Little Super Heros

What do X-Ray vision, ESP and bionic strength have in common?  

Super Heroes!  I’ve been thinking a lot about heroes lately as my daughter recently had to do an oral report at school about her everyday hero.  I sat in class and listened to kids share about how their dads, grandparents, teachers and coaches were heroes to them and I suddenly felt SO lucky. You know what I realized? . . . We are surrounded by heroes everyday and most of us don’t even notice it.  

I’ve also been thinking a bunch about girls these days.  Trust me, I’m going to circle back to the hero thing shortly – keep reading!

In my work as a coach, I get to support women as they lose weight and change old patterns of behavior.  It’s AWESOME!  Many of the women I see are mothers and often ask me how to best support their daughters so they don’t grow up with body issues . . . just like mom.  Weight and body image issues run deep and at times can be incredibly painful so it’s not surprising that these mom’s want a different path for their little girls.

As all of this hero stuff swirled in my mind, I had an incredible light-bulb moment.  These little girls are SUPER-HEROS.  Remember X-Ray vision, ESP and bionic strength?  Yup . . . they’ve got it and they don’t even know it.   I truly believe that in some cases, little girls hold up their mothers.  

They have an amazing ability to hold onto their mother’s deepest fears about themselves and that can be a mighty task.  Consider this . . . A woman works tirelessly to eat the perfect diet and log just the right amount of calorie burn at the gym so that she can have a lean body.  She panics in social situations because she’s not in control and if she dares to dip into some desert, she accuses herself of being a will-power weakling.  All of this fighting, day in and day out is exhausting!  

Now imagine this same woman has a daughter – let’s say around age 12.  This little girl is active and happy and maybe does NOT have the string-bean body type of some of her peers.  Oh . .  and she loves to eat dessert.  Can you see that this is the mom’s worst fear about HERSELF?  What if she were a little heavier and what if she really allowed herself to eat what she truly wanted?  The little girl is able to sense (consciously or subconsciously) this fear, hence the ESP, and uses her unbiassed STRENGTH to hold onto this heaviness for her mom.  

She can SEE (x-ray vision) that what her mom really needs is to love the scariest parts of herself and she has embodied those fears just for that reason.  THAT is her super-hero mission.  And sometimes super-heros need side-kicks, which is where I come in.  I’ve heard it countless times in my practice.  As women get clear on the deeper reasons why they struggle with weight and body image, their daughters literally come out of their shells.  It’s not that they’ve been hiding, but rather that they’ve had a big job to do.   Gradually, mothers begin to really SEE their daughters, sometimes for the first time and I feel so lucky to be witness to these heroic transformations.  

Part of being a hero means that you have to be AWAKE to what is going on around you.  It’s impossible to be present when you are in constant battle with yourself and too often the people in your life – who you LOVE - end up carrying the weight.  If any of this article resonates with you, I invite you to take the FIRST STEP with me.  

I’m committed to showing women how chronic dieting and body dissatisfaction is just like sleepwalking through life and what to do to change that.  How to make sure that the little super-heros among us can use their powers for themselves!