I’ve been thinking about perception a lot lately.

How do you see yourself? How does that vision compare with how others see you? Is it important that these two perceptions match?

Should we care? Or – to be a bit more honest – Why do we care so much??

If you spend much time on social media, you’ve probably seen this video going around:

Dustin Hoffman rocks my socks. I’m so grateful to him for reminding me of the disconnect between our perceptions and the truthful understanding of ourselves and one another.

Around the time this video went viral, I had a wonderful, motivating conversation with a new friend from #140You, Liz Nead of Nead Inspiration (http://neadinspiration.com/). Liz mentioned the importance of recognizing the chasm between the way that we view ourselves and the way that the rest of the world sees us.

This conversation reminded me of a night in 2010 (read: Katey at Peak Weight). My husband and I were watching a reality show about morbid obesity. The episode featured a 400 pound woman. She was a truck driver, and her size made it hard for her to get into and out of the cab of her truck.

When I looked at her, I saw myself.

I weighed 150 lbs less than her, but that’s not what I saw. In my mind’s eye I saw myself at max capacity, and I assumed that everyone else saw me that way, too. I was astonished when my husband’s response was “WHAT? You’re nowhere near that!”

I just assumed that he (and everyone else, for that matter) saw me the same way I saw myself.

That moment was a jarring one. It was the first time I realized that there might be a significant disconnect between my self perception and the way the rest of the world sees me.

Over the weekend, I had a similarly jarring moment.

My sister-in-law gave me a t-shirt for my birthday (it’s later this week – don’t forget to shop early and often!) and pointed out it’s size: XS. I told her I’ve been feeling perplexed by clothing sizes lately.

I’m wearing a S/XS in tops these days (RIP, Once XL Bosoms)… so, what do actually extra-small girls wear? What does my sister-in-law wear? She’s tiny – petite and skinny. She didn’t even get heavy during pregnancy! So – what does she wear? Does she have to shop in the kids’ section?

She looked at me like I’d grown another head. She says she wears the same size as me. She says we’re the same size.

I cannot wrap my head around that, but it seemed like an obvious fact to her.

The parallels between these instances has me wondering: Is the disconnect between my self-perception and the way others see me something that I should work on? Or, is it just something that I should accept as a natural part of all of our lives?

Dustin Hoffman speaks of the cultural brainwashing that causes us to overlook people who we don’t perceive as beautiful. Can we re-wire our brains to see other people (and ourselves!) clearly?

I imagine that if I had the ability to hear other people’s thoughts (think Mel Gibson in What Women Want) I’d get a clear vision of what everyone else sees. I could then change in a way that would make me more appealing to the public at large.

But is this a good idea?

Would we love ourselves more if we knew that everyone perceived us in a positive light?

Should we change ourselves if we elicit a negative public perception?

My strong, independent, modern woman side screams NO! I am enough, and if you can’t see that, that’s your problem. But my people-pleaser side begs me to bend over backwards to appeal to as many people as possible.

If I am healthy and strong, should I care about your projections when you look at me? Why does understanding how you see me feel important? And, if I can never clearly see what you see, what good does it do to manipulate myself in some imagined direction?

Do you have any perception-disconnect stories? If so, please share in the comments section! Maybe we can work through these things together. I want to see you for who you are. I want to be seen in my true form (flaws and all), and to feel confident in – even proud of! – what I project in this hyper-connected world of ours.

Perhaps there is Truth to be found at the place where our diverse perceptions meet.

In my post ‘A Necessary Detox’ I announced that I was not going to weigh myself for a month. I hoped a detox would help me to crowbar my emotional state away from the numbers on the scale.

Today was weigh-in day.

When I woke up, the scale was the first thing on my mind. My heart was pounding before my feet hit the floor. I mean pounding.

Successful detox? Not so much.

This morning, I discovered that I lost four pounds. That’s fine. It means I lost the two that I put on (precipitating the detox) and shed two more. I’m still in the 5 pound range (140-145) that I aim to maintain.

Staying off of the scale didn’t cause the dreaded yo-yo.

But, I have to admit that the experiment was a complete failure.

I thought that staying away from the scale would make me care about it less. Instead, I developed a full-blown fear-driven obsession. I was so afraid that I would return to the scale and find a true yo-yo (gaining 10+ pounds) that I became punishingly strict with myself all month long as I attempted to silence the fear.

When I’m especially strict, I’m not gentle with myself. My thought processes went something like this: “How many blueberries did I just eat? I bet it was more than 1/4 cup! That’s more than I budgeted myself for the afternoon! Stupid!! I’m going to pay for that on weigh-in day for sure! I better get back to the gym even though I’m not feeling well.”

Wait… wasn’t I supposed to be ‘detoxing’ in an effort to stop beating up on myself?

This morning, when I saw that there had been no significant change, I felt certifiably ridiculous. I have been driving myself to distraction for no reason.

Attention to metrics feels like having a good grip on the status of my health. Avoiding the metrics led to fear rather than the sought-after empowerment.

So, I’m going to go the other way and see if it’s any better for my mental health. I’m going to weigh myself if I have the impulse to do so. If I need a little reassurance that I’m not going off track, I’ll weigh in. But, there will be no set weigh-in time. No more Mandatory Mondays.

Maybe over time I’ll shed the fear.

For now, I need to acknowledge that I live with a daily fear of losing what I have worked so hard for. I think maybe I need to be ok with that, and give myself time. I’ve kept 100 pounds off for about 7 months. Hopefully, when I’ve kept it off for 7 years, it will be so second nature, I won’t need to think about it.

Until then, I’ll settle for the wisdom of trials and errors.