The Lies We Tell Ourselves

Image: Britannica, Larousse

I have come to face a few untruths that I'd been telling myself for years.

It started with my weight-loss transformation and the realization that I had told myself lies about my body that were being proven to not be true. I knew that I had some mild form of body dysmorphia (never severe and never diagnosed, I just knew that I saw my reflection as a bit skewed), but it seemed to fall away (possibly heal) as I was losing weight. It was as though I could see my "new" body as it was always meant to be, but now also seeing it with "new" eyes.

Some of the lies I had previously told myself about my body:

• I was big boned - proven false through my weight-loss; my bones and skeletal frame are average.

• I was pear-shaped - proven false again through weight-loss; there are calculations and websites that can help determine actual body shape and my body shape is rectangle.

• My legs are just meant to be thick - again proven false due to weight-loss; I have average legs.

• By my 40s my body shape is set and will not change cause my metabolism has slowed - proven false as I've now lost over 40 lbs.

The above lies held me in a certain mindset about what my body could achieve and look like. For decades of my life, I thought I couldn't wear certain clothes, or that my shape was set in stone, or that I couldn't wear knee-high boots (may seem superficial, but thinking I was big-calved was a real thing and there's a whole world of big-calved women and boots out there).

As the pounds fell away, so too did the above false self-images I had of myself.

The image above of Janus is significant for new beginnings and represents our internal and external selves. As I learn more about who I am now at this point in my life journey, observe how it is that I continue to evolve, hold myself accountable, stay honest, and I learn to accept more truths about who I am and can be, I believe I'm in the Janus phase of my middle-age.