It is no surprise to anyone that we, as a nation, watch our performers with an eye toward learning about ourselves. We want to know what to wear, how to walk, how many children they have and how they handle heartache. We watch them and we hope we can have what they appear to have. But, we also study them as objects and judge them as if we had a hunting license. It is a case in point that weight is one of the things we study and compare, even if the pictures we actually see are altered, in order to continue our illusion of beauty. We all want to be beautiful and many of us never see our true selves and how lovely we really are. That is a sad truth. One that bothers me all the time. I sit as a therapist bearing witness to gorgeous people, not understanding their inner or outer selves, and bemoaning their flaws. If a therapist who works in the eating disordered world tells you she doesn't long to tell her clients how beautiful they are, don't believe her.
Meanwhile, one of my clients brought me a picture Jessica Simpson's "new curves". In an article that connected her curves with her happiness, we see a glowing Simpson with a smile on her face and some, as my family would say, meat on her bones. Lovely, wonderful and in her own words letting us know, when she is in love, she doesn't worry about weight, just health. I saw her as a woman living in the spotlight and trying, as we all do, to balance the edges between expected body type and a living body which changes over time. She looks like she is alive and, believe me, trim and fit. But her image is one for us to all project our deep seated feelings about women's bodies onto and sometimes our projections are accurate and other times they are distorted. I wonder what others are thinking about this image. Google let me see that she has been called out on this image in positive and negative ways. This is what disturbs me the most. So, my recommendation is as follows; remove your judge of self and Jessica and really think of what a body can be. Think of the strength, beauty, sexuality and fun you can have in/from and with your body. Make a list of what your body did today and what you ask it to do. Make a list of all the ways you truly physically cared for your body today. Now, make a list of all the things you say to yourself today about your body. Add one complement for every criticism and appreciate yourself, and Jessica, today. Let me know how that feels if you like. Have a great day.
