Have you ever stared at a word for so long it suddenly doesn’t look like that word or even a real word at all? It can be the most common word, one you use all of the time, but if you concentrate on it for too long and stare at it over and over, it will begin to change in front of you and turn into a jumbled up mess of letters and symbols.
When this happens to me in writing; it can become so frustrating and confusing. Instead of staring at it and trying to interpret this now random, foreign mess of a word, it’s usually best for me to take a small break and then come back and reevaluate what is in front of me.
This is very similar to what women do with their bodies. We stare and pick ourselves apart, concentrating on an area of our physical appearance we don’t like, day after day, until nothing is left in the mirror but a confusing blur – a negative blob that makes us doubt ourselves. We begin to focus on the one thing we hate about our bodies until we don’t even know ourselves anymore.
I came across this analogy a few days ago on Tumblr and it really spoke to me.
When I was struggling with my eating disorder and every time I looked in the mirror, it was almost as if I couldn’t fully bring my body into focus. Some part of me was constantly warped, like looking in a funhouse mirror. My eating disorder made it nearly impossible to see myself in a positive, let alone realistic light.
Concentrating and obsessing over anything for too long, like a blurred word on a page, will never look “right” to us. When we only focus on the one single word that appears to be jumbled, and not on the entire beautiful passage or paragraph, that one word will always seem distorted.
Maybe the same can be said about our physical appearance and our own bodies.
“To change ourselves effectively, we first have to change our perceptions.” – Stephen R. Covey
We need to see the entire picture and view our whole bodies for what they are: beautiful. Stop concentrating on the jumbled distortion of one part that we think isn’t perfect.
If staring at one word on a page can make it seem distorted, then focusing on one part of our body can have the same effect and will eventually blur our entire image of ourselves.
You wouldn’t focus on only one part of a beautiful painting, so why would you do the same with your body?