Many women have a distorted image of who they think they are, how their bodies are and what their life’s challenges look like. Perhaps, as a woman, YOU are looking in mirrors such as these.
The magnified mirror is where you see every blemish, scar, pimple, bulge…as something far huger than the reality. You see life’s problems as insurmountable. You view the size of your body in unreal proportions. Your language is something like this. “I am too ugly, too fat, too unhealthy, too old or too whatever…”
The minimised mirror is where you feel invisible, unnoticed, and not enough. It’s the epitomy of the Tall poppy sydrome where women dare not “upsell” themselves. Words like “I am just…..” come out of your mouth with ease. eg. I am just a mother. I am just the wife of…..” Alongside of that comes the “not” word followed by “enough”. “I am not talented enough. I don’t have enough money. My boobs are not big enough”, and on it goes. You give your power away to others because you don’t feel empowered or confident enough to take on the responsibility.
Then there is the comparison mirror – or what I call the somebody else’s mirror. This is where you compare yourself – your talents, skills, body, life….with others. It’s where you “maximise” others and “minimise” yourself. You compare yourself, your body and your life to what the media tells you is “ideal”.
And how about the broken mirror where your life reflects the distorted story or mirror that says you are “broken” from trauma, grief, loss, shame and other events such as abuse of any kind, molestation, down-putting… It is easy to stay victim whilst looking in this mirror. It is easy to feel unable to to change the situation. It is easy to feel depressed, paralysed (or at least stuck) in your situation. It is easy to fear what it would take to be a confident, passionate and beautiful women, because that would require different things of you.
So yes, it’s time ladies that we stop looking at distorted images of ourselves, and start looking at ones that truly reflect back our truest nature – that we are gorgeous, talented and in fact brilliant as the beautiful Marianne Williamson and Nelson Mandela have quoted. “Who am I to be brilliant? Who am I not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world…”
So here are just a few ways to see a truer reflection of who you truly are.
- Start approving of yourself, rather than trying to prove yourself constantly. Just be you, with who you are today.
- Have a point of difference (POD) by honouring your unique life lessons, inner gifts, values, skills, beauty…rather than trying to be a clone (pea in a POD) of someone else or someone’s version of who they think you should be.
- Use only self-honouring words.
- Get to the core of the “story” you have created about yourself. Unravel the “what happened” and “what did I make that mean about me, my body and my life?” Stick to the facts, and not necessarily the story you created. Rewrite that story if it is not self-loving.
- Practice body gratitude by finding things to be grateful to your body for, including the way it has healed, recuperated, detoxed, grown, recovered and re-energised…itself.
- Look at your internal treasures, not your external measures. eg. numbers on the scale, in your pay packet or numbers of “world experiences” you have had. Mirrors only see the outside. Focus on the treasures within and who you are as a “whole person”. Your rriends and family will be talking about who you are at your funeral, not the size of your waistline, pay packet or numbers of whatever you think might make you more desirable, liked or successful.
- See a source perspective of how marvellous, beautiful and successful you really are. This is Spirit, God, the universe, your inner marvellousness or perhaps someone in soul / spirit (passed on) who thought you were the “bees knees” and who has faith that you can surmount any “obstacle” in life and have a richer, more fulfilling life than what you are presently experiencing.
“Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the fairest of us all?”
We all are, but you will only get this by looking at the correct reflection of who you are. The unexpected joy of this is when your life starts reflecting that new image of you, more positive things begin to appear in your life.