Imperfections

I have been absent for quite some time. I decided not to renew my certification in personal training because I have not been using it, so I have felt like I shouldn't be encouraging you without having my training certification current. My cousin is hinting at me to post again, so as long as you know that I am not posting as a "certified" personal trainer, than all is good. Current or not in my certification, I still love to inspire and encourage you to keep going. Thank YOU for the encouragement to keep posting. I really appreciate that.

So I got up this morning and was about to get into the shower when I passed by the mirror. That is never fun. Seeing your reflection in your birthday suit is always very discouraging. For a moment, I stopped and looked at all of my flaws, because that was all that I saw in the mirror....flaws. As I stepped into the shower, I caught myself feeling sorry for myself for these flaws, and beating myself up a little because of them. Then something pretty cool happened. I gained control of those thoughts.

Us girls are so good at focusing on what is wrong with our bodies. We allow those flaws to take over our thinking. We have endless conversations with ourselves about all of  the things we wish we could change, but have you ever noticed that the things we hate the most about our bodies are the things we cannot change? Like stretch marks.....Let's talk about this. Some of us were rewarded with the stretch mark trophies to remind us of how quickly we blossomed during puberty. Then there are the stretch mark trophies we were rewarded with during pregnancy. And some of us may even have some stretch mark trophies just from weight gain, or yo yo dieting. These stretch marks are scars. They are not going anywhere. We need to face that fact, and not be ashamed of it.

So what about your cellulite that hangs out below or around your rear? Let's talk about that one for a minute. If you are an adult female, and you do not have this, you must have some sort of super human genetics or something. The funny thing about this is that we all have it, yet we all are self conscious of it. Why? Because when we walk past the mirror on the way to the shower in our birthday suits, that cellulite is all we see.

Now for one of my favorite flaws, brought to us by....gravity! This is a FUN one! I am convinced that gravity has a beef with us girls, and every year we get some new wrinkle, bag, or sag as a birthday gift from gravity. This may be my least favorite of the womanly flaws that I see when I look in the mirror. This is the one flaw that constantly and consistently reminds us that we are getting older. I swear, some days I wake up and think, "dang! how long was I asleep?!" You look in the mirror and think, "where did THAT come from?!" The good news is, I still have breath, the bad news is, I think that each breath I take is making my body shrivel up like a deflating balloon.

Now that I have told you all about what's wrong with me, and probably made you think about what is wrong with YOU, let me tell you the good news. Here is what hit me like a brick when I was having my pitty party this morning. Did you know that you can eat right and exercise all that you want, but you are still going to have stretch marks, cellulite, and wrinkles? Did you know that as long as you still have birthdays, you will continue to receive the gravity gifts? Did you know that even if you were to have plastic surgery, you will never look like you did 5 years ago again? Really! You can spend the next 5 years of your life, trying to look just like you did 5 years ago, and it is not going to happen. 

This post is about me giving myself permission to be ok with my flaws. We all have flaws that we CAN fix, but for some reason we focus on the ones we CANNOT fix. We need to give ourselves a break and accept this. It basically is what it is. I do believe we can do things to improve our permanent flaws, but we accept the fact that some things are out of our control. I don't want you to ever stop trying to manage and maintain your flaws. I don't want you to throw you hands in the air because you can't get rid of those stretch marks. I want you to focus on what you CAN control, and do your best with the flaws that make you, you. Embrace them. They are here to stay.

I hope YOU can find the same peace with YOUR flaws that I found today. I won't lie, I don't like that I can't fix these things. But, I can't obsess over than anymore. It is exhausting and it is a pointless waste of time and energy. Embrace all of your qualities. The good, the bad, and the ugly. 

Lacy