Do You See What I See Part 2

It’s interesting how sometimes how certain themes are just swirling around in the air. My previous blog post (see below) which was about having a hard time taking compliments seems to have generated some interesting e-mails. One of my good friends who (did not happen to read that post) randomly sent me an e-mail today that said:

Slightly off-topic, but I do want to add, that now that Susan Boyle has become well-known, I can accurately describe my own body dysmorphia. She looks very much like the way that I have thought that I look. I have thought like this since sometime in my early to mid 20s. Intellectually, I know that I don't really look like that, but emotionally, that is how I feel, act, and that is how I conduct my life. I live just as though I looked like her. Fortunately, I was raised to believe that looks were far below kindness, talent, brains, and friendliness, and here in the Midwest, this is pretty much true, so I have done well here.

My first thought was, how could the gap between how she looks in person and what she thinks she looks like in person be so huge? And then I thought, well I do the same thing and I just wrote a blog post about it two days ago. It turns out that the post was sent to the friend of my sister-in-law and she responded with this:

This is real life stuff ... and I'm somehow continually amazed at how
our distorted perception of ourselves (and reality) limits us and our place in the world and the many ways in which we can contribute. Thankfully, and somehow mysteriously, we can still make our mark ... but how much more joyful would we be if only we would get it--who we are, and how we're perceived by others.

I’ve been teaching these principles in the workshops that I do with high school girls and certainly my workshops with women and I’m really trying to walk the walk myself.

If only we could see ourselves, our beauty, our wonder, our female exquisiteness...we are all manifestations of the Goddess. How great it would be if we could all be in touch with our divine feminine now; if only we could see our own beauty instead of being startled by it when we look at pictures of ourselves in our younger years. I hear it over and over again: I wish I knew how beautiful I was then, I wish I thought more of myself, I wish I wasn’t thinking I was fat, because I was gorgeous. If only we knew. I had a realization today: the “me” that I look at with disapproval in the mirror today is the “she” that I will think was gorgeous 10 or 20 years from now. As Carly Simon so aptly put it; These are the good old days. And I’ve decided to embrace who I am and what I look like now and to tell that chick staring back at me in the mirror that she’s not going to have to wait 20 years before she hears that she is beautiful. I’m telling her NOW. And you can do the same for yourself.

Every moment of your life, including this one, is a fresh start. -BJ Marshal