I Love My…. Hair, Lips, Smile, Eyes, Legs, BODY

Joey Mazzarino is the headwriter for Sesame Street and a muppeteer.  When he noticed that his five year old daughter, Segi, who is Ethiopian, was starting to admire the hair on her Barbies, he decided to write a song to her.  The lyrics of I Love My Hair echoed the words that Mazzarino told his daughter daily.  When Sesame Street debutted the song, Mazzarino received a groundswell of positive reaction.  A song that he wrote for his daughter resonated with women everywhere.  And his daughter’s verdict?  She loved the song and loves her hair.   

So many of us have that thing about our body that we fixate on a bit too much.  For the longest time, it was my hair.  I had a drawer full of hair products, all promising to give my curls some definition while battling the frizz.  A few years ago, awed by how much cash was in that drawer (metaphorically), I made a vow that I wouldn’t buy new product until the drawer was empty.  That vow transfered to other beauty products, too.  What I had, I had to use.  Revolutionary move- I quit spending unnecessary money and started going with what I had. 

Deciding that our body doesn’t have to be different in order to enjoy life is such a powerful step on a positive body image journey.  Today is Love Your Body Day.  Let’s change the script we have in our head right now.  Let’s make the decision to go with what we have.  Let’s realize that for every minute we spend fixating on our body, we lose a minute to something else- our relationships, our passion, our meaning, our legacy.  Can you stand to lose that many minutes every day to the things that really give your life meaning?  I don’t think any of us can.  My father’s crisis last week reminded me how precious a simple minute is.  I’d like to spend as few of them berating myself as possible as many of them lifting myself and others up.

Today, begin to change the messaging in your head.  Decide to love what you haven’t always embraced in the past.  Start now.

I Love My…

I’ll go first. 

I love my hair.