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So how do we make peace with our smiles?
While the activities we’ve done so far have been playful, they are also very much with intention!
Because from what I’ve experiences, making peace starts with breaking out of that comfort zone and with showing up in front of the camera, being willing and open to the possibility of seeing yourself (and your smile) in a different way.
But the process of actually making peace often doesn’t happen exactly as we may expect.
I think often we expect it to happen immediately or we even put pressure on ourselves to make peace happen! Sound familiar?
As I’ve been working on making peace with my own smile, I noticed a bit of a pattern that I thought I might share with you. As I’d take selfies capturing my smile, there was a slow evolution and change I saw happen that went something like this!
This is where it began a while back:
“Oh my…that is a whole lot of smile and all I see is critique. No love”
Then after continuing the practice it rolled into:
“Yup, there’s my smile again” And it almost became a place of neutrality where I wasn’t critiquing myself but didn’t necessarily see it with compassion yet.
Then it shifted and I started to appreciate my own smile in the same way that I would seeing a friend’s smile of someone I adored and feel like:
“Hey lovely” to the woman in photo or in the mirror!
And the shift to the last stage has always felt so subtle to me too. After a lifetime of body critique one might expect making peace to feel like crossing the finish line, but after walking through that place of neutrality for a while, it just feels like it becomes our new normal. You know what I mean?
And it takes time. I think that it’s so easy to feel like we should suddenly ‘get it’ and instantly feel wonderful about ourselves after having hidden that potential for self-love away for a long time.
I find that in my classes where people confess that they expected to take one workshop and suddenly not struggle but for many of us this is a lifetime of unlearning we are doing and if it was instantaneous…well, there would be a lot less women hating their bodies wouldn’t there!
It can really feel like work to make peace with our bodies. But it’s worth the work!
I wanted to share that with you today in case you’re putting pressure on yourself to immediately LOVE your smile or other parts of you that you are choosing to make peace with.
So I have an activity for you today (of course).
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What part of your smile can you already see with love or are finding yourself learning to? Let’s celebrate that today.
It could be:
- the shape of your lips
- the uniqueness of your teeth
- the curve of your smile
- the way your cheeks are when you smile.
- or maybe you’re beginning to see your whole smile with love
It’s not for us to tell you either (though I’ve been loving the way folks are cheering each other on and sharing what we like about your smile). But you get to define what you want to celebrate and acknowledge what you may still be feeling neutral about! You get to do this at your pace!
It can feel like choosing to see our smile with love is one small part of learning to love our body as a whole, but we can also take a smaller step. There is no step too small.
What small step could you take today towards seeing your smile with love?
Let’s make this a practice. It may not happen overnight. But the more we can show up in the camera and the mirror and meet ourselves with inquisitiveness, with neutrality and yes with love….the more we open up to making that change towards self-love.
Be inquisitive.
Be open.
Be willing to take just one step first.
I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.
-Brene Brown
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