I looked at my outfit when I left to teach yoga and dance this morning and I laughed. I didn’t have a single bit of Halloween inspired outfitting on and I thought, “ I do have an owl on my shirt, so I guess I could say I dressed as wisdom today.” I laughed again, and that thought made me let go of thinking for a moment. I reflected on the fact that I have worn a lot of costumes in my life…. some actual costumes growing up in ballet and high school dance team, and now as a belly dancer I still get to wear beautiful sparkles and shimmers almost every day. One time I dressed as Raggedy Ann, another time I was Queen Esther from the Bible. I was in theatre productions galore throughout my youth and teen years. Lots of costumes I tell you!
The real costumes though were something more significant to my peace and happiness; daughter, mother, wife, ex-wife, friend, crappy friend, therapist, instructor, business owner, employee, girlfriend, scholar, person with anxiety, victim, self-abuser. I then thought about the most detrimental costume I ever put on, the one that grew to color every other role in my life. That one was “Role of Girl With Eating Disorder”.

Today that role; that costume is done; it is over. You might ask how I know it is over…. because I said so, and I get to choose.

This is what I have really delved into these past two years as changes in my body and how it looks scared me almost to death. Having come so far in my life and made so many beautiful choices for myself that I love, it was so bizarre to wake up and look in the mirror and think I hate myself again, and get in the shower and cry and scream about how much anger I had with my body. The odd part is that I don’t actually believe those thoughts anymore. I felt like I was looking with my true self, at my false self in wonder. It was like my True Self was saying “you’re great, you’re perfect, you are a miracle.” And my false self was just lost; wandering around in the abyss of negative self talk and old messages again.
It made me aware that the biggest lie that I have believed is that there was ever something wrong with me. The more I thought about that lie, the more I could find people to corroborate it. I noticed these past two years when I had begun to feel bad about my body again, (after about 10 years of not); l attracted people who would reflect what I was thinking about myself. I have literally had someone tell me “So are you wanting to lose some weight now?”, “You are so pretty, but don’t gain any more weight.”, “you look better in not so flowy skirts.”, “you should wear pants more often, they make you look slimmer.” And then there were people guessing what size I wear, which I think is the weirdest one of all.
Interestingly I found that most of these comments were from other women, and not women that I consider friends. Just acquaintances from various parts of my life. I point all this out not to play the victim role yet again, or to blame women for being catty, but to point out that they were just saying what I was thinking, and maybe they were thinking irrational thoughts about their own bodies too. They were showing me a mirror to my false self, who cares desperately about what this external body looks like.
I am all for health and wellness, as you all know; my whole life is built around caring for our minds, bodies and souls. So I applaud the idea of caring for our body so this amazing vehicle for our soul can last a long time, and do all the wonderful activities that we enjoy. When I took on the costume of an eating disorder though, it went beyond being healthy and became an obsession, and it had nothing to do with mental health and compassion. When I track back to the time that it began, I have found that the original thought that there was something wrong with my body began around 11 or 12 years old. It was simply spurred by a comment from another kid that I thought meant I was fat, and that there was something wrong with that. That thought turned into more, and when I looked outside myself to validate that I was ok, I got reminders that I was not. So the thought turned into years worth of decisions that impacted every area of my life and my wellbeing.
Here is the epiphany…. they weren’t talking about me. They were talking about their own belief about something being wrong, and the desperation to fix it. My mistake was that I thought they were right. So I listened, and I followed. and I made up my own thoughts and tortured myself in as many ways as I could think of. Then I found others to join me in my torture as well.
I put that costume on in one moment; with one decision to believe a thought, and up until this very moment it has plagued me in a multitude of ways and at various levels of pain, from not so much some days to excruciating on others. So I know that in one moment I can take that costume off too.
I know this is true because I have done it before. Then just like a kid trying on some old frock they found in the attic. I put the damn dusty thing on again and pranced around like a make-believe  princess, rather than remembering that I am a true queen.
It is so funny to me right now that we take a day like Halloween to wear more masks and costumes; when every day many of us are wearing tons of old stinky false self costumes anyway. So we dress up, and put something new on top of the old, and pretend that we are good, rather than realizing the great that we are just because we were born.
I have played a lot of roles in this life so far, and miraculously my True Self has been here witnessing it all. Just waiting for this day; this moment, for it all to click. Whispering, “You are perfect, You are Worth, You are potential, You are blessed, You are loved and You are Love“. Today I will take one moment at a time and mindfully dress as my True Self in as many of my moments as I can remember.
I will leave you with a statement, a declaration even. As with many of my favorite statements it was given to me recently by my friend and mentor Mary Maynard, use it daily my friends, and see your True Self shining through, I already do…

“Other people’s opinions of me are none of my business.”