Through several years of active work with the help of a mental health professional, I have overcome my eating disorder, and have begun a love affair with my body — something I never thought possible without first losing a lot of weight and reaching some kind of societal ideal. And when I realized I had reached this moment, I celebrated this monumental achievement by claiming self acceptance for myself at last.

And then I sort of clapped my hands together with the sense of satisfaction that comes from fixing something that is broken, metaphorically said to myself “Ok, so what’s next?” and went on to start working on fixing the other areas of myself that I saw as broken. Aside from my relationship with food and my body, the qualities about myself that I saw as needing dire improvements were my organizational skills (or lack of them) and my time management skills (or again, the lack of them). Just as I was once convinced that losing weight would change everything and give me the happiness and success I so desired, I held firm to the belief that transforming my cluttered unorganized personality into a compartmentalized and structured Type A personality would help me achieve my dreams. It was at this point that I hired my Andrea, and told her of the list of things I hoped to accomplish, but felt that meeting those goals could ultimately done by focusing on the areas of organization and time management.

Throughout each conversation, I lamented the mess on my desk, the clutter in my brain (i.e. the inability to focus on any one thing at a time), and the fact that I wasted countless minutes on meaningless things like Facebook when I should be focused any of the kazillion tasks I had on my to-do list. I would harp on my childhood, blaming my upbringing which lacked any kind of structure, organization, or discipline, and dream of waving a magic wand which would transform me into the Type A personality I thought I should be. I mean, after all, what are the merits of being disorganized and not managing my time well?

And then one day, Andrea said “What if that’s just you?” She suggested, if just for a moment, setting aside my desire to be a different kind of person, and reflect on the possibility of staying the way I am. “What would happen?” she asked. “Would your husband leave you? Would your kids suffer? Would your world fall apart?” Andrea reminded me that I’ve gotten along pretty well doing things my way for 37 years, and in fact, I’ve done more than just get along. I would actually define my life as pretty successful. I have a fantastic marriage. I have terrific kids who are smart, creative, and compassionate — to name a few of their qualities, I have a web site that I’ve worked hard on for the last year, and have had several big milestones related to it. I could go on, but the point is, Andrea was right. “My” ways may not be perfect, but then, what is? And they’ve worked pretty well over time. Maybe with my disorganization comes my creativity, not bound by constraints. Perhaps with my less rigid time management tendencies comes the willingness to try new things and be spontaneous. The things that bug me about myself are inseparable from what I love about myself, so why not learn to love the whole package?

Have there been frustrations? Of course. I hate it when I can’t find something because I didn’t put it back in it’s place. Occasionally I miss a deadline of some sort. But for the most part, projects get done, bills get paid, and my house is generally not a terrible mess, though I’m sure there are plenty of Type As that would disagree. (It would help if my dog didn’t shed so much!) But then, ask any one with a Type A personality, and they will find plenty to complain about in their own nature, often wishing for a little more flexibility and spontaneity that comes with a more disorganized (for lack of a better word) mind like my own.

Of course, my realizations and new level of acceptance don’t mean that I am going to stop cleaning my house, never wear a watch, and let chaos take over — no more than learning to accept my body led to eating with abandon. But I will no longer try to be what I am not, and instead reflect on the values that come from who I already am — which I tend to think is a pretty awesome person. What have you thought you needed to change about yourself? Is it possible that the qualities you most want to change are integrally connected to what make you wonderful?

Well, VenusVision was able to pull some strings, and believe it or not, we were able to catch up with her long enough to find out more about her. This is what we learned.

She is a gourmet chef who only uses the most nutritious, wholesome foods, serving up three balanced meals each day, plus two healthy snacks. Not only does she prepare plenty of green vegetables and colorful fruits, but she actually gets her kids to eat them, enjoy them even! McDonald’s? Chick-fil-A? Burger King? Never! No fast food for her children because she ALWAYS plans ahead. Even when others offer her kids fast food on play dates, they decline. They just don’t like it.

She is a homemaker who performs her duties with the relish of June Cleaver and the style of Martha Stewart. Floors shine, bathrooms sparkle, countertops glisten.  Laundry is always neatly folded (ironing only when necessary, let’s get real here), and put away. Never will you find a laundry basket lying around, full of clean clothes becoming more wrinkled by the minute. Toys scattered about in every room? Of course not, because she has passed her good habits on to her children, and each day they spend the pre-dinner hour happily cleaning up while singing “The Clean Up Song.” Her inspiration for decor? Pottery Barn meets Ikea with a traditional-modern fusion of furniture and decor.

She is a cruise activities director who provides enriching and/or phsycially stimulating activities for her children at all times. (This job doubles as chauffer.) Each activity must enhance intellectual and physical growth. Arts and crafts projects are a daily activity, and imaginary play is encouraged with the help of Supermom’s participation. TV is permitted for the viewing of exactly 30 minutes of educational, public television programming every Saturday morning.

She is a teacher (works hand in hand with cruise activities director). Each child learns their ABCs and how to count to 10 by the age of 1, and of course speak in complete sentences using sign language (American, not Baby Sign Language). She also locates the best schools, starting with preschool and waits in line, sometimes overnight to secure a place in said schools. She oversees homework time each day and “helps” her 6 year-old kindergardener  construct a model of the Greek Parthenon using toilet paper and paper towel tubes.

She is, of course, a bombshell who enjoys frequent mind-blowing sex with her husband. To maintain bombshell status, she regularly attends spinning, pilates, yoga, step, and strength training classes. She dresses like a millionaire but shops like Frugal Fannie, turning the heads of men and women alike everywhere she goes. As she dashes to the store, or drops the children off at pre-school, she always looks put-together, even on her way to the gym.

She volunteers for the PTA, baking cookies and organizing teacher appreciation gifts, and goes door-to-door with her children selling Girl Scout Cookies/Boy Scout Popcorn Tins/School Gift Wrap/Basketball Fundraising Discount Cards.

She provides equal attention and constantly expresses equal love and affection to each member of the family, including Jake the dog, whom she has dutifully trained, resulting in the best behaved, well mannered dog in all her suburban neighborhood.

While showering her children with love and attention she has also ensured they don’t get the idea that they are the center of the universe and become spoiled brats whom no one will invite to their kids’ birthday parties. Instead each child is worthy of praise from Miss Manners herself, peppering their vocabulary with the constant use of “please”, “thank you”, “excuse me” and “May I …?”

She is also able to maintain a social network of friends, providing support to less fortunate friends who suffer from the normal woes of motherhood. She has always read the latest New York Times Bestsellers AND Oprah’s Book Club books, meeting with two different book clubs twice a month. (She also does the New York Times crossword puzzle after reading her newspaper over morning coffee.)

She makes every effort to reduce her carbon footprint by recycling virtually every item in her home, or finding a needy recipient for unwanted goods. She buys local organic food at the Farmers Market every Saturday morning, and she drives a Prius.

Finally, Supermom is actually happy and fulfilled doing all of the above things. And why wouldn’t she be? She has an ideal life in every way possible. So by now you’re probably dying to know who Supermom really is! Ok, you caught me. She’s not real. But this is who she is in my mind. And this to whom I compared myself constantly, lamenting that I would never actually be her. For 6 or so of the 7 years I have been a mother, Supermom was my role model, my idol, my tormenter as I was always falling short of becoming her. And then, one day, I took a good look at my kids. They are bright, compassionate, curious, respectful, wonderful human beings. And I think I had something to do with that. Ok, I think I had A LOT to do with that. Maybe I didn’t do all the things I thought I should have done. But instead, I was a wonderful mother in other ways. And I am a wonderful wife. And I am a wonderful friend. (I’m even a pretty good dog owner.)

I do the best I can at the things that are important to me, and do what I can for the rest. In ending my quest for Supermom, I found a pretty super mom in myself. Up Up and away!

Roberts, who undertook this project after the search for the perfect women led him down an empty road filled with false promises of happiness, examines the different industries that benefit from America’s preoccupation with perfection. One 12-year-old boy interviewed in the film sums it up quite simply when he says “companies put people down to make money”. He realizes already that the more people feel bad about themselves, the more they will seek products and services to improve their self image.  This might explain that while America has 5% of the world’s population, we are exposed to 40% of the world’s advertising. Talking about creating a perfect image, world-renowned fashion photographer Marc Baptiste remarks “at the end of the day, we’re selling dreams”. But of course, they are dreams that can never be realized.

As Roberts follows Gerren’s pursuit of her own dream of becoming a super model, he interweaves her tale with a closer look at the cosmetics industry, the media and their role in creating unattainable expectations for both men and women and the toll that is taken, physically and mentally on our society.

America the Beautiful features insightful interviews of people from all sides of the issue. There is the guy who starts out saying “my idea of a perfect women is, first of all, she’s gotta be hot,” raising the question “is this the person for whom we are trying so hard to reach perfection?” There are interviews with representatives from the media industry some of whom admit to some amount of culpability, while others laugh at the mere suggestion that media has any role on the behaviors of those to whom it is targeted. (Of course, isn’t that why advertising exists in the first place?) We also meet plastic surgeons, toxicologists, and various girls and women who can only see their shortcomings.

My favorite interview though is with Eve Ensler who wrote and performed in the play The Vagina Monologues. As someone who has achieved great success and has been such a strong voice for empowering women worldwide, she would seem above suffering from a poor body image. And yet her description of a conversation with a woman in Africa about not knowing how to love her own body makes the viewer realize that even the strongest of women are vulnerable to the idea that there is such a thing as the perfect body.

Ultimately though she realizes that we all have a vision problem. “Every woman is beautiful in her particular way; if we developed eyes and we develop spirit, we would see that every woman is beautiful.” This statement alone really sums up the whole point of the film, but equally profound is her comment on plastic surgery: “Stop fixing yourself. You were never broken.”

Roberts spends considerable time delving into the darker side of plastic surgery — a side to which every woman considering any procedure should become acquainted. We learn that, thanks to a FTC ruling in 1977, anyone with an M.D. can hang a sign up on their door saying they are a plastic surgeon and start doing business. And there is no end to the procedures that can be done to “enhance” one’s features, including creating “designer vaginas”. But as Eve Ensler says, “to think you’re not tight enough, well, get a bigger dick.”

The film also highlights some startling statistics like the fact that in 2004 Americans spent $12.4 billion on cosmetic surgery, while the estimated cost for basic nutrition and health care in developing countries is $13 billion. In addition, we spend over $45 billion per year on cosmetic and beauty products. And yet, we put little thought into exactly what it is we are applying to our skin. According to Roberts’ research, there are 884 toxic ingredients found in cosmetics. While the EU has banned 450 ingredients commonly used in cosmetics, including the phthalates which have been shown to be toxic to the reproductive system, the FDA has banned only 6 ingredients and continues to allow phthalates which of course the cosmetic industry still argues are perfectly safe.

At one point in the movie, after we question if a woman who has just undergone plastic surgery will awake from anesthesia — which ultimately is what carries the most risk in plastic surgery procedures — Darryl Roberts says he called every man he knew and told them to tell every woman they know that they are beautiful exactly the way they are.

Going back to the beginning of the movie, Roberts draws a correlation between women gaining the right to vote, and the introduction of the Miss America Pageant, suggesting that to keep women from gaining too much power, women were becoming more suppressed by the burden of beauty, requiring a whole new level of preoccupation. I have now seen this movie three times, and each time I am left wondering how much we could change the world if we took all the time, effort, and money that we devote to beauty, and put it towards something important, like world hunger, basic human rights and the protection of our environment. Perhaps one day self-improvement will be equated with improving the lives of those around us, and Robert’s film will remind you that your own beauty has less to do with looking like the photo-shopped pages of a magazine, and more to do with what you radiate from within.

For your chance to win a copy of the Limited Edition America the Beautiful DVD, enter a comment below by 12:00 pm EST December 11, 2009 saying that you would like to win a copy of America the Beautiful. For more chances to win, be sure to become a VenusVision fan on Facebook and follow VenusVision on Twitter (@VenusVision).

Before we dove into some of the questions I had for Jenni, I decided to be frank with her in regards to my first impression of her. To be honest, I can sometimes be skeptical when I hear someone say “I’ve learned to accept my body as it is” and when I look at them, I see a body which to me, represents our society’s ideal of being thin. Sure, I thought. That’s easy for you to say. You have a body that everyone else accepts too … what’s not to accept? These are the same thoughts I had when Jenni stood up to speak at a Congressional hearing on eating disorders. To me, she was thin, and I was envious of her flat stomach. When I shared these thoughts with Jenni, she was not the least bit surprised (or offended, as I feared) and she said that this subject is one frequently discussed at eating disorder conferences, saying that the “size and shape of a therapist is like the elephant in the room no one is talking about.” Eating disordered patients will definitely scrutinize the body of their therapist and it’s an issue that must be addressed. Jenni also personally related to my feelings as she put it into perspective for me.

“My ideal my body size with my eating disorder was many pounds lighter than I am now … The Jenni that was sick would have looked at Jenni today and say ‘wow you’ve really let yourself go.’ Jenni today looks at me and I actually love my body. My brain is now nourished and I can see I have a healthy body.” She also talked about the height of her eating disorder when she was severely bulimic and actually overweight by most doctors charts. That fact made it more difficult for her to seek the treatment she so desperately needed. She looked healthier compared to when she was anorexic, making it harder for others to understand the depth of her struggles. During this time, she looked at others with eating disorders, and thought she wasn’t thin enough to deserve help and get treatment. When she finally did seek treatment, one of the coping skills she learned early on was to look for similarities instead of looking for differences in other people.

“We will always find differences and use that to seperate us from the rest of the world which is what I used to do, or we can seek similarities and try to look at how we are all the same.” She then added this wonderful pearl of wisdom: “Eating disorders come in all shapes and sizes and recovered bodies also come in all shapes and sizes, and where I am recovered at my current body size, someone else might be recovered and actually be thinner than me, or heavier than me.”

If you read my previous interview with Jenni, you know that when I saw her at the hearing, she was wearing a black shirt which said “Recovered.” in white lettering (that wasn’t a typo — there is a period at the end of ‘Recovered’ in order to drive home the statement). This was an issue we discussed last time, but because of a recent blog post by Life Coach Andrea Owen entitled Can We Ever Fully Recover?, I felt the subject had to be explored further.

One of the things I really admire about Jenni is that she is very good about encouraging people to find the approach that best works for them. She asks the question “Does saying you are in recovery from an eating disorder keep you sick or keep you healthy?” For Jenni, always saying she was in recovery kept her sick, but she recognizes that for others, it keeps ED away.

“As long as I said I was in recovery, my eating disorder was waiting around the corner to get me. I really had to claim [recovery] for me and that’s what worked best for me.” She then added, “I am recovered from my eating disorder. I am not recovered from life. I still am constantly getting better at perfectionism. Of course I have a negative voice in my head. What’s different today is that negative voice is not surrounded around weight and food. My personal ED is gone. Does that mean I never have a bad body image experience? Do I never think anything bad about my body? Of course not, I live in America!”

But the negative voice Jenni hears from time to time is one that most of us deal with even without any history of an eating disorder, and Jenni refers to this voice as societal ED. Jenni recalled a chapter in Goodbye Ed, entitled The Worst Pick Up Line Ever, in which she describes an experience at her gym when a guy asks her “Are you here to lose weight too?” Her initial reaction was to ask herself why he would say that? But her therapist quickly reminded her that most women would have a negative reaction to his comment, and it isn’t necessarily the voice of an eating disorder. It was time to stop identifying herself with her eating disorder. When asked if she ever had moments when she questioned if life wouldn’t be better or wouldn’t she be happier at a lower weight, Jenni emphatically says no.

After writing two books about ED and traveling around the country raising awareness about eating disorders, Jenni is ready to focus on something new in her life — balance. While she enjoys talking about eating disorders and recovery, she is spending more time making room to talk about other things. In her own words, “I don’t want to always be defined by an illness I once had. Now that I’m recovered, I can do anything.”

Jenni has a variety of interests that have nothing to do with eating disorders, and those interests are leading her in new directions as she works more on her music (she has recorded two singles so far) and having fun. Being close to nature has become an important part of Jenni’s happiness and helps her feel grounded, so she tries to find activities that she can enjoy outside ranging from hitting the slopes to simply sitting outside reading a book. And speaking of books, she is already in research mode for her next one — and it’s not about ED! As she further explores the world of dating, finding new challenges and new experiences, she is realizing these are also experiences worth sharing. I for one can’t wait to read about them.

When we were young, and our parents told us we should do our best at everything we did, there was a reason for this. How else would we learn what we were good at? Some things do take more effort than others, and if we weren’t putting in effort on more challenging things, we might not ever know what we’re capable of. But at some point that approach to life and all that it holds becomes set in stone, and there is no room for putting in any less than our best effort on everything we do without feeling the pangs of guilt.

If you’re the perfectionist, then you spend your life trying — as the label implies — to do EVERYTHING perfectly. Of course, it’s impossible to be perfect at everything, and inevitably some things — even those that rank as important — begin to suffer. And of course, with the knowledge that you aren’t doing everything perfectly, your happiness suffers too. You’re not even capable of considering doing something anything less than all the way because that’s how you’ve done things your entire life. Maybe it’s even in your genetic coding. But at some point you need to reframe your experiences. You need to understand that you are not accomplishing anything by believing that everything has to be done perfectly and requires everything you have to give, because when you do that, you have nothing left to give yourself. Decide what’s important to you, and put your utmost into that. If being a great mom is what you value most, then don’t worry so much about having a perfectly kept house. Sure, you have responsibilities you can’t just let go of — meals need to be prepared, laundry needs to be done, and cleaning must be done. But that doesn’t mean that every meal has to be a perfectly balanced gourmet meal, the clothes ALWAYS need to be neatly ironed, folded and put away, and the floors have to be clean enough to eat off of. Of course, if those things ARE really, genuinely important to you, and you don’t just think they SHOULD be important to you, then there’s nothing wrong in devoting your energy to it. But don’t waste time putting in more energy than necessary on things that you only think you should value versus what you really do value.

The same obviously holds true for those who don’t consider yourselves perfectionists, but perhaps feel guilty when you don’t put your all into everything. Maybe you feel lazy or unmotivated because you don’t keep a perfect house, when really, that’s not what’s important to you. Of course, if you share your home with another person, there has to be some compromise here, but the compromise on your part shouldn’t come with endless guilt for not putting your utmost into something you don’t value.

So going forth, I think we should all embrace a little bit more of a “half-assed” mentality. Evaluate what you are putting most of your efforts into, and what you feel guilty about not putting more effort into, and decide which things are really worth your physical and emotional energy. For those things, reserve your best efforts. For everything else, just do what you can, and sweep the rest under the rug. Most likely, no one else will ever notice, and eventually you’ll feel more fulfilled and less drained for putting your energy into people and activities that deserve what you have to give.

I recently was talking to a friend who revealed to me her long-standing, on-again-off-again battle with depression when she told me she found inspiration in the Beyonce’s new song “I Am … Sasha Fierce.” She explained how she related to the idea of an alter ego in an effort to separate herself from this other person inside of her. Only in her case, this other person was her depression, rather than the strong powerful woman conjured up by the name Sasha Fierce. My friend felt a little silly telling me she has personified her depression until I explained to her this is a common technique used in treating eating disorders, when often patients will identify their disorder simply as ED. Since ED is a voice constantly putting down the person in whom he resides, it makes sense to identify him in a way that allows patients to talk to him and fight back.

For years, I identified my own inner demons simply as “food and body image issues” — an abstract summation of the struggles I faced in my daily existence. Since my behaviors were defined more as disordered eating than eating disorder, the name ED didn’t sit right with me. While I recognized the power of seeing my “issues” as an entity separate from my core being, the idea of a man named ED, living inside of me, telling me I was fat, or ugly, or a pig, was not the image I had of my inner battles. Instead, when I was asked to envision the person constantly beating me down and holding me back,  I saw someone more along the lines of Mrs. X from The Nanny Diaries — cold, calculating, selfish, manipulative, and obsessed with control. Thus, my eating issues were reborn as Mrs. X.

Mrs. X didn’t just stop at telling me how I looked or how to eat. She convinced me I was an awful mother, a terrible housewife, and mediocre at everything else. She kept me down, instilling enough fear in me that I never really tried to do much beyond what I was absolutely sure I could do, at least without someone else holding my hand. The only time she would ever allow that I was good at anything was when I could measure my sucess by a number on the scale, the tag in my clothing, or the number of calories I had burned. But of course, even then she warned me failure was always just around the corner.

I have often prided myself on the fact that I don’t let negative people bring me down. If I realize a friendship is not healthy, or that it is more of a give-take relationship with me being the primary giver, I move on. Life is too short to be influenced negatively by those around you. And yet, my whole life, I had let Mrs. X control me without realizing it. But once I learned to separate my own voice from that of Mrs. X, I also learned how to ignore what she said. Next I learned to talk back. I would write her letters and tell her that although I knew she would never completely leave me alone, I would no longer let her control my life. When I was really mad, I would tell her to “F— off!”.

It’s been a while since Mrs. X and I were formally introduced, and for the most part I have marginalized her from my life, like a grumpy relative you can’t cut off, but keep your distance from. She periodically knocks at my door, and sometimes I ignore it, and sometimes, less often, I let her in. But as I have gotten to know Mrs. X, I understand how she works, and I know how to undermine her power. I also have learned to forgive her. She came into my life for a reason, and that was to protect me — from loneliness, boredom, and feelings of rejection. Though the ends didn’t justify the means, her presence was familiar and at times, all I felt that I had.

Personifying my inner struggles was a way for me to step outside myself and take my enemy head on. I am strong enough to stand by myself and facing Mrs. X was what proved my strength once and for all. The next time you hear an inner voice telling you that you’re not good enough, thin enough, pretty enough, smart enough, etc., say “I’m sorry, but you are no longer welcome in my house, and it’s time for you to move on … and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”