putting on make up and criticizing herself, taking off make up and criticizing herself.
She was never fully satisfied with the way she looked.
I remember her pressing out spots on my face, and my Dad saying to me while I squealed in pain: “to be pretty – you have to suffer.”
Like most of us, I grew up seeing my mother crushed by cultural dictates. I inherited from my Mom (like most of us) the
Tyranny of the mirror:
Instead of seeing beauty reflected back at me, I heard inner judgments, and a litany of inner criticism each time I looked in the mirror, for years…
Does this sound familiar to you?
My way out of the oppression of the mirror begun with the realization that I can shift my focus from how my body LOOKS to how it FEELS!
The mirror shifted for me: instead of seeing an oppressor I now see a friend.
Having taken this journey for myself I know this:
If we don’t shift how we see our body, if we don’t make the mirror a friend we risk raising daughters and granddaughters under the same dictatorship of the looking glass.
