Yesterday's essay focused on learning to accept who we are. It asked the reader to stare at herself in the mirror (actually I think it said "gaze lovingly") and list ten things about her body that she loves.
Say what????
Having just loudly proclaimed to the entire virtual universe that I am NOT defined by my outer appearance, I found this exercise both serendipitously timely and quite difficult. In fact, it took me a full 24 hours to come up with a list of ten items.
So, in no particular order, ten things I love about my body:
1. My hair. I love the color. I also love that while the individual strands are baby fine, I have a LOT of hair, so it is very thick. I never have to worry about female baldness!
2. My eyes. I love the color which falls into that unable to exactly describe category of "hazel" - blue or green, depending on my mood, depending on what I'm wearing. I love the way my eyes shine when I am happy. 3. My teeth. Healthy, fairly straight, nice teeth.
5. My laugh. Okay, not sure that qualifies, but I'm going with it. I like the sound of my laugh - deep and hearty. Nothing fake about me when I laugh.
6. My hands. I have thin hands and long slender fingers.
8. The shape of my behind. Laugh if you must. I can take it. But unlike a lot of women pushing 50, my butt is not pancake flat. It is still nicely rounded, thank you very much, and looks halfway decent in yoga pants. And I'll take what I can get! Thank you treadmill. Thank you stationary bike.
9. My feet. I'll grant you that feet are a strange thing. Can you honestly say you ever looked at another woman walking on the beach and thought "Wow, she has really gorgeous feet!"? Yeah, me neither. But as feet go, mine aren't bad. And they put up with a lot of abuse. So yeah, I love my feet.
10. That I look younger than I really am. Even overweight, I don't look too bad for a woman pushing up on 50.
Amazingly enough after I finally completed this exercise, I found it empowering to know that I CAN name ten things about my body that I like love. And although you'll never find "Smokin' Hot Bod" on my resume, this list is pretty cool. And there is a second part to the exercise that I'll share with you tomorrow. In the meantime...
I'm challenging all my bloggy friends out there to do this exercise - post your list of ten things you love about your body in the comments! C'mon. I double dog dare you.
8 comments:
I'm gulping at the thought!
Fantastic Cheri! It's so good to hear someone say "yeah, i'm doing okay on the body". You don't look anywhere near 50!! You caught me on a day I've been thinking about this because one of my "celebrate life" pages for Shimelle is a pic of me in a bikini a couple of years ago. I'm celebrating the fact that I'm over 40 and my husband is still happy to take pics of me on the beach!!
Like Amy.....I'm hyperventilating...fraid I don't think I'll be taking up this challenge.
Okay, I'll bite here too... although this is tougher.
1) I love my eyes... I like the color and the shape. I have that middle of the road "hazel" color too.
2) I like my hands and fingers. I like the shape of my fingernails (but they're not as strong as I'd like them)
3) I like the texture of my hair, and I used to love my natural color. I like the color, now, when I get it highlighted.
4) Okay, this might be a little weird... but I like that my arms and legs don't have a ton of hair on them, and what's there is fair and mostly not noticeable.
5) I like the scar that is on my forehead. It is a great story in our family, and it gives me a little character. :)
Okay... I avoided all the fatter areas of my body, LOL... this was a good practice, even though I didn't get to 10. Thanks!
I decided to play along, but in a post of my own. It will appear tomorrow morning, and I'm linking back to you. Great idea. Thanks!
Good for you :-) Me? I like 10 of my freckles...
1. I like being a brunette.
2. My eyes are a very pretty, deep blue.
3. I've always thought I had a nicely shaped mouth.
4. I am long-waisted, and I curve in where I'm supposed to, lol.
5. My legs, although not awesomely shaped, really, both work very well.
6. I have a decent tush, too.
7. Breasts aren't bad. Smallish, but I've actually always liked that. They aren't going to give me back problems, ever!
8. The shape of my hands.
9. I like my feet, too, Cheri.
10. Everything inside works well, so I'm going to count that as something I love about my body. I've never had to have surgery yet, and I don't have any serious health problems to worry about, which is pretty awesome, considering I'm 50.
You know, it was hard for me not to add extra comments to the above. Like, "I like being a brunette, even though the color comes from Miss Clairol these days." I forced myself to stop after the first sentence. It's hard not to qualify every statement with some sort of a "despite the fact that" type of comment!
I love this! I really enjoyed reading not only your list, but the lists of those you've inspired to participate.
Thank you for sharing. I'm definitely going to take some time out this week to create my own list. We don't concentrate on what we love about ourselves nearly often enough. Especially not the physical.
So again, thank you! :)
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