The Way We Are

first published in 2007

Actually, it's less about ‘What we Are’ it’s more about ‘What we think we are’.

We think that the way a doctor would see us describes ‘What we Are’. Measuring this and that – and then you are getting told whether or not you are the norm. How wrong we are: Visit different doctors and you get different interpretations of the measurements. And there are these miss-measurements due to a ‘having to perform’ factor. For example blood pressure measurement can go wrong because you are so nervous. It even has a name. It’s called ‘white coat hypertension’.

Then there is this thing where we measure ourselves to buy something from a catalogue. Sounds so straight forward – you get the data, compare it to a table, get a number and that’s your size. Ha! Again you didn’t perform. The stuff you ordered doesn’t fit. So either you must be too stupid to measure correctly or your body is too awkward to fit the norm. And then we see models in magazines and all the celebs at the telly, and we are made to compare ourselves with them – okay, we are bound to fail here anyway.

And we have this faint recollection of how we were when we were younger. Probably not perfect either, but much more in reach of the dream – or were we?

Guided by wrong idols

All this together forms an image in our brains of ‘What we Are’. And as we are failing more often than not the perception we have of ourselves usually is: Unfit, too fat, too skinny, too ugly, too everything...

But - It’s just not true!

All this input is filtered by other people. Even our own memory is able to trick us. We tend to get haunted by embarrassing situations from the past while the good memories are more likely to be considered accidental.

Darlings! What you are missing is self esteem. If you believe any of the above – have a closer look in the mirror. Usually it will turn out that all the faults you think you have are nothing but a bit of an imbalance. Everybody has good bits and bad bits. All that it needed is a bit of knowledge on how to disguise the not so good ones and to show off the really good ones. That's where the 'Incredible Ladies' enter the stage and come to the rescue! 

Pears and apples

Good examples for my imbalance theory are a lot of Chinese ladies. In European eyes they are very skinny, but still: They feel fat. They usually are very petit and have a very small frame. They are very small around the shoulders, but a bit wider around the hips – what is good, otherwise they would be in trouble when delivering babies. This makes them pear shaped. Although they don’t carry a lot of fat, they feel fat around the bottom bit. But actually it's not the bottom that is too big, it's the shoulders which are too small. You can't do anything about your bone structure, so they are stuck with the hips, but they can do something about too small shoulders by building up some muscles. In the end they even may weigh a bit more, but they will have a balanced hourglass figure, and the bottom will appear thin. Believe me - I was a pear - only 6 sizes bigger than these Chinese ladies. When I started exercising I didn't focus on the bottom - which I hated - but the shoulders. I did everything to make my shoulders look wider - and it worked!

Some Latin ladies are known to carry more weight around the bottom area. And if they are small in the top they are a pear as well, while a lot of European ladies seem to carry their weight on the top bit – what makes them apple shaped.

Every single pear or apple has good bits on their bodies. But we are made to stare at the not so good ones all the time. And we envy what the other type of fruit has what we are missing. So we forget to see the potential of our bodies on which we can build upon. We only have to get a few things right: the right shape and colour of clothes for instant success, and the right exercises for the long term. And then everybody will see us for what we are: Gorgeous, incredible women!