“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?”

— Marianne Williamson

Question of the Week # 44 / How do really feel about your body?

Do you appreciate it? Own it? Celebrate it? Or are you like most people and wish it were different somehow; maybe thinner, taller, or stronger? Do you find yourself wishing specific parts of your body were smaller or flatter, or bigger?

I recently looked back at a picture that was taken over 18 years ago and marveled at how thin I was then. Then I remembered at the time the picture was taken I hadn't considered my body thin at all, even after the 5 miles a day I was running and the strict fat free diet I had been on for months. How could I have been so blind?

Oftentimes we cannot see ourselves for who we really are. I have said that before in the context of not being able to recognize our own natural talents, and I realize we do a similar thing in how we perceive our bodies. 

Will I think the same thing 10 years from now about my current body? That I should have appreciated then how young I looked, or how age spot free my face was, or how my healthy my skin felt? This thought scares me enough to want to work hard on changing my thoughts and changing how I talk about myself. These days I'm attempting to value and appreciate what I have, even if there are still things I would change about my body, so my next experience pulling up an old photo will be quite different. 

Ten years from now I want to remember how great I felt on the day the picture was taken, how strong, how powerful, how healthy, how HAPPY, how lucky I was-- instead of remembering how I'd held my arm away from the camera so it wouldn't look so fat.

If I could go back and give myself one piece of advice-- I'd tell myself to think better of myself and to love my body for what it is and not think about what it isn't. I will take that advice forward starting now and not waste my breath kicking myself for all the years I wasted trying to make my body something it wasn't, and will instead work to help others see and appreciate their own unique beauty right now in this present moment.

You are beautiful.

Heck, so am I. Let's start enjoying it.

Retrospection can be a very enlightening thing.

"If I only knew then what I know now",  how many times have you said that?

With age comes wisdom and understanding.

While I've learned you cannot always stop someone from making their own mistakes by sharing what you have gleaned from yours, you can use what you have learned to mentor those who are ready to learn from you.

Question of the Week #20 / If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be?

As I look back on my life,  there is little I would change. Except maybe to have devoted more time to figuring out my own natural talents earlier in my life. Like most people-- life has a way of chugging along on its own power.  So, I got busy, or maybe I became content, and as a result I stopped growing. I stopped paying attention to what made me tick, what energized me and I lost myself for a while. I found myself doing what I dislike most, being stagnant.

So, if I had it to do over again I would start figuring out my "sweet spot", my purpose, my element as Ken Robinson calls it --earlier than I did. I think if I had, I might already be on my next move instead of questioning what it should/could be almost daily.

Many of my greatest inspirations are from real women who reinvented themselves later in life.  I wrote a post about my friend Edie a while ago, she reinvented, and I so admire her for it. Reading it reminds me that there still might be time for me.

Heck--if I had gotten moving earlier I might even have my Master's Degree in psychology already, or my teaching certificate, or my MSW.... or my yoga studio or have started a my own school.

What about you? Would you change anything?

P.S. For some the hard part might be in having to choose only one thing to change.