Body Image Distortions

Dear Reader,

Big work function at the weekend.

Formal dress. Strike fear into the heart, summon major anxiety.

What do I wear? Will I look good? What will people think? Does my stomach show?

I’m not going, I don’t want to go.

I know I’ll be fine once I’m there.

And so it goes, my genuine emotional melt down over what should be a simple evening out.

I have a lovely simple dress which I like. It’s just my distorted less than supportive uncompassionate sense of body image that erodes any potential sense of pleasure that maybe felt leading up to it.

Hubby dresses up in a nice suit with smart shirt.

He’s no trim lad with a drool worthy 6 pack and biceps begging to be squeezed. He’s a big lad with loose abs. He looked handsome and stylish and I’m sure if he wasn’t already mine I’d certainly be giving him a second glance if my eyes came upon him and even a coveted 3^rd glance.

I asked him how he was feeling about himself, about how he looked. Now I know he gets body image woes at times so I was expecting a comment along the lines of “like a fat pig”. But no and this is a good thing he says “I feel smart”. I of course in wifely support confirmed that indeed he did look smart.

I was hoping he’d respond in kind. After all that is the PC thing to do isn’t it? But he didn’t. Of course that may have had something to do with the fact I’d asked numerous times ‘How do I look” and “are you sure” when he’d respond with ‘You look good”.

So I ruminated on this wondering why I just couldn’t look at myself and think yeah I look good. I must have mentioned this out loud for suddenly there was a tapping on my head followed by the comment ‘It’s all in here”.

Damn but isn’t that the truth.

Later on in the evening chatting with a couple of ladies about clothing and fashion as you do I mourned my lack of style – you know how some women can put items of clothing together in a way you wouldn’t even consider doing and the whole ensemble looks fantastic and the accessories totally top it off into a wow category – well that’s so not me!

One of the ladies looked at me funny and said ‘But you always look good”. Wait what, I do??? The other lady said how lovely the dress I was wearing is and how she’d been walking behind me as we made our way to the venue thinking that I look really good in that dress from behind. Okay summon drum roll for booty pride.

Now they were genuine in their comments. No PC exchanges here.

Which got me thinking, is it really a possibility that people see me differently than I see myself? Is it possible that people look at me and’ think love that outfit, she looks good in that and what about this one...I wish I had her sense of style’. Okay I so don’t believe in the possibility of that last one.

But my point is that maybe I spend so much time going into the wrongness of me in my head that I leave no room for even the remotest chance there might just be some rightness of me.

And what if I just played around with rewriting those messages I give myself to something more positive, more affirming, more loving and supportive. What if like my hubby I thought to myself ‘looking good babe’ when I looked in the mirror.

What if what I believed to be the truth of myself may in fact be a distortion of an errant ego and what if I choose to believe in the possibility of another truth.

Ponder that.

With Love

Breezi’s Spirit