Have you seen this video by Dove floating around the inter web? If you have yet to, please gift yourself by taking a moment to watch it.
Oh my. Amazing, right?
Such a clear example of how the way we might view ourselves is so different than the way we are viewed.
This one got me right at the core as it speaks so loudly of the work that I feel so called to do, to help people shift from that first image: their self-perception, often much more negative and often filled with sadness and the weight of years of negative self-talk…to that person that we really are…seen through the kindness of another’s eyes.
Except we have the means to see it through our own eyes, through our own hands. Through our cameras.
I sometimes think it is those tools (like the mirror or the camera) that tend to be the place where there is the most potential to make change. Where we might most feel triggered, or that our stories tend to emerge. These are the same places where we have the most control over making change (though I so know it might feel like the opposite before you try it).
I feel like personally, after a really long time of fighting with and then trying to heal negative self-image, I am finally starting to see her clearly, that woman that would be in the second photo if I were in that video. That distorted perception of what I saw in the mirror slowly shift to something kinder. Lately when I look in the mirror I just smile at her as though she were a friend. Confidence isn’t always a dramatic embodiment….I think sometimes it is simply kindness.
When thinking about writing this post I thought…I kind of wish I had a post I could link you to where I shared how I saw myself at the beginning of this journey, to share how far I’ve come in seeing myself with kindness. To share with you, especially those of you who feel like they are just beginning this journey.
But I don’t. Because we don’t tend to write those kinds of post, do we. Instead we keep these thoughts hidden away, packed in with shame. We don’t dare share how much hurt we have, which makes it so much more dangerous doesn’t it.
Thats where the experience of doing this kind of self-love and compassion work within community feels so powerful. We soon realize that we aren’t alone. That we can speak little bits of it aloud and others understand. Not only that but we get to experience the shifts that happen together. In the last session of Be Your Own Beloved I was truly floored by the transformations that happened, that people gifted themselves with the chance to be in front of the camera and to shift from the way they saw themselves, like that first drawing of each of those people in the video.
And started to see the other one.
Through other people’s comments.
Through the activities that invited them to see themselves with kindness.
Through showing up again and again in front of the camera and gifting themselves with the change to change that story.
Whether we find our way to that place of kindness through the camera, through other tools or amazing courses like this one, we can find our way to that second drawing in the video, to that place where we see ourselves clearly.