As you go about the process of “setting right your idea about yourself” it is very helpful to look at when the distortions began, where they came from, and how they developed over time. When did you first have the thought, accompanying feeling, and eventually a fully crystallized belief that you are not inherently beautiful, perfect, and lovable exactly as you are? When did you first have the thought that your body was not your greatest ally, more wondrous and magical than the most vivid imagination?
Most people can identify the phase or phases in their lives when these negative body thoughts and feelings began to form, take root, and eventually grow into a belief-system. For some, the distortions began when they were very young children, even as small as two or three years old. For others, the first awareness of ugly distortions occurred in adolescence, perhaps even in adulthood. If you notice that your negative thoughts occurred in adolescence or adulthood, there are often contributing factors from childhood that can be identified after some reflection.
As children develop, their beliefs about themselves gradually form based on how the people closest to them view them and treat them. Parents and other notable people in a child’s life act as mirrors, reflecting back an image to the child about the child. This image, in turn, is internalized and becomes part of the child’s story or personal operating schema. The quality of the mirrors in a child’s life decides the story that she begins to tell about herself.
Here is a great metaphor to help you understand this concept and how it impacts your view of your body and yourself. Have you ever visited a fun house, where you can look at yourself in all different types of mirrors? Some mirrors make you look incredibly tall, whereas others make you appear as short as a dwarf. Others reflect back an image of your body as skinny as a toothpick, while others make your body look incredibly fat. Now imagine what your body-image would be if you grew up staring into a particular one of these mirrors. Imagine that you had a mirror, where every time you looked at it, you saw your reflection as beautiful, elegant, strong, powerful, whatever attributes you consider desirable. Now imagine that you spent your life staring into a mirror that reflected back an image of ugliness, unattractiveness, and ineptitude. You would feel completely different about yourself depending on which mirror you were staring into – that is the power of the mirrors in our lives.
The mirrors are not limited to parents, although parents obviously play a particularly important role in shaping a child’s psyche. Every relationship acts as a mirror, so a child’s sense of self-worth can be impacted by teachers, relatives, and peer group. The relationships that a child considers important, whether consciously or subconsciously, have the greatest impact.
Even as adults, relationships act as mirrors in the same way. The only difference being that as adults, we can use our own awareness to influence the mirrors we allow into our lives. In this way, we can consciously use the mirror of relationships to help us discover ourselves. I will discuss this in more detail in a later post in the series, but for now, let’s keep focused on the initial distortions in your beliefs about your body and yourself.
The people that act as mirrors in our lives influence the stories that we tell about ourselves. Nowhere is this truer than in our early childhood development.
Ask yourself: What does my story about my body sound like? Where did this story come from? Did my early childhood mirrors affirm my beauty? Do the mirrors in my life now affirm my greatness?
Ready to begin your journey? Post your intent on how you plan on loving your body and loving your life today.
About the Author
Sarah Maria is the author of Love Your Body, Love Your Life. The book outlines her 5-step process for helping you feel great in and about your body and yourself. Her work embraces the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual, so that true and lasting healing can occur. Click here to purchase your copy and begin to love your body today! To learn more about Sarah Maria and her work, you can visit her websites at www.sarahmaria.com and www.breakfreebeauty.com
Thank you for this although the bigger history was left out. If one really wants people to see themselves as they are and to not get fooled by all that teaches them a distorted self image, one also has to deal with the faulty belief systems and concepts that lie at the root of the idea that body and mind are separate or that there is some other reality that is somehow better, purer or more real than ordinary life, the whole split between different aspects of who/what we are that is entirely artificial. Then one has to see the effect of the thought and teaching of the Abrahamic religions and to an extent Greek philosophical attitudes towards the body, how the notion of a soul, ideas of a higher or lower self and so on, contributed towards the development of rejection of the body, self hatred, all that good stuff. It's not just from parents and teachers and so on, the whole of society is infected with this problem. Look at the nonsense that is spouted as if the soul is real for example and completley apart from the body and the complete ignorance that that stems from and exacerbates in turn, the rejection of what is human as though it is somehow lesser, bad, not good enough. Even the word spiritual in modern culture has been abused as standing for something separate and apart from normal daily life and normal human experience.
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