MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL….

MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL….

Does anyone remember the movie with Jack Black and Gwynth Paltrow Shallow Hal? Gwynth is a 300 pound woman but because Jack was hypnotized into loving her for her inner beauty, all he sees is an extremely beautiful woman with no flaws. He is so sincere when he tells her that she is the most beautiful woman he has ever met and dotes on her falling head over heels in love with her. His friend thinks he has gone off the deep end. He even proudly shows her off by taking her to a pool in her bikini and being mesmerized seeing her as she shyly approaches him in her lingerie. He sees nothing but a hot bod! This is kinda what self-love is like. You know the flaws are there, but you see past them and your eyes go towards the positive and that is what you fall in love with. Let me explain my experience.

I have age spots on my face. Brown spots right under my left cheek. I have looked at my face a million times. I look at my face every day when I tell myself that I love myself, I look at myself when I put on my make-up, when I check that my make-up is ok, when I make sure my hair looks ok, to put on my contacts. I probably look at my face more than anyone in the world and I was Hal, I looked past those brown spots and I saw a beautiful woman. For a year I have been working on loving myself because for my entire life I couldn’t even look at my own self in the mirror or even someone in the eye because I thought they would pick apart every part of me.

When I met my husband, we were at a baptismal and he kept walking past me and his eyes would meet mine and instantly my eyes dropped to the ground out of pure insecurity. I thought, oh my God, oh my God, he is looking at me, what do I do! I didn’t have the experience nor the self-esteem to even look a boy in the face. I was 17!

Yet, recently I had been looking in the mirror on a daily basis and looking right past the brown spots, just like Jack Black did in the movie. I didn’t see my flaws at all, all I seen were the positives of my face. Then a lady at my work told me that there was a cream that would take care of my age spots. I was taken back. I really didn’t know what she was talking about. I asked my daughter if I had age spots. She told me I did, I asked her if they looked bad and she told me no, so I went on with my life.

A month went by and another person told me Garnier made a good cream for Liver Spots. Whoah! That sounded even creepier! Liver Spots! That day at aerobics I was looking in the mirrors that were all around us and I saw them for the first time. I thought, why hadn’t I ever seen them before. When did they pop up and get so bad? As I looked in the mirror daily they seemed to be growing and growing and it was almost like I felt like it was going to grow a mouth, open up and start to eat people. It felt like it was magnified by the comments of people. That night I went to Wal-mart and bought me some of that cream and have been putting it on religiously.

Do you see the power of the mind? I myself had built up my self-esteem to look past and accept myself BUT I allowed myself to let others tear that progress down and my eyes were opened to my flaws again. It is obvious that I need to get back to work on me and stop listening to what others think. What is it that Eleanor Roosevelt says, “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission.” I forgot and gave everyone permission to make me feel inferior again.