When you look at yourself, what do you see? We are often unreliable witnesses to our own beauty and potential. And when we can’t see ourselves well, we can’t see others well. In fact, what we don’t like about ourselves we often project onto others.

In the True Body Project, we worked to become better observers of the world
 

around us and we learned how complicated our eyes and our mind can make things.

We believe it is important to view the world like an artist does. Our visiting artist, Dorit Cypis, taught us to question what we see.

So look around you. What do you see? Are you sure?

When you look at an object or a person, there is much of your personal history tied up in how you "see" that thing or that person. Look at a picture of a wedding dress. What fantasy does it call up? What memory do you have associated with it? What does a wedding dress conjure up in your family history?

Rarely are we able to just look at an object for its formal aspects alone, without bringing our experiences and emotions into it. Rarely do we ever just see a wedding dress as a long, white dress and leave it at that. Start to examine what is at work when you "see" something or someone. Journal about it. Be curious about how you respond to the world.

Studies show we are exposed to more than 40 hours a week of media images. So it can be a full time job to sort out how the media makes us feel about our self.

One of the most powerful films we saw during the True Body Project was “Killing Us

Softly” by Jean Kilbourne. (www.jeankilbourne.com). It exposes advertising’s image of women. You can also go to www.kellycrystal.com/impressions. It is an interactive site designed to help make us think about what advertising images are really “selling” us.

X-it!
Take a fashion magazine or any magazine that caters to women. Deconstruct the magazine by putting a black X on all the images that portray women as sex objects, or as victims of violence or abuse. Also mark the images that portray women’s body parts rather than the whole woman. Read both the advertising and editorial messages and mark any ads or articles that do not portray women as powerful, intellectual, complex people.

What do you have left? Is there any content left in the magazine?