The new tribe of women....the 'healthy-un-healthy' perfectionist - are you one of them??

This morning I met my girlfriend – and soon to be Bridesmaid at my October wedding (Weeeee – yeah, only a little bit excited!!).

We sat down, ordered our soy lattes and smashed avocado with smoked salmon on grainy sourdough and proceeded in classic ‘girly catch up’ conversation.

As we chatted through the weekend before’s events, the state of both of our partners, any ‘annoyances’ that we had been witness to between our other friends…….we eventually got talking about a past experience of one of her friends.

This friend I met over the weekend, was one of the loudest, bubbliest, confident, friendly and might I say ‘likeable’ people I had ever met. She was full of energy and life – almost to the point where I had to catch my breathe a few times from getting so caught up in her high end energy.

A story about this girl’s past came up that really got us thinking and caught us both in a real internal deep reflection as we sipped the next mouthful of our coffee.

This girl – who I know as such an abundance of ‘light and energy’ was actually suffering huge battles with her inner critic, her confidence in her body (mind you – she looked trim, fit and gorgeous to everyone else!) and although she looked outgoing and happy in her skin – her self love muscle was depleted to the point where it would almost be able to receive a ‘disability’ parking permit.

A few years ago, this girl formed a relationship with a fairly high profile sportsman. As you do being an awesome girlfriend, you hang out with the WAG’s (wives and girlfriends) of other team members. The thing about many higher profile ‘WAG’s’ is that often they are exposed to a little more scrutiny and spotlight than the usual gal. This means that they are can become very focussed on their appearance; what they eat, drink, how they exercise and the very best beauty techniques.

It’s crazy – but it actually becomes a lot like a competition which, usually derived mostly from the other women as they become so ‘grouply’ focussed on looking their best in front of each other, their partners and the surrounding world – that they have NO IDEA WHO they are, WHAT they enjoy doing and HOW it used to feel to love and appreciate the person you are.

I’ve said it before and I hate repeating it – but women are our own worst enemy.

With the access to and influence of social media, TV and internet – we are constantly exposed to seeing what other people are doing. As humans – we have learnt to (whether we realise it or not…for most of us it’s subconscious and unheard of until someone else points it out to us) compare ourselves to the lives of others. We look at how others look, dress, the social circles they are in, the career they have, the car they drive, the partner they have, the house they live in, the food they are eating……BAH – MIND OVER-LOAD!!!

With all of this comparison against ourselves and they way we live – how the hell are we supposed to remain happy in ourselves and not to conform to the pressures or influences of the world around us.

Don’t worry girls – I’m not saying we should all get out there and become nomads in the land of the ‘never-nevers’ – but it’s about bloody time we started to look at ourselves and how much of our true selves we are showing – and how much we are actually happy with….and I mean REALLY happy about!!

As it turned out – this girl’s boyfriend ended up breaking up with her after she became so caught up and consumed by the group of ‘WAGs’ who went out for brunch dates and only ordered a juice or a coffee as they talked about exercise and their latest diets. She lost a LOT of weight and took a HUGE chunk of her original bubbly self confidence from herself. She didn’t and still doesn’t like to wear bikini’s, let’s nobody touch her stomach (even her boyfriend) and has developed issues with approaching other guys……even though she is GORGEOUS!

Go figure!!

We all know that we’ve been there, or that we’ve felt the pressures and sense of ‘entrapment’ in the claws of womanhood…..so let’s start becoming aware of the real impact it’s having on us all.

Want someone to ‘vent to’ or to help you work through these thought processes, becoming not only more HEALTHY, but happy and with a CRAZY STRONG SELF LOVE MUSCLE –

Chat to someone who is impartial, supportive and has quite a bit of girly and professional insight into this ‘phenomenon’ – ME!!

In the meantime – start looking around, how do you sit in your self???