Week 2: The First Law of Motion

Two weeks without checking myself out in the mirror and, guess what, I'm not going crazy, not at all. It was tough for the first week when I wanted to put on eyeliner and check to make sure my unlatching clothes weren't too out of control. And then my racing heart calmed as I realized nothing bad had happened in the past week because I hadn't meticulously put on my eyeliner and mascara or spent 20 minutes changing into different workout tanks and shorts because the first outfit "didn't fall quite right today." Nothing bad had happened. No one had treated me any differently....

No one treated me any differently. That includes me. I didn't treat myself any differently. Even though I wasn't spending the time looking in the mirror, I was still experiencing the self-criticism I do regularly. Just instead of statements, the criticism took the form of questions, questions that I couldn't answer without looking in the mirror--do these shorts make my legs look fat? how sunburnt is my nose? is my sunglasses tan still obvious? is my hair cooperating today?--there's only so much your sense of touch can alert you about. The rest...its up to the gods (for the rest of the month, at least). 

Well, that's dumb. 

The whole point of this exercise is to change the way I treat myself! So, what am I doing wrong??!

Newton's first law of motion states the following:
an object in a form of uniform motion will stay in motion unless acted on by an external force.

Ah, ha! The "object" whose motion I'm aiming to alter is not vanity in the form of self-absorbed mirror staring, it's the self-criticism, the need to constantly check and recheck that I appear the right way whatever the heck that is. In fact, the mirror has less to do with making this change than I had originally thought. It starts from within. I must summon the courage and compassion to be completely as I am--no excuses, no apologies, no wishing it were different. It's not going to just happen. I have to do something, to make a choice, to try something different.  Sure, not looking in a mirror for a month is trying something different, but not if the work stops there. Growing and using courage and compassion isn't a mathematical formula or a law of physics, it's heart work.

Newton's third law of motion states the following:

for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. 

Beautiful. Possible. The trick is to figure out how to set this "equal and opposite reaction" in motion. 

If self-criticism exists intensely, self-compassion and self-acceptance also exist profoundly. Therefore work here requires me to uncover the compassion and acceptance that already exist, not go hunting for it in foreign territories. 

As always, easier said than done. 

As always, its a practice. 

I breathe out criticism.

I breathe in compassion.

I breathe out criticism.

I breathe in acceptance.
And my heart is full.