Challenge Your "Ideal" Beauty Standard

JUST FOR TODAY:  Reflect on your current "ideal" beauty standard, and why you desire it.  What does your intuition say is your true ideal?

We are bombarded with images of fashion models and movie stars, sending us the message, "This is the image of ideal beauty, this is the look you should aspire to attain."  Then, you look in the mirror, noticing the disparity between your body and those glossing the pages of magazines, and you say to yourself, "You are grotesquely fat, and covered with flaws, you don't dare let anyone look at you."  You resolve to change your body in an attempt to attain what you perceive to be the "ideal" beauty standard, only to feel frustrated because no matter what you do, you miss the mark.  What if this "ideal" isn't so ideal after all?  If you were on a deserted island and had never seen magazines or movies, how would you feel about your body and your beauty?  What would your "ideal" be?  Since you would have no one to compare yourself to, you would be the ideal.  Perhaps you aren't on a deserted island, but you can desert the beauty standard based on society's ideals.  Trust your intuitive wisdom, and set an ideal that truly fits you.  Consider the possibility that you are the ideal.

©2010 by "Dr. Dorie" McCubbrey, M.S.Ed., Ph.D. – Eating Disorder & Obesity Treatment Specialist – Denver, Colorado