Change How You See, Not How You Look

Because sometimes you have to step outside of the person you’ve been, and remember the person you were meant to be, the person you wanted to be, the person you are.   –H.G. Wells

Yesterday, a woman sent me this note:  My size 14 pants/jeans were getting tight a month ago, so I decided not to beat myself up but to buy a couple of pairs of size 16 jeans/pants. Well, now the 14 and 16 ones are too big, and I’m in the 12 and wore a 10 last week – things I’ve had in the closet but couldn’t wear. I am wondering if allowing myself to be comfortable with the 16 made me less stressed and allowed me to eat more reasonably. Wonderful shifts going on.

We sure have been told a pack of lies — by parents, friends, magazines, TV. When we were younger, we didn’t know any better, so we believed their judgments were  accurate descriptions of us. My thighs are too fat. My hair’s too limp, straight, curly, frizzy. I’m too ditzy to do anything important.

Discovering we are different from what we’ve always thought we were…it’s like a key that fits into a lock. As we unlearn our B.S. (Belief System) the lock is opened.

We do have the power to unlearn those old lies and make friends with the parts we thought were all wrong. That’s when we see a glimpse of ourselves as unbroken. 

Could it be true that if we stop beating ourselves up and change how we see ourselves, we make space for new choices?