Mirror, Mirror: Reinventing Your Own Self-Image

by Heather Long | More from this Blogger

07 Sep 2006 11:00 AM

It's easy enough to say that you love yourself and that you find yourself beautiful. It's easy enough to say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but many times we use these platitudes with only a wishy-washy sense of personal belief. This is one of those instances where you need to truly focus on yourself and see yourself not through the murky lens of negativity.

Remember, as I have said many times that fitness is about a wholeness between the mind, the body and the spirit. Fitness success in exercise is because you not only reap the physical benefits, but also the mental ones. For example, last year when I began an intensive 90 minutes a day on the treadmill - I saw results in just a few days, but the physical measurements did not change more than fractionally.

However, my perception of myself did change and it improved and with each improvement in both my physical well-being and my personal self-image - I was really beginning to enjoy my self-image. Here are some tips to help you reinvent your own self-image and hopefully help you develop a healthier, more positive body image.

• It's Your Body - Remember that, it's your body and you may honor it, you may work to strengthen it, but it doesn't define you and how you look is not who you are, but who you are, should be how you look if to no one other than yourself
• Don't Envy Other People for their Genetic Draw of the Cards - Whether their beauty comes from alteration, physical training, genetic predisposition or other - don't look at another woman and wish you looked like her, you need to love yourself and be you - not them
• Apologize to Yourself - Interestingly enough, when we think so little of ourselves that we speak to it worse than we would to a stranger and treat it like an enemy, then we need to apologize. Think about how you would feel if another person treated you the way you are treating yourself - it would feel horrible and part of your own negative feelings come from how badly you treat yourself
• Throw Out Your Scale - I don't care about pounds, muscle weighs more than fat and athletes can actually weigh more than an obese person - don't play the numbers game, work instead on how you view yourself inside and out and how much physical exercise you get
• Skip the Magazine Rack - If you had an airbrush, all your photos would look as good too, and I don't care how good they look in person, I bet if you asked them - they have trouble looking at themselves in a positive light too
• Embrace the Aging Of Your Body - The stretch marks on your belly are a testament to the children you've had and the crows feet walking across your face are the footprints in the sand of your life - don't hate them - because that means you hate yourself

How can you embrace yourself and recognize your inner beauty?

Related Articles:

Acceptance Leads to Changes

Ten Plus Ten Fitness Tips for Thursday

Fitness Tips: Building Up Your Self-Confidence

Learn more about Heather Long

Heather Long is 35 years old and currently lives in Wylie, Texas. She has been a freelance writer for six years. Her husband and she met while working together at America Online over ten years ago.

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