I recently had a revelation about myself. Sometimes, I think, like a lot of women, I have days where I feel bad about myself, specifically about how I look. However, for some reason, us women, put our self worth hand in hand with our confidence about our appearance. If something doesn't fit the way it did 5 years ago, we torture ourselves in our heads and beat ourselves up to no end. The thing that I realized though was that this was affecting my relationship and probably so much more. I realized that if I was sulking in my feelings of insecurities I was convincing myself that my partner felt all the bad things I felt about myself. I would convince myself that I was completely unlovable and that my partner would naturally see all the things I was destroying myself over. Why would I completely disregard everything good I've ever felt about myself as a human because the way I look in a bathing suit? Why does that one act of trying on a swim suit completely undo the work I've done on my self worth. These are questions, I'm not sure I will ever truly be able to answer, but it's something I'm willing to explore.
"You looks so skinny, have you been running? You look great!", a family member said to me. I was 14, just joined the tennis team and was exercising 5 days a week, 3 hours a day. I loved it. I was good at it, and it was fun. I was playing with one of my best friends, and we were making new friends. "Have you lost weight? You're so skinny!", a friend said to me while grabbing my backpack from my locker. "You're so so fit, I would kill to have your back. It's so muscular!", my cousin uttered while trying on clothes in a fitting room. All of these were welcomed compliments in my 14 year old brain, what these people did not know was that at the time, while I was exercising 3 hours a day, in the sweltering heat of the border, I was also not eating. I would not eat breakfast, I would not eat lunch and come home and eat a bowl of cereal. Occasionally, someone would notice that I skipped lunch or had nothing on my plate but I would excuse it to being so picky,that I did not care to eat the cafeteria food. I would not go so far to categorize this as an eating disorder, but it was incredibly unhealthy. But how could I stop when all I was receiving was positive feedback from peers and loved ones? After a while, like most of my "diets" go, I start to reward myself. I do not know how to reward myself with out including food in some way. To this day, if I have a great day or bad day I look to ice cream as a treat to myself, because I deserve it, right? So, as a 14 year old girl welcoming all of this positive feedback, I began to treat myself. And by "treating myself", I mean eat. Eating 3 meals, meals my peers were eating, and my family.Normal food that others around me were eating. I started to gain the weight I lost and looking like my normal self. The compliments started to dwindle and I started to think, why do we as a society consider " Have you lost weight?" a compliment?
I've heard many a times women say, they would rather be blank, than "fat". At the time, I would of rather of been starving and unhealthy, than "fat". Why at such a young age was I willing to make myself so unhealthy to be approved by others? I look back at that time and I remember still feeling so uncomfortable in my own skin. Wearing clothes to hide my body, and slouching and straightening my naturally curly ( eventually destroying it) hair, to appear more like my peers. So, what was the point? It didn't actually make me feel better about myself. I still was crippled by my own self doubt, and here I am at 27 and still facing these issues. Don't get me wrong all teenagers go through of phases of desperately wanting to be accepted amongst their peers, but there's something about how we condition women to think about self worth. Is loosing weight an accomplishment? Let's look at it two ways : 1. Stacey looses weight, after finding out she could develop heart disease and diabetes if she doesn't. She goes on to loose 50 pounds and starts excising regularly and eats more nourishing foods that compliment her diet. 2. Marla looses 50 pounds after restricting herself of carbs and sugar. She obsesses on every bite and works out everyday thinking still, she has not met her goal weight. I bet, these women will receive compliments from outsiders not knowing the true story. They are both legitimate and worth while reasons to these women to lose weight, but the obsession, the restrictions, that's where to me it begins to border on unhealthy.
Today, body positivity is filling our Instagrams. Pictures of girls, that in high school we would of called "chubby", the worst thing a girl could be called, is now an Instagram influencer telling young women to wear crop tops and short shorts and to not be afraid that their thighs touch. What I would give for her confidence. Even an ounce of it. I just finished a book for my book club, called The Paris Wife, there is one quote that stuck with me while thinking of this topic.
“She was also incredibly confident, with a way of moving and talking that communicated that she didn't need anyone to tell her she was beautiful or worthwhile.” - Paula McClain, The Paris Wife
The writer describes a new character as confident and not needing anyone to tell her she is beautiful or worthwhile, as if they are one in the same. But are they? If a woman is not considered beautiful, is she then not worthwhile? And if a woman is not thin, is she not beautiful? Logic, tells us no! Of course, not. There are plenty of women who are not thin, who are beautiful. However, what do we tell ourselves? When we delete the photos our friends or partners take of us where our double chins, make the ever so friendly appearance. Where we change out of the shorts that ride up when we walk because our thighs are rubbing them together. When you skip out on an activity because it means you'll be in front of a crowd and you don't feel comfortable being the center of attention. Why? Because you don't want others to look at you. How do we escape, this toxic cycle? People say confidence is not about what others think, it is what you think of yourself. But what if you are your own biggest critic. A ruthless, unkind, critic. I can't truly say. All I can say is it's a work in progress. I think I'll struggle with this the rest of my life. What's different now, is I've identified it. I've recognized patterns and observed my effect on others. I've realized that I've attached my self worth with how I feel about my appearance. Here are compliments to myself that have nothing to do with my appearance,that no one can take away from me. 1.) I have a beautiful big heart. I know this, I would give anything and everything for those I love. 2.) I am bright, and intelligent. I think outside of the box. No matter how I age, or how my weight fluctuates or if my health deteriorates again tomorrow nothing will take these traits away from me. The damage I do to my own self esteem will not be destroyed by the lies I tell myself. Ladies, if you can gain anything from this, if you can relate just a little, tell yourself two compliments about yourself. ( It's just two, God forbid, we allow ourselves more and get judged for being full of ourselves -- that's another post for another time) Tell yourself these compliments today, tell yourself this when you look at yourself in the mirror finding another wrinkle. If we were not meant to age, God would not of invented time. If one day we could learn to love ourselves, no one can stop an empowered female.
As always, Thank you for reading...
