Reflecting on the way we should be

So there I was in exercise class, shrinking away from the revealing full-length mirror. Thinking how much out of shape I am. How far I have to go. How long it's going to take. How hard this workout is. How awful I look.

And suddenly my reason for being there changed.

"I've decided to accept myself, warts and all, fat and all," said the woman next to me as she sweated through a round of lunges and leg lifts.

It was one of those seminal moments that take your breath away. When someone's words, or perhaps a poem, or maybe the lyrics of a song, ring through your soul.

Accept yourself. What a concept.

How many times over the years have any of us heard those words? And not had them speak quite so clearly.

How many times have we embarked on a new workout, or a new eating plan or a new path, or a new life because we thought we were the pits?

Accept yourself? Start there?

Go through this torturous workout because you like yourself already?

Make the improvements from acceptance, not distress?

In this time of face-lifts and makeovers and endless searches for never-ending beauty, imagine starting proud.

The beauty of it all

I looked around at all the women trying to keep themselves healthy. Trying to find something they didn't have. Or perhaps keep something they did have.

How beautiful we all suddenly seemed. How perfect.

A couple of weeks ago, I sat in a room at the St. Francis Medical Center's Women's Addiction Treatment Center and watched three women graduate from the treatment program. Rarely have I been through such a meaningful ceremony or been touched so deeply.

The faces of each of those women shone with a new acceptance of themselves. With a new will to create their lives fresh and shining.

Addiction counselor Cheryl Prince began the ceremony, taking three tiny mustard seeds in her fingertips and planting each in turn in a small dish of soil. In some ancient traditions, said Prince, the mustard seed represented faith, hope and strength.

"Chris," she said, pressing the first seed into the new earth. "I give you faith in yourself.

"Bobbie," she said, taking the second seed and pressing it, too, into the soil. "I give you love for yourself.

"Traci," she said planting the final seed in the small dish. "I give you peace in yourself."

Lighting the way

The room was quiet and dark, with four candles flickering on a low table in the middle. Prince had lit the candles to symbolize change, courage, transformation, love. Grouped around the graduates on the floor were another six or seven women, in all stages of treatment.

Tears streaked cheeks and words were choked as each of those women, in turn, planted three more seeds and bestowed her own gifts of hope on those leaving.

"I can choose to be my own truest friend or my own greatest enemy," Prince said as the ceremony reached its end.

How beautiful those women seemed. How absolutely perfect.

Bev Creamer, The Advertiser's health writer, is still not quite able to look into a full-length mirror without cringing.