How I Look Is Not Who I Am

At what point in life did "how-I-look" become more important than "who-I-am?" When did spending hours in front of the mirror and botox become more natural than playing on the playground at recess, kicking a soccer ball, or dancing in the rain? At what point did we learn and feel the need to control, manipulate, and constantly and needlessly obsess over our bodies rather than see ourselves as we are? These are questions I often ask myself.

Self-degrading thoughts about what we perceive as "flaws" are created completely out of a false reality. Negative perceptions take a hold of the mind and ego does everything it can to prevent us from seeing the truth about ourselves. Seeing ourselves as beautiful, holy, and worthy of love is far from our thought system. Like anything in life, if repeated enough will become learned and habituated only to perpetuate a losing battle of self destruction. It is only when we begin to let go of the need to control that our thoughts may begin to shift.  

Author, Marianne Williamson says, "The world has taught us to take control of our lives. We've been taught that that's our power. We think we're powerful because of what we've achieved rather than what we are. We've created a fight mentality. We're always fighting for something. For me, it was to lose weight, to have the perfect body, perfect hair, better skin. We go to every length possible to prevent the aging process. We never put our swords away."

So how do we make a change? Change takes spiritual discipline. Changing our lives is difficult. We have taught ourselves a way of thinking and run instinctively into the direction of fear, paranoia, and attack. In order to begin to see things differently we must first change our minds and our behaviors will follow. Marianne Williamson said, "a scream responds best to love." The message to ourselves needs then to be one of "love me" not "hate me." To begin to awaken to who we are and the love that is inside of us.