Okay, so the first time this happened to me, I was really embarrassed about it, but then it happened again today. The last time was at Dr. Jack’s seminar in February. After his presentation, I got up and a few people who felt that they could relate to my story came over to talk to me. The venue for the evening was at Traci Bissonette’s hair studio, Montage. She opens up her shop and invites people to attend seminars hosted by Dr. Jack. She is also a patient of his and has had tremendous success. Dr. Jack invites us to share our stories and although I am always nervous, I do.
Well, anyway, after the presentation, I got up to talk to some people and because it is a hair studio there are mirrors everywhere. As I am talking to this one really nice lady, my eye catches just a glimpse of someone I think I know across the room. I didn’t want to be rude so I kept talking to her about her experience and mine, and when she walked away, my gaze looked across the room for someone I might recognize. It occurred to me that I did know a few people at the seminar, but that wasn’t them, as they had left. Was there someone else here that I knew?
And then I looked across the room again, and realized something as I looked by the mirror…….. The person I recognized…. was ME. I could feel my face immediately flush with embarrassment. How could it be that I didn’t even recognize myself in the mirror. Despite having lost something like 55 pounds at the time, in my own head, I looked exactly the same. I looked at myself and realized just how much those pounds are. My body looked different. I don’t own a full length mirror at home and maybe I just didn’t realize it. I admitted it to Dr. Jack but I didn’t tell anyone else, because I really was embarrassed by it. Who doesn’t recognize themselves??
When I first started working with Dr. Jack, he told me to take a photo of myself. Yuck….. I hated it. I kept staring at it thinking I would never be able to change that picture very much. But here I am months later, today at 64 pounds gone and it’s funny but my head still sees the original picture.
And today it happened again. I went to an event and there was an enormously long line. I stood in the line and glanced at my phone a couple of times. Then I looked up and caught a glimpse of someone in the reflection of the windows. I immediately turned around and started looking. I know that person! But again, I didn’t spot any familiar faces. So I turned back to see what the person was wearing. A pink top and jeans. Check.
Looked back… and then it hit me…. I am wearing pink top and jeans. And again, my face flushed fifteen shades of red. The woman behind me must have thought I was having a medical problem. “You okay?” “Yeah, I just get kind of claustrophobic in crowds.” She smiled sympathetically. What else was I going to say. “Oh, yeah! I am fine, just I have problems recognizing myself in reflections. ” I am sure she would have moved herself and her two boys to a new spot quickly, wondering if the crowd was getting to me, or I was a creature from a different land, who never looked at herself in a mirror.
When I was heading home, I was thinking about that. It’s funny, how you get an idea in your head about what you look like and it is hard to shake it. Another great example is last week I was looking for some new pants. I don’t want to buy a lot of clothes right now, because I just don’t want to waste the money. But I seriously need new pants I found some pants that were a reasonable price for “in between” clothes last week at a local store. I picked out two pair and went to the dressing room to try them on. “Why are these so loose,” I thought to myself and then I looked up at the full length mirror that I avoid looking into like the plague. I realized that I had pulled two of a size I wore sixty pounds ago. Duhhhhhhhhhh………….
I told the girl at the dressing room, “Oops… grabbed the wrong size, I will be back.” She laughed and said, “Oh yeah, people are always just putting them back anywhere. Want me to go grab you two different ones? What size do you wear?” “Ummm….. I have no idea. I better go look.” I quickly explained and she laughed.
I think it might be time for me to clean my mirror at home, or invest in a full length one, something that I have totally avoided. But it also might be time to clean the mirror in my head, too. I realize that I do look different outside, and if someone could look at who I was inside, well that has changed, too. Dr. Jack didn’t just fix my diet…. he fixed a lot of things about me, but that is a different day’s story.
Mirror, mirror on the wall….Who is looking back at me?? I can’t seem to recall.
It looks like it resembles who I used to be. Outside is different, but so is inside me.