Something very strange occurred to me the other day while I was watching one of our posing videos. I'm not sure about everyone else but in previous history, the person I saw every day in the mirror was definitely not the person I saw in pictures and videos. It amazed me how often I could feel great about the way I looked or the outfit I was wearing only to be horrified a few hours later when someone snapped a pic.
I DREADED Facebook pictures. As soon as someone would tag a photo of me I'd cringe and hope that it wasn't terrible. Most of them, inevitable, were definitely terrible. I hated pictures. Every event that I attended had lots of pictures of my husband and my son, but rarely of me. Seeing a bad picture was like bursting a little optimistic bubble in my mind; if I didn't see any pictures of how I looked I could keep telling myself that I looked great. I could keep on pretending that the person I saw in the mirror was one and the same with the person that everyone else saw.
I honestly believe that when we look in the mirror, we see what our soul reflects. If you're a beautiful soul and person you will see that beauty in the mirror. The problem is that inner beauty doesn't always translate into outer beauty, and the unfortunate reality of photographs is that they only show what's on the outside. It's amazing what the mind can do with an image, ask anyone that's struggled with an eating disorder or body dismorphic disorder. What they see in the mirror is certainly not what the world sees, and that disparity between the two can cause a tremendous amount of anxiety and despair.
What happened while I was watching that video is that I realized I recognized that person as ME. It wasn't a fat version of myself, which is what I'd always seen in pictures before. There was no cringe or wince at how my body looked or the facial expression I was making. It was just me; the me that I saw in the mirror every day was finally the me I was looking at on my screen. It was so profound to me that I would never again have to un-tag myself from a Facebook photo, that I could happily jump in a picture with my friends and not be afraid of looking bigger than everyone else in the photo. When I look in the mirror now I realize that this is what everyone else sees too, my inner beauty is on the outside.
Nothing can explain the way that feels. When people see me now I know that they see me for who I really am, not a fit girl stuck in a fat girls body. I don't plead them with my eyes to talk to me before they judge me. I am who I am meant to be, inside and out, and being confident with that knowledge is absolutely priceless. If for no other reason, keep going towards your fitness goals for that purpose alone. When you achieve it it's like two pieces of a puzzle finally coming together, a synergy like nothing else I've ever felt. I know that each of you can experience this for yourselves, the world is waiting to see the real you, don't keep us waiting. Your inner beauty is too breathtaking to be kept inside any longer.
Meg
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