Week 16′s Challenge: Be Kind to Your Body
photo from AskInYourFace.com
What are your automatic thoughts when you look at yourself in the mirror? What do you notice first?
What about when you look at your friends? Your children? Strangers at the mall?
Most women tend to focus in on those things we see as “imperfections” in ourselves, and look at others with a more gracious eye. Our minds are bombarded daily by a culture of consumerism, a culture that is constantly trying to sell us something by telling us that we are imperfect without some material thing. We see these models of physical perfection purposely imposed upon us to show us how much we’re lacking, and compare ourselves ruthlessly, mostly unaware and unable to fight against this seepage into our unconscious mind of what shallow media tells us “perfection” is.
This week’s challenge is to fight back and be kind to your body. This week, when you look at yourself in the mirror, focus on the positive and say it – out loud if you’re daring enough. As a mom of 3, I love this preview video:
A quote from the beginning of the clip, “Everywhere I look I see all these images of unmarked, perfect, taut abdomens. And, I look and it’s twisty and, you know, flaps and everything and this looks kind of horrible. But then I think, wait a minute, what it looks like is that something happened here, something’s gone on. It’s dynamic. It’s creation.”
Our bodies are awe inspiring, incasing something far deeper than what the media would have us believe we should aspire towards. It is worthy of our kindness, thanks and care.
Post to Win!
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This is a great topic. As most women I find fault with several areas of my body. I avoid the full length mirrors. It is so hard to like myself sometimes. Especially if I compare myself to everyone else in this world. I was given a assignment by my therapist to do the A – Z what I like about me. It was very hard for me to do. Everyone should try it sometime. Then several months later I did it again on my own and I had a easier time. I am learning to look past all my imperfections and see the beauty of who I am. I believe that every person (man, woman and child) are beautiful in there own way.
I believe society puts too much emphasis on being a size 2. There are so many girls out there so worried about how they look that they are starving or harming themselves to fit in. I just wish that society would wake up and not focus on just body image.