Self-Love and Full-Length Mirrors

I don’t.

I’m not sure why. I used to a long time ago. I don’t think it was a conscious decision. Or, maybe it was conscious, a secret self-love hack. Right now I have no place to put one. My bedroom door has a mat hanging from it where I steam the wrinkles out of clothes. More importantly, I just thought I didn’t need one.

Then I went to Las Vegas. The room had a full-length mirror. I could see ALL of me. ALL of the time.

I started to over-scrutinize every part of myself.

When did my legs get that short? Do my thighs really stick out that much?

Suddenly, I was unhappy with what I saw. The clothes I brought didn’t look quite as spiffy as I thought when I packed them.

I just taught a workshop on Self-Love, and here I was invalidating myself, the inner beauty of me, because of how I thought I looked. I started to feel a bit self-conscious as I walked around Vegas. I wanted to look my best and thought I failed in some way. Not quite good enough.

Yikes.

I couldn’t go to my closet and do a quick change. I had to wear what I brought. What was I thinking?

Do you ever feel like this? Start picking yourself apart because you feel not quite perfect enough.

Whoa, get ahold of yourself Dyanne, I said. Practice what you teach.

I have found through experience that you end up teaching what you most need to know yourself. In this case, I was living the truth of that statement, of how in that moment I separated myself from self-love.

Do you want to know what I did to set myself back on course so I could have a great time and not be miserable about something running on repeat in my head?

FIRST, I recognized exactly what I was thinking, that I looked frumpy, a bit out-of-style, and my body was showing the signs of my age. Ugh! I did a little reframing here acknowledging I was comparing myself, not a good thing, to maybe one percent of the women who looked stunning and gorgeous while discounting the rest of us women.

THEN, I shifted to the experience of what I was doing.  I was having a fabulous time.  I mean, my gosh, I got to see U2, a dream-come true for me. Was I really going to let how I felt about what I was seeing in the mirror effect the fun I was having?

NO!