Do you ever look in the mirror and realize that you don’t even recognize the person staring back at you?
Do you ever stare into the mirror and pick apart every little detail of that reflection?
Have you ever tried just not looking into a mirror at all?
Rewind to when I was back at home, actually awhile back because I was still living at my parents house. Before I headed out I would check every mirror in the house (I have 3 sisters so that makes quite a few mirrors). I always had to be at least semi-satisfied with what I saw before I went anywhere.
While I was in Serbia, about three months ago, I struggled a lot with adjusting from having a closet to wearing the same clothes over and over again. As time passed, I have dropped more clothes and now have even less to wear. Specifically in that first month I was very aware of what I looked like and what I wanted to look like.
While we were in Malawi we didn’t have any mirrors. Occasionally I would use a window outside to check my reflection and to make sure my hair wasn’t completely out of control. Other than the occasional reflective piece of glass though, I spent the whole month completely unaware of what I looked like.
Here in Zim though, we have access to not only a mirror, but a full length mirror..oof. To go from not seeing what you look like to now seeing all of yourself is pretty shocking actually.
I have made countless amounts of careless comments that come off as a joke, but are actually a very real struggle for me about my body image. I have joked and laughed and pretended like I didn’t care.
I then realized how many people started agreeing with me about themselves or how many people stood in front of the mirror and frowned at what was staring back.
This week at camp we had a class grade 7’s here for orientation camp. They were randomly split into teams and then had to do a million different team building exercises. A couple of the excercises involved having to lift each other over a rope so that no one would touch it. This made all of them very aware of what size they were. I heard multiple comments about how big some people were and how small others were.
Honestly my heart broke for them.
As games went on, we had another activity that made them very aware of their size. The consensus was though that none of them liked to be called big or fat even if they believed themselves to be the biggest on the team and none of them liked to be called skinny or small even if they believed themselves to be the smallest on the team.
I think one of the most real deals is the fact that when we may feel large, we start shaming the people that are naturally skinny. The worst part is that we do this like it’s their fault they were created the way they are and that just happens to be skinnier. We tend to make jokes like “oh don’t you eat?” I’ve learned something though, no matter how big or small we are doesn’t change who we are. If we all were the same, life would be pretty boring.
I’m saying this for myself really more than anything but rather than focusing on being “skinny” or whatever it is that your goal is, I think it’s more important to be healthy. Move your body, eat the vegetables, drink the water, laugh a lot. Take care of the body you’re in. It’s the only place you have to live. I can personally guarantee when you invest in yourself, you’ll also feel better about yourself.
