In that moment she made the decision to go on the date just to see what it was like to be with someone who didn’t like Her. The guy was hang down miserable the whole time.

“I felt not wanted, invisible, humiliated, hurt,” says Myers. Then she looked at him and saw something surprising. He was really hurting. Myers’
inner strength surfaced and she said do herself, ‘I can handle this.” A few hours later she asked him if he wanted to take her home.

“Yeah.”

This event catalyzed a key world view for Myers and became the early seeds for her work with women and leadership. “I knew I had to love and accept myself and continue connecting to who I am as a person and to connect to purpose.”

When she got home Myers took out some paper and made a line down middle. On one side she listed what was good about herself. On the other side she listed what was bad. On the “good” side she wrote. “I’ve got smarts. I’m not pregnant. I’m not sexually active. I do my chores. I follow rules. I go to school. I’m a nice person.”

On the “bad” side she wrote…well, nothing. “I had a really hard time finding something wrong from the inside out. I don’t like to dust and mom wants me to dust. That was a pivotal moment for me then. Writing became a powerful tool for self reflection.”

Today Myers keeps the essence of what’s on her list in mind. She stays focused on bringing out who she is no matter what she looks like on the outside. Even when she glances down at her sagging stomach, which she calls her “kangaroo pouch”, the aftermath of having quadruplets. She stops herself and says, “No. I make an offer in the world. I make a difference.”

Another practice she began after breaking her back kick boxing was to imagine a tea candle inside herself right below belly button. She took pain killers, as the pain was extreme, so she could continue to work as she was on the speaking circuit. Some days on stage the flame was tall and strong. But on other days it so small a light wind could kick it out.

At those times she would say to herself, “No DeeDee. How can you feed the flame?” She kept visualizing what she wanted with her kids. Myers says that we can locate virtues inside our bodies. For example, she houses courage in her diaphragm. That’s where she goes to find the energy to do a handstand in Yoga. Continuing to find the places where we house strengths can be self generative. By locating those parts we continually connect to what’s good in us.

This is not just an occasional practice. Myers practices being in the mind-set that her body is fulfilling on what it’s made for. “I go home everyday and ask myself, ‘Was this a day well lived?” She also envisions a happy future that helps drive the present. She’ll be 68 when her quadruplets graduate from high school. What’s important to her is to be able to run, laugh and enjoy her children and that she can also live fully in her body and be alive, alert, healthy, happy.

Deedee Myers is an executive leadership coach who supports sustainable changes for individuals, teams and organizations. She is a motivational speaker and author, teacher and coach on leadership practices, effective coordination in teams and living a life of Purpose and balance. As a former triathlete and ultramarathoner Deedee is well schooled in pacing as CEO of the Advancing Leadership Institute, and mother of 9 including twins and quadruplets.

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One of the major goals of the 1997 Body Image Survey was to learn more about how people have remade their image. Though we anticipated receiving a few brief suggestions, we were inundated with your personal accounts of change. We have summarized your suggestions but kept your words. Try and discover what factors play a role in your struggle with your body. And be deliberate about creating a lifestyle that increases your chances for ending the war with your body.

1. Develop criteria for self-esteem that go beyond appearance.
   One way to make appearance less important is to develop other benchmarks for self-evaluation. A 51-year-old woman from California summarizes the approach: “By achieving in other areas, balancing successes and failures, searching where positives are possible.” A 53-year-old Washington man says, “focusing on succeeding at work, participating in sports, and friendships have helped me overcome my negative body feelings.”
2. Cultivate the ability to appreciate your body, especially how it functions.
   One middle-aged women writes: “I have often wanted to write an article called ‘I Have a Beautiful Body.’ No. I don’t look like Jane Fonda. I look like a normal 46-year-old woman who has had three children. But my body is beautiful because of all it does for me. I have two eyes that can see, a large nose for smelling, a large mouth for eating and smiling, two hands that can hold and hug, two breasts that have nursed three sons, an abdomen that was home to three babies, two legs that can walk everywhere I want to go, and two feet to take me there.”

   “I have extremely red hair and as a child I hated it because it was so different,” says a 20-year-old woman from California. “I have come to realize that my hair is a beautiful and exotic part of me. Now I cherish it.”

3. Engage in behavior that makes you feel good about yourself.
   “When I have negative thoughts and feelings about my physical appearance, I try to behave in a way that turns them around, like exercise and buying a piece of clothing that enhances my appearance,” says a 30-year-old Missouri woman.”

   Although Rubenesque at age 54, I currently model nude for a local university art school, meditate daily to focus inward, and enjoy dancing, swimming, archery, art, and my writing projects,” says a Georgia woman.

4. Reduce your exposure to noxious images.
   “I stopped buying fashion magazines completely when I was about 24,” says a 30-year-old woman from Michigan. “Comparing myself to the models had a very strong and negative impact.”

   “One of the things that helped me become more accepting of my body was the realization that it was okay to be female,” says a 67-year-old woman from Ohio. “It sounds hokey, but watching old movies starring Sophia Loren and Ava Gardner helped. These women had shoulders, and breasts, and hips, and are some of the sexiest women I have ever seen.”

5. Exercise for strength, fitness, and health, not just weight control.
   “When I was able to stop focusing on how my body looked and began experiencing what it could help me accomplish — climbing, swimming, cycling, surviving in the wilderness — it made me feel extremely satisfied,” says a 28-year-old woman from Louisiana.”

   About a year ago I started walking every day for about an hour,” says a 22-year-old woman from New York. “Because I was walking I felt so good. I also lost 10 pounds, but that didn’t matter. My attitude changed because I cared about my health.”

6. Seek out others who respect and care about your body; teach them how to talk about and touch your body.
   “The most recent experience that has helped has been a lover,” says a 67-year-old Ohio woman. “He makes me glad to be in this body with this shape and these dimensions.”
7. Get out abusive relationships.
   “If my partner didn’t like my appearance, he would no longer be my partner,” says a 31-year-old woman from Alabama. “I eliminate the negative.”
8. Identify and change habitual negative thoughts about your body.
   “I constructed a tape of positive self-talk with personal goals and feelings I want to achieve,” says a 25-year-old Washington woman. “When I have a bad attitude about my body, I pop in my tape. It really helps improve my self-image.”

   “When I look in the mirror at my body I always try to say nice things rather than cringe,” continues the wise-beyond-her-years 25-year-old.

9. Decode more complicated thoughts about the body.
   Are negative thoughts and feelings about your body distracting you from other issues that are really bothering you? A 60-year-old woman writes: “A factor that has helped me come to terms with my body was recognizing that much of my relationship problems had more to do with shyness and lack of social skills than physical appearance. Once I worked on my people skills, found that I worried less about my appearance.”
10. If you can’t get over your bad body image, consider seeking professional help.
    “I was bulimic for 12 years,” says a 36-year-old woman from Oregon. “My recovery was based on individual counseling, support from friends, and a hell of a lot of hard work on my part.”
11. Control what you can, forget about what you can’t.
    “As far as negativity about my physical appearance,” says a 33-year-old woman from Michigan, “I’ve had one simple rule: work on improving what you can realistically change, and don’t spend time worrying about the rest.”

Read the whole article here.

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DeeDee Myers

“That was a big of a grab for me,” says Myers. “My reaction was to get really small and invisible. But part of me was curious. My mother asked me to wear lipstick and light make up. She took me aside and said, ‘This is not fair but people will judge you by what you wear and how you look. Never get fat. Always be healthy looking. Take care of your hair.’”

Her mother was a prestigious banker’s wife who entertained frequently. Although she had twelve children she didn’t look like a “drudge housewife”. The house was always neat and tidy. Her hair was done, her clothes were clean, ironed, and pressed. She had a motto: Always be dressed for company.

This is a script that has played in Myers’ head since the day her mother first schooled her on how she needed to present herself to the world. But today Myers has a different take on it. “It’s the same script,” she says , “I just have a new story. Now I see it as an invitation to always be ready, to extend for what you want, for what’s needed. It’s a lesson to be ready for anything.” That anything can mean stares at the yoga studio and strangers boldly asking, “How are you going to do downward facing dog?”

So Myers shows them and asks if they have suggestions. “At first I didn’t know whether I should try to explain or just demonstrate. I allow people to breathe around their own stories.” When her yoga class recently undertook handstands, Myers had some moments of confrontation with herself. She got jealous and “pissy” that others could do handstands while she couldn’t.

The internal dialog she was running said that this was just too hard. She wanted give up…and cry. Then she said to herself, “You’re 55 years old, how can you say this is the hardest things you’ve ever done when you’ve delivered quads?”

The other thing that happened inside her head is that Myers coached herself. As CEO of DDJ Myers, Ltd. and co-founder of the Advancing Leadership Institute, she’s in the business of giving others advice about how to move through difficulties. So she asked herself what advice she might give herself from a coaching perspective. She said she would try it a few ways and then would ask for help. So that’s what she did.

The next day she told the instructor, “I’m going to do a handstand today.” She spoke it like a declaration.

Startled, he first said “Good,” then asked, “A one handed handstand?”

“No. A two handed handstand one-handed.” Now she calls extreme challenges her “Handstand Moments” and she still has plenty of them.

Like the day she she found a little lump on the tip of her nose. She put off going to the doctor. When she finally had an exam the doctors said it was cancer and scheduled her for surgery. She had a young intern and his team working with her and they initially said they wouldn’t need to cut to the bone, that it was minor. But that assessment turned out to be inaccurate and she had to return to surgery to have her nose cut to the bone.

“At first I didn’t want to look,” she said after the surgery. “I had a hole in my nose.” But every day she told herself to look, and to find the lesson, to love who you are. She started by taking off the bandaid for a moment. Then for a couple minutes. Then twice a day. Each time she looked she said that she “kept locating who I am and loving who I am. We have to locate who we are on the inside, to find what’s good in us.”

Deedee Myers is an executive leadership coach who supports sustainable changes for individuals, teams and organizations. She is a motivational speaker and author, teacher and coach on leadership practices, effective coordination in teams and living a life of Purpose and balance. As a former triathlete and ultramarathoner Deedee is well schooled in pacing as CEO of the Advancing Leadership Institute, and mother of 9 including twins and quadruplets.

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The Tyra Show

Do you have a body part that you absolutely hate and sometimes feel ashamed of? Are you constantly finding ways to cover it up or hide it? Do you always feel anxious whenever out in public, perhaps fearing that others are staring at you because of a self-perceived body flaw? If you have serious issues with one of your body parts, and wish you could change it, contact us.

How many of us fit the bill? Probably 99% of all American women. Are you one of them?

One of my clients is a body image expert and in one of our media coaching sessions  she said that she practices mirror gazing — naked. Every night before bed she stands in front of a full length mirror and looks at her body and loves each part, loves the whole of her.

Impossible? I thought so when I first started. At first I saw only the ill-effects of gravity, fat where there should be muscle and cellulite in all the worst places.

But after a few months things began to shift. I could see that I had great collarbones. Then I moved on down… It took a while, but now I can look at the whole kit and kaboodle and say, “Not bad.” I can’t say I love it all, but that I have a few good features that time has not yet taken full toll.

When I go deeper than that I can appreciate that I’m strong, healthy, athletic, and have a sense of grace and joy. When I spoke to Diana Marie Estey, Yoga Instructor for Yoga Works in Larkspur CA, at a Yoga Retreat, about body beauty through yoga she said, “I’m more interested in helping people connect to their sense of aliveness.”

Rather than worrying about what we hate about ourselves she advised that we see how we can create connection to our environment, the beauty of nature, each other, ourselves. I was thinking about connecting to this sense of aliveness today when I was out walking on my usual route, sniffing flowers, picking blackberries, and fuzzling dogs and cats I’ve come to know. On this hot night I passed a neighbor’s kids running through their sprinkler on the lawn, naked, laughing, wet and cool, screaming in delight.

“They are so lucky!” I yelled to their dad. “Don’t we all wish we could do the same?” What if we remembered the delight in being naked? Water, sun, air on our skin under the big big sky with no other thought than how good we feel?

Susan Harrow is the author of Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul. She runs a Media Consultancy where she helps everyone from Fortune 500 CEOs to celebrity chefs, entrepreneurs to authors grow their business through media coaching and the power of PR. For more information please contact her here.

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