I was at the gym the other night and I saw something that I had never seen before. It was me. I caught a glimpse in the mirror of myself and for the first time in my life, I actually liked what I saw. I didn’t look any different than the minute before that. Or from when I left the house. Nothing was different. I’m not saying that I’ve reached my peak physical goal and that I have the body of a Greek god. There are definitely things that I still need to work on but for the first time ever, really I liked what I saw.
There are so many times that I’ve walked by a mirror or caught a glimpse of my reflection in a window, where I thought, “I look horrible” or “Do I really look like that?” That mentality may come from having low self-esteem, or the bullying I endured as a child. I have never been happy with the way I looked and the way felt. Even after losing weight, I would still see the fat me standing in the mirror. I had dealt with body dysmorphia for so long that when I would see a picture of myself after I had lost weight, I didn’t recognize myself. There have been several times while looking at pictures, I’d do a double take because I didn’t think that was me in the picture.
It takes a long time to undo the past. There are things that I still want to work on to get my body in shape. My physical goals are always changing and moving. It seems as though my mind is just now catching up with my body. When I had this moment in the gym, I don’t think it was just a feeling of outward appearance, it was inward too. It was a sense of accomplishment. I’m proud of the healthy lifestyle that I lead. I want others to experience the same thing.
There are so many things in our everyday life that give us negative feedback. The thing is that most of the time, this negative feedback is created in our own minds. We hold ourselves back. We have created this image in our mind of what we look like and what we can and can’t do. The moment that something happens in our everyday life, the mind says, “See, I was right.” When, in reality, that chair you sat in earlier at the restaurant, squeaks no matter what. It doesn’t matter if you weigh 120 pounds or 220 pounds. I still have these thoughts.
The mind is our most powerful organ. We need to focus on the positive and build on it. Take these negative thoughts and use them as motivation. I know that I still have things that I need to work on but I'm happy where I am and where I came from. I wish it was something that I could share with every single person that I come in contact with. Our goals are attainable, we just have to want it bad enough.