Honestly I don’t know why I read trashy magazines. Mostly I guess I like to zone out a little while I’m doing cardio or just having a lazy Monday (that’s equivalent of my Sunday) and I don’t want to think too much. The other day though I caught myself thinking a very unhealthy thought. I was looking at some wafe-thin model and comparing myself to her. What!? I stopped my thoughts in their tracks and then took a closer look. Now some people are just naturally rail thin, which is perfectly fine so I don’t want to say that these models are obviously starving themselves, but I know I would have to in order to look like them. This is the danger in our society, the complete saturation and constant brainwashing we go through. We have no idea what a healthy body looks like! I meet people who learn I am a pilates instructor and who assume I have no fat on my body and I have an eight pack rippling down my stomach. That, for whatever reason, is what they envision as the absolute picture of health. I sometimes feel a little frustrated by people’s assumptions of what my body should look like because it’s just that, it’s my body and I want to be healthy, natural and balanced in it. But after my little magazine mistake on the elliptical I realized I am the same as everyone else projecting societies idea of beauty on myself. I would not feel good working out 3 hours a day and watching my diet like a crazy person to get to a size 2. So here is what I decided to do for myself: I stopped looking at the pictures as realities and either skimmed past them or saw them as a strange piece of contorted art. That gave me the perspective I needed to see myself in a more real way, a way that I didn’t feel bad that I didn’t have a razor thin body or perfect skin or gorgeous just-tousled hair. I was myself and I was pretty darn happy about it.

What do you do to get body perspective?