Yesterday, I posted a boomerang video of myself eating a cookie on Instagram. The objective was to share my neutral stance about cookies, to encourage viewers to seek out their own, if desired, and really, to eat what I wanted.
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Interestingly, when I watched the video after I posted it, all I could see was my hand shaking. (I recognize that boomerang has a shaky tendency to it, but this was my hand, so it WAS SHAKING.) My first instinct was take the post down. Or to change my hand position. Or to have a less active shot. And then I took a breath. I chose to intentionally leave the Instagram post as it was because the value of my eating a cookie far supersedes my experience of having a shaky hand.
I'm sharing this because I want to talk about the concept of "zooming in." As humans, we have the tendency to focus on the things that we perceive to be the hardest, that make us feel shame, or the things that make us feel the most vulnerable. We know what they are, and often try to avoid them. In my case, when I saw my shaky hand, all I could see was my shaky hand. I nearly forgot about the reason for my post in the first place, because I was so distracted by my perceived "flaw."
I zoomed in on the thing that made me feel uncomfortable, and nearly lost sight of my intentions. I hear similar sentiments echoed by my clients when they speak to me about having negative body image, or experiencing significant distress in relation to specific regions of their bodies, or in relation to the sense that they should be doing more/making more of an impact/not feeling stuck in the spot they're in. They stop focusing on the things that are important to them. They get stuck in the SHOULD vortex. And they literally stop being able to move beyond whatever they've zoomed in on. This hyper zoom takes us out of the game. And in such a way that it almost doesn't feel like a choice.
BUT, thankfully, it is a choice. We get to decide where we put our attention and time. We get to determine where we put our energy. I am actively choosing to zoom out.
I actively chose to leave my video online. I received messages from several people saying that they appreciated my enjoying cookies. I also receive messages from several people suggesting that they hadn't even noticed that my hand was shaking. That it only became apparent after I pointed it out. And even then, it wasn't where they focused. My fear of being judged for having a differently able body was entirely inappropriate. Or at least, a waste of my energy.
I'M SO DONE WITH GIVING MY ENERGY TO UNIMPORTANT THINGS.
What about you? What do you zoom in on? How does it help or harm?
Wishing you a zoomed out day:)
a.