Ripped abs, tight glutes, and shimmering bronzed skin define the Summer months. People watching on white sand beaches conjures up even the most confident ego’s body issues. “Damn that guy’s huge” and “that skinny girl has cellulite?” dance through your thoughts. As much as we self analyze and question how taut our own inner thighs are as we run down the beach, Summer allows you to view real bodies.
Baring all allows you to see the cellulite, the imperfect abs and the pastiness that comes from a few too many hours in the office. Outside the magazines and the plasticized celebs on the big screen, real life, bodies and people exist.
As I lay sun baking in Cairns, Australia, surrounded by deeply bronzed young tourists I can’t help but watch with relief. A few weeks ago when I submerged from a terrential 10 month Winter, stripping down to a bikini, as you can imagine, was bizarre. Even though I was confident about my shape, exposing gleaming white skin to the world was unnerving as hell. Note to self: Use a self tanner to transfer seasons in such extreme circumstances. Nonetheless I was relieved to see real women strutting their stuff. Curvy, sexy bodies that could actually fill their string bikinis.
Many of us spend endless hours at the gym during Spring shaping up for the exposure of Summer. And while it’s important to keep moving, have fitness goals and aim for perfection, know deep down that perfection can’t be obtained. And that the search for perfection in itself is maddening.
Perfectionism can grip your life, wring it of it’s juices and leave you dry and lonely as you obsess over the labels of two different cereal boxes. As Nikki says, “Cereal shopping was a lot more fun when I was concerned more about the toy then the fiber.” The intense analysis of everything on our fork and leanness of our midsections is exhausting, extreme, and breeds unnecessary stress. Something we are trying to limit in epic health and longevity!
As Micheal Jackson once said, “we are our own worst critic.” And we know how he ended up! But in all seriousness, (I love MJ!) perfectionism is so overrated.
So as the sunny days dwindle and the romps in the waves succeed we can relax in knowing that we are good enough. That we aren’t alone in the world of real bodies.
This post was brought to you by Only In A Woman’s World.
