was of a man and a woman standing in front of a mirror. The man was large and out of shape, the woman thin and well built, but the image they saw of themselves in the mirror was the exact opposite. The man saw himself as built and studly, the woman frumpy and fat. Typical?

This phenomenon can be described as "body dysmorphia" and I do think it's more common among women, and in my experience it's more common among thin women! (by thin I mean most women that do not appear, to the average person, as being overweight) Get a bunch of women together and they start to hack themselves apart playing the "one-upmanship" game.

"Oh I wish I could lose this 5 lbs!"

"5 pounds, heck I wish that's all I had to lose!"

"It's not the 5 lbs for me, I could live with the extra 5 lbs, it's this chunk of fat on the side of my thighs!"

"Where? I didn't see a chunk of fat, at least you don't have a muffin top"

"You know what I hate about my body? I hate my freckles."

"I wish I had freckles instead of big nose."

"You don't have a big nose, I have a big nose! I always wanted to have plastic surgery!"

"OMG, I'd love to have plastic surgery and get my fat just sucked out!"

"I can't even look at myself in the mirror anymore...."

Sound familiar? You may not have heard it among you and your friends, but maybe you hear it in your own head. I know I'm guilty of some of these feelings, or feelings like these. But I do not share them with anyone because I don't think there's any point to it. There's no point to it because there's no truth to it. When I look in the mirror and start to pick myself apart I always follow a negative thought with a positive thought...always! This is part of how I re train how I think, how I re train my negetive thoughts into positive thoughts.

In fact when I do find myself around woman that start those kind of conversations I'm quick to point out the positive and I never agree with anyone that starts speaking negatively about themselves. I may even use myself as an example of how I can change how I feel by, #1 indentifying that I've just made a negative statement, and #2 focusing on a positive aspect of that statement. Here's me talking to myself;

"I need to lose 5 lbs."

"Are you kidding? You look great!" OR

"look at the strong legs!" OR

"Look at all of your muscle, do you want to lose some of that? Nope!" OR

"5lbs isn't going go away this instant, so use this 5lbs to be stronger in you training, or in your practice. You've got it, now use it!" OR, again...

"Wow, you know you do look great!"

I'm not saying that I'm perfect, and sometimes I can't bear to go on about how I look, so I follow up a negative statement about my appearance with other things in my life that I'm grateful for that have nothing to do with how I look. For instance: (me talking to myself again)

"I need to lose 5 lbs!"

"Are you crazy? You're complaining about 5lbs when you have so much in your life to be grateful for?"

"Let's start with how lucky you are that you don't have to work for a living. You don't have to want for anything. You love your training and your practice...and you are good at both! You've come such a long way and it was so much fun looking back on it because you are a different person now, a person you really like! You've got great things happening in your life....you got a freakin' book that will be in Barnes and Noble for God's sake! 5lbs? really? 5lbs is nothing and besides you already know how to change that."

My focus is on finding relief. I sometimes refer to it as "pulling my head out of my backside"! The more I practice the faster I accomplish getting back to what I know is the truth inside of me, the truth inside of all of us. Some days it's easier and faster to make happen than other times, but you should always end with a positive thought.....always end with a positive thought.

The photo above was taken on a day that I was not feeling good about my body. Mark and I were training together at Girya and the mirrors were to the right side of me. That morining I couldn't seem to pull my head out of my backside fast enough so I turned my body to face the back wall. It was then I saw my shadow. The shadow of a strong and shapely woman snatching a kettlebell. Shapely in a way that looked pretty good to me! I started to really like my shadow! I could see the nice shape of my waist, my thick bicep muscles and my thick legs. My shadow rocked! My shadow was me, so what was the big fuss about?

And that's when I started to relax and feel better about myself. Some days if relief comes in the form of a shadow, recognize it and run with it! Get away from the mirror, get away from people that agree with negativity, and look for those better feeling thoughts. Let a shadow of truth lead you towards what you feel in your heart. You are OK, you are better than OK, in fact you rock!