Excerpt from Oprah!

For this week's blog, I would like to share with you the work of another sister-in-body-love's work that my wonderful mother sent to me over the weekend and which captures the true essence of what I hope to convey to all of you.  The full article, written by Amy Bloom (totally worth the read!) can be found over here but I've included my favorite excerpts below... enjoy!

"You cannot be a healthy person, let alone hope for healthy children, if you sigh and moan every time you encounter your own image, eat a cookie, or see an airbrushed supermodel on a billboard. Even if it amounts to wholesale pretending—go pretend. Walk around pretending to be a woman who likes her body. Pretend you think your thighs are not disgusting appurtenances but normal, flesh-covered limbs that help you get from place to place. Likewise your not-so-taut arms and not-so-flat tummy. Because every step toward self-love you take, and every inch of confidence you give someone's daughter, makes the world a better place."

"My hobby is watching people, and what I see is that even the most Botoxed, lipo'd, lifted woman cannot conceal herself. If you hate yourself, it shows through every cream and cure there is. Until we stop trying to exorcise our own imperfect selves, driving out normal physical traits as if they were signs of pathology, there will always be some misery in the eyes that nothing can hide."

Ms. Bloom touches on two critical points here: the first is that, even if you don't love your body right in this moment, even if you can't really ever imagine loving your body the way it is right in this moment, you have to try.   I'm a huge proponent of the "fake it 'til you make it" rule; there are certainly days where I look in the mirror and can't stand what I see.  But I stand there anyway and tell myself that every little flaw I pick out is actually what makes me human and what makes me woman and what makes me beautiful.  And you know what?  When I started playing this game with myself, it felt like a big bowl of crap.  But after years (years!) of playing pretend, I'm finally starting to believe it.  Use the power of persuasion to your advantage and start trying to convince yourself that you are, in fact, beautiful, however small that first step you have to take may be.

The second point Ms. Bloom makes that I feel is dead-on is the reality that if you don't truly love yourself, you always know it on some level and so does the rest of the world.  I've said this before and I'll say it again: the simplest, fastest and most efficient way to look better and feel better is to begin to love yourself for the woman you are right now.  Because you know what?  Fixing that one little thing you're always worrying about isn't going to change much. Sure, maybe you'll feel a bit more confident for a moment, but what women struggle with isn't one single issue, it's perfection.  And the problem with perfection?  It's unattainable. 

Take it from someone who knows: I was sure that if I lost the 25 pounds I needed to lose to get down to my goal weight, the heavens would open up and angels would come down singing on glittering clouds and every guy within a five-mile radius would come flocking to me for my autograph.  Or something like that.  You know what actually happened? I was no longer worried about my weight, but then I became worried about the musculature in my back (I know, right?).  And the fact that my flat hair would not keep sex-hair volume no matter how much mousse I used and no matter how much hot air I blow-dried it with.  And I also didn't like my hips or my nose or the way my thighs spread out when I sat down... the list goes on. 

Whatever you can't stand right now has nothing to do with that actual thing, it has to do with the fear of never being enough.  So instead of going through life trying to fix each flaw you find one by one, how about we start learning to accept ourselves for who we are, right here and right now, regardless of what the future might hold for us.  I promise you, starting down this road and taking this journey is not going to be an easy one; in fact, it will be full of tough days and tougher nights.  But it will also be one of the most rewarding things you could ever do for yourself, or any of the other beautiful women you care about.  This journey is going to be one of the hardest of your life, and it's going to be worth the effort a thousand times over, especially when you can become a role model to our mothers, our sisters, our girlfriends, and most importantly, our daughters.