“I love myself the way I am” – This is what I have learnt from children
“If you could change something about your physical aspect, what would it be?” When asking this question to adults, I get a list of all sorts of things from “my height, my teeth, my breast, my nose, my hair, my weight, my thighs, my skin, …” There is always something we are not happy with.
However, we seem not to see that what defines us are exactly those “imperfections” as some people like to call them, as well as those scars that tell stories and features typical of ageing. These are all the things that characterise us and our uniqueness, making us who we are. That face without that mole from birth will not look the same as well as those human and charming wrinkles when becoming older.
Bringing or making changes to the way we look for a healthier result – mentally and physically speaking – is certainly very important though. However, in some cases accepting ourselves for the way we look shouldn’t be confused with not taking care of our body. For instance being overweight, obese or extremely skinny are, in my opinion, lack of self-love rather than something that characterise us. If you are rotund you should not accept it. Eating healthy, keeping fit and loosing weight when necessary is a high form of self-respect, self-love, self-discipline that requires lots of hard work.
When do we start to feel unhappy with the way we look?
When I ask children from the age of three to six/seven years old “what would you change about your physical aspect?”, I also get a list of all sort of things but this time they are quite surprising and unpredictable! They wish for wings, spider webs coming from their wrists, pink hair, or a green face so they can look like a scary witch (as my seven years old niece told me not too long ago). When I re-ask the question specifying that I refer to something related to their bodies like the colour of their hair, skin or the shape of their nose, the majority answer is “Nothing, I don’t want to change anything!”.
Children are mostly in harmony with their bodies. They love freely running all around the house completely naked, and they would often happily do the same in front of friends or strangers in public spaces because they feel good about the way they look. Children consider their bodies as the mean to experience life. They develop it and nurture it by following their instincts of movement (running, dancing, climbing), their curiosity and interests for learning new skills (cycling, painting, playing sports or musical instruments), and they are generally determined to master them. They can fully use all their senses to explore, learn and grow. They are more connected with their inner selves – hence wiser than adults. We should observe them, listen to them and learn from them (there is much more than what we commonly think or can imagine).
For instance, I am fascinated by the way they look at themselves in a mirror. Have you ever had the opportunity to observe them? They scrutinise themselves with a smile on their face, making fun of themselves, making faces, talking to themselves.
Some could say: “They are little! They have no worries! What can they know about stress, work, or bills to pay?”. Well, I firmly believe that in their world their issues are quite big and important too. They are quite innocent in their way of thinking and very enthusiastic about life but they still have a perception of what they are looking at when in front of a mirror. They would often tell you in all honesty if something looks ugly or beautiful and still they will happily smile showing off their missing front teeth. Would you be able to do the same with no front teeth? I most certainly wouldn’t. That would be not “beautiful” to see!
We are strongly influenced by society, by those role models that are almost unconsciously imposed on us (especially in such a vulnerable phase like adolescence), by those standards of beauty that shape societies and personalities making us look all the same.
So, what is beauty?
“Rounded and curvy” were considered by ancient Greeks to be the aesthetic canons representing beautiful women. Nowadays straight white teeth, tall and slim equal beauty. We have an Italian saying: Altezza, mezza bellezza! – Your height is half your beauty. Therefore, fifty per cent of my chances of being beautiful are gone! LOL
It looks like to me that there is a kind of deformity in the concept and use of beauty. The more we get older the more we focus on the physical aspect and futile things of life, distancing ourselves from our real nature, our real selves, our essence. We don’t really appreciate or understand our uniqueness and what makes us special and interesting. Only when we see this, we can shine and spread beauty through our bodies.
If I think of my body as this amazing magical machine that works very hard to be functional, that allows me to see stunning landscapes, to listen to cheerful music, to enjoy incredible food, to learn unimaginable skills, to meet unique people, and most importantly, it contains my soul and its beauty, I can – almost surprisingly – look at myself in the mirror, smiling and thinking …“that’s me! … that’s who I am … and I love the way it is!”