About beauty, the problem with self-perception and the ultimate goal of learning to love yourself..

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In the last year I changed my life. I moved to a different country. I moved house twice. I started a new job. I started to work out excessively. When people ask me why this time is different when it comes to going to the gym, I say that it allows me to de-stress. It allows me to think about yesterday, today and tomorrow. And while all of that is true, the real truth is something entirely different. Deep down I’m hoping that all of this exercise will allow me to stop hating an every day object. The mirror.

It’s difficult to describe how I feel about mirrors. Let’s just say I DO NOT LIKE THEM. And yet, I know deep down it’s not the mirror I don’t like. It’s the reflection I see when I look into one. It’s a reflection I don’t appreciate. Not that there’s anything massively wrong with me. People say I’m pretty. I’m beautiful. I’m smart. I’m intriguing (apparently). But my mind.. the evil little thing is telling me different. And mirrors reflect our appearance. It’s their job and yet I’d love for nothing more than for them not to exist.

I don’t see what people tell me. I’d love to believe it. I’d love to see it when I take a glance in the mirror. But I simply don’t. And what do you do when that’s the case? You change it. You work on yourself. Hard. You push yourself beyond your limits. What started as something I hated doing has turned into an obsession. The gym. If I don’t hurt it means I’ve been lazy. And I’m done being lazy. I want to see the pretty, beautiful, smart, intriguing me that everyone else seems to see.

Three months after my first gym session, the pounds have dropped, muscles start to appear and the mirror is still telling me the same thing. The scales and my clothes tell me one thing. I’m becoming a smaller version of myself. A more beautiful version. But is this true?

As I’m sitting here, typing this, I realise it’s not. It’s far from true. My mind is still telling me the same things. It’s not enough. You need to work harder. You need to push yourself more. My mind still makes me pick up the usual dress sizes in store even though my body has shrunk which only hits home once I try on the clothes.

The reflection in the mirror is still telling me that I’m the opposite of everything people tell me I am and it seems as though I’m fighting a losing battle. I don’t know how this ‘loving yourself’ thing works. At the end of the day, we need to feel comfortable within our bodies, which I’m starting to do but I’m not one step closer to loving myself. I was hoping the gym would do that for me. Teach me to love physical pain, sweat and ultimately myself.

Reality is, no matter how hard I work on changing myself, my mind needs to catch up with my body. I’m progressing, moving forward, changing and I’m done letting my mind hold me back.

“It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not.” – Author Unknown

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