Do you ever feel like you look in the mirror and see everything you don’t like about yourself? Since I was teenager, I worried about my weight and how I looked (my clothes, my hair, my height, pretty much everything.) My mom always told me how beautiful I was, but to me, the Elephant Man’s mom thought he was beautiful too.  There is always someone who has something better than we do. Their hair is longer, their hair is curlier, their legs are skinnier, their butt is smaller, their butt is bigger, and the list goes on and on.  There is something we all don’t like about our bodies. Even the Victoria Secret supermodels have their issues, but they have one thing we “humans” don’t, PHOTOSHOP. As a teenager, I knew I’d never be a model and 5’9 and skinny.  Yet as a young girl, it’s hard to see magazines with images of what the “PERFECT” woman should look like.  I was certainly not on the cover of a magazine and never will be.  These images and our society have an unreal expectation of what we should look like to be accepted and loved. It’s no wonder we all have body issues thanks to the Christie Brinkleys and Cindy Crawfords of the world.  But it’s also our society that causes what we see in that mirror to be faulted.

How do we stop comparing ourselves to others? How do we accept who we are and what we look like? Whenever I have ever felt fat or bloated, I also felt anxious and defeated and sad.  I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror.  The image in the mirror had the power to take my JOY and self-love away.  Why can’t I just lose 10 lbs? Why did I have to eat all those french fries? Why did I drink that wine again?  Why am not good enough? Why does what we see in that mirror have to affect how we feel about ourselves?   We are each so very unique in our own special ways.  We are tall, short, curvy, or skinny and that’s OK.  It has to be OK.  We have to learn to be OK with whatever we look like.  What we really see in that mirror is a very special and amazing creation and unlike no other – it’s called US.

I really do believe part of the messy journey of life with anxiety means first accepting who we are.  Yes I have anxious feelings but that doesn’t define me. Yes I have panic attacks but that doesn’t define me.  Yes I don’t look like Cindy Crawford and I’m OK with that (at least most of the time). LOL

The path to inner peace (which makes me feel like Deepak Chopra to say this) involves the following:

ACCEPTANCE – Accept who you are and everything about yourself

GRATITUDE – Be thankful for the amazing person you have become, how much you have learned about yourself, and how strong you are

COURAGE – Have the courage to look at that mirror and LOVE what you see

COMPASSION – Practice having compassion for yourself (SELF LOVE) 

I am no expert by any means, but I am certainly trying to accept myself (anxiety and all) and what I see in that mirror. I hope we can all say “Mirror…. Mirror… On the Wall… Who is the fairest one of all? And the answer should be ME!