Love what you see in the mirror.

Day 15:
This was Mark's last day with us this time around.  He will be back for a few days in June as part of the instructor training that is happening. He really taught me a lot and pushed me to my limits each class.  Good job Mark.

However today he slid in this little beauty about 10 minutes into the class. Just dropped it like a bomb and then went on like no body's business.  Yet it struck me as very important and a great thing to take out of today's Practice.

Love what you see in the Mirror.
Love what you see in the Mirror.
Love what you see in the Mirror.

Easier said than done.  Easier typed then said.  A profound concept.

Each of us has our issues with this.  What are we loving, our physical self, our soul, our sense of humor,  our accomplishments, our friends, our contacts, our page views....? What are we loving?  There, standing on my mat in half moon pose, I was looking myself in the eye and thinking about loving what I saw staring back at me.

Do I love myself? Sometimes.  Some of the things we love about our selves are not the obvious.  Maybe it is the way you raise an eye brow and think sarcastic thoughts. Some of the things we love are physical, your hair or not physical at all like a sense of humor.  None of us are the physical ideal we consider beautiful.    We all see our flaws.  

No matter what size I am I see myself in that mirror as not where I want to be.  Why do we need such validation from physical self when we are all a sum of such wonderful parts.  

Check out the link: Dove Real Beauty Sketches  This is a brilliant 3 minutes that you will happy you watched. 

As they say in the video "Our self image impacts everything. We spend a lot of time as women trying to fix the things that are not quite right... we should spend more time appreciating the things we do like."

We are our own worst critics seeing our flaws larger than life.  Some of this may come from your image of yourself as a child or teen, and some is ingrained from relationships with people that were less that good for us.  However, no matter how it came along we have our self image and it is steeped in pain and self doubt.  

Even those people who we consider to be so beautiful, see themselves as flawed and lacking. Even if they seem so confident and self assured they are still seeing themselves as lacking. Maybe it is their intellect they see as lacking or their professional success or lack their of. 

If you had to choose between physical beauty and intelligence which would you choose?  Where would your balance be between the two?

I may not like my double chin or my lower stomach or my round thighs but I love my brain.  I love my strength, I love my compassion. I love the fact that I am so powerful.  I am kind. I am real.  I am brave. These are all parts of ourselves. We need to see beyond our physical deficiencies and spend time loving the many powerful and strong parts of ourselves.

Love what you see in the mirror.
Love what you see in the mirror.
See in the mirror what you love.
See in the mirror what you love.