What is your relationship with your self-image? That is the reflection of the day. Self-image is definitely a challenge for all of us. I think sometimes, in different stages of our lives, we deal with an image where we stand in front of the mirror and we don’t like what we see. Today’s reflection comes from speaking with my daughter who’s 12 years old. Many of you that follow me know that I have a 12 year old daughter. She’s definitely going through those changes, getting closer to the teenage years. I had the privilege to listen to her tell me how she feels that she’s not pretty enough and that she is gaining weight. Obviously, parents listen to that and worry. I started talking to my niece who, ironically, happens to be a Doctor of Psychology for children. I was able to get a lot of advice from her. One advice was, “Tell your daughter how you look at yourself.” Self-image is something that I’ve worked on for years and years to be able to accept and embrace my body. There is so much of my body that I didn’t love, but little by little, with those daily deposits, I learned to love and accept my body. It was a conversation that I had with her and I showed her. I said, “I want to show you my stretch marks. I know you’ve seen them before (because she sees me comfortably walk in my house without clothes but I wanted to point it out to her). These are beautiful stretch marks. The most beautiful thing I own in my body. So I asked her, “do you know why?” She’s like, “Mommy that’s crazy!” I said, “I’ll tell you why. These stretch marks are a symbol of motherhood. There’s not many women that can say that they would have 3 kids and don’t have any stretch marks. They are beautiful because they are the evidence of motherhood. They are evidence that this body went through a transformation to be able to carry you for 9 months. It was the most beautiful job that I had in my life and the most important one. So every time I see it, I feel good. I could see it as you, Franco and Jeffrey. It reminds me of those beautiful times when you guys were carried by me. So everything is perspective. I went on to explain how my body is perfectly imperfect because there is no perfection but how for me, this body is beautiful with all of its imperfections. I am not perfect but I accepted it. I look at my imperfections as part of life and I am beautiful. There is another thing with women, especially when we have cellulite. There is nothing wrong with that. It’s also part of motherhood. I remember a doctor explaining that to me and saying that women are built with a lot more fat because they carry children. This is part of the build of your body to be able to do that and men have a lot less fat in their bodies. They are built with more muscles. Therefore, if we embrace and understand cellulite is part of life, they are here to stay and as we get older, they are going to get even worse, you learn to see the beauty in that. When you look at yourself in the mirror, you love yourself. Ultimately what matters is that you have life! Let’s reflect, reset and reconnect.
