Tag Archives: self-love

The Zebra, This is a Woman

I don’t want to jinx anything, but here’s the first introspective psycho-spiritual growth post I’ve been able to write in a long time.

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This is the cute side of my head today.

Lately I’ve been introspective, reframing some thoughts I have about my self-proclaimed faults. I have long worked to balanced the good and bad of all things – to find the positive aspects of a troublesome trait or situation and vice versa. So I sometimes try to find the good facets of my faults (although admittedly not always).

One thing that has always been glaringly obvious to me is my need to please everyone around me to the extent that I sometimes sacrifice myself or my needs just to not make people even slightly annoyed with me. They teach you all through school not to give in to peer pressure and this sometimes manifests in that way so I feel like I should have learned this lesson a long time ago. And yet, I still struggle. Sometimes this means I’m really insecure about my tastes in music (which… why music? I’m not insecure in my tastes in books or television or fashion. huh). But, if I am being totally honest, sometimes this means that I listen with two widely open ears to the thoughts and feelings of other people. And so my openness, my need to please people, has actually made me more empathetic and careful and thoughtful.

Of course, just for fun, mix that in with my social anxiety and I become a tightly wind ball of awkward afraid to say any words in any order in the fear that I might inadvertently hurt someone. Thank god I’m cute.

My son is a good reader, but he does not (yet?) enjoy it very much. Once he told me it’s because he can’t see the pictures in his head. I know he’s got a mind that is very different from me. He’s a born engineer, and I suspect he’s got ADHD. So what if his brain is wired in a way that makes reading less enjoyable to him than watching a movie? I feel so strongly that books are important (and they ARE), but I wonder if maybe it’s okay to not like reading sometimes. Maybe it’s okay to have a differently wired brain, one that doesn’t like reading as much as some. It doesn’t make him any less smart, and it sure as hell doesn’t make him any less valuable.

So I started thinking about my faults – about this desperate need to please people – and about how those things mean both good and bad things for me. And I started to wonder if maybe it’s okay to just BE who I am. Maybe needing to please people isn’t something I need to fix about me. Maybe it’s just a part of me that gives me a gift in exchange for being challenged in other ways.

This week I went to a therapy appointment (because I do that now) and talked about my issues with self-hate. Because confession: Even after all the work I’ve done in myself and in the world, I still have this little ball of self-hatred underneath all the self-love and all the goodness that just won’t.go.away. I’ve tried everything. But that hard little core of loathing is just there. So I asked my therapist why and how I can make that stop and she said, “Maybe you don’t. Maybe you just learn to live with it.” And that was really not what I was expecting. But she has recently been doing work with balancing the light and the darkness of the psyche (my words, not hers) and I think she has a point. And I think this is all related to my recent musings. Maybe my little bit of self-hate is just a part of who I am. Of how I am wired (for some reason – maybe genetic, maybe a result of past abuses). Maybe if I just let her be, and accept that she’s always going to be there, maybe she won’t have as much power over me.

And honestly, it’s only been two days, but I feel like I might be on to something.

So here’s my radical experiment: Love my self-hate. Accept and acknowledge that little ball of self-hate. Talk about her when needed, casually, even. Don’t try to erase her, don’t try to hide her, don’t try to fight her. Just love her. Loving my self-hate. When Jesus said to love our enemies, maybe he also meant ourselves.

Lady Links, This is a Woman

Lady Links 11.15

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(Reusing an old image here because I'm out of time. Also because CAKE.)

(Reusing an old image here because I’m out of time. Also because CAKE.)

~TIAW on Tumblr and Pinterest.
~And you know? You may want to check out my personal Tumblr blog, too, today. There’s some interesting stuff that may not make it over to TIAW for one reason or another. Also I am adorable and you need more of me in your life.
~Sometimes I think Rainbow lives in my brain.
~I hate stretching. I’ve NEVER been flexible. In second grade I got in trouble for not sitting cross-legged because it was really uncomfortable for me. I must have come out of the womb and refused to ever do yoga again or something. And yet, I’ve been feeling very stiff lately. Probably because I am about to turn 80. So I happened across this and I think I’m going to start some stretching and see if I can’t start feeling a little more 35 years old.
~What no one tells you about losing lots of weight. Your skin doesn’t necessarily snap back. But no matter what? We are all beautiful.

This is a Woman

Size is Irrelevant. Love is Real.

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I read a comment tonight where a woman lamented the fact that she will never be skinny. And I wanted to tell her, “So let that desire go. If you know right now with 100% positivity that you will never be skinny, let that desire just go all the way. Now that it’s gone you can stop and think about what you want most from your life. A satisfying career? To raise children? To focus on your personal growth? To travel the world? At the end of your life, where do you want to have been?”

A year or so ago I was having a conversation with a friend who was frustrated with her weight. I was reminding her that size is the least important measure of actual health but she kept throwing excuses my way, trying to dodge my actual logic with things like, “But this isn’t the size I know I can be.” And I wanted to say, “OK. But what if your body won’t be that size ever again? What if something is different now and that body size is gone? Then what?”

I see this so often in women. Yes, I just want to be healthy, but I know I need to be smaller. Yes, I just want to be healthy but I’ll feel better at a different size.

And you know? They might.

But what if they never do? What if, at the end of their life, they’ve chased this ideal skinny body, this particular smaller size, always unsatisfied, always trying. And what if they just never get there?

Because that size – even if it IS attainable – is unattainable. That size? It’s a metaphor. It’s irrelevant. It’s imaginary. It’s bullshit.

Tying your life, your health, your mental health to a number (be it dress size, weight, or just the idea of “skinny”) is such a waste.

And to clarify, because I know there will be people out there accusing me of saying being unhealthy is OK: BEING HEALTHY IS THE GOAL HERE, OK?

Be healthy. Eat whole foods. Exercise. Feed your psyche and nourish her. Do your fucking kegels, apparently. But don’t do any of it to get to a number of some sort. Do it because nourishing your body makes you feel good. Because exercising makes you feel strong. Fuck whatever size you think you need to be and just be you. Because living today and loving you today is better than waiting for even a day to love you.

7 Days, The Zebra, This is a Woman

Reasons to Work Out (7 Days: Day 6)

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I’ve been working at this body image thing for awhile now. Probably since I was first told I was fat, around eight years old (and a couple of years ago I came across some pictures of me as a kid, and you guys? I was a skinny little thing at that age. The fuck with people telling me I was fat? STABBY STABBY STABBY).

Me as a child, not fat:
me, my grandparents, and the thingie my grandpa made for the fair

I didn’t know how to sort it out at that age, but my brain was screaming out that they were wrong. I struggled with knowing what the actual factual truth was, and still feeling less worthy of being a human because of how I thought I looked. It’s evolved a lot in the last 27ish years, and I know much better now how to love myself than I used to. And, yet, I keep finding these new layers, and each time I get to that level I feel like I have all the work yet to do. It is both energizing and exhausting.

Recently as I was leaving the gym, proud of myself for having worked hard, I thought to myself, “Even if I always stay fat, at least I’ll be fit.”

And then a little voice, from the back of my brain bravely spoke up and repeated a line I’d already read and nodded furiously in agreement with in many a fat acceptance blog.

But. So what if you’re not fit?

Because I am still holding onto that desperate need to be accepted and respected by everyone always.

And, yes, I know how unrealistic that is. But it’s my core operating system. It’s a bullshit core operating system, but it takes a lot of work and a lifetime to reprogram a core operating system.

So the thing hit me: I’m still working out for other people. I may have detached the weight loss itself from my exercise routines, but apparently only with the catch that I have to at least be in good shape. Cause that’ll show ’em.

Here’s a list of things I thought I liked about working out, but it turns out, none of these things are about me at all:
~Not being out of breath when I have to climb a flight of stairs around people who might think I’m just a fat fatty.
~Not being out of breath when I run and play with my kids. So strangers at the park won’t judge me.
~Going to the gym regularly to prove that some people are just fat no matter how much they exercise.
~Secretly wanting to be at least a little bit less fat. To show them.

Dear Me,
It’s not their business. Ignore them. You’re awesome.
Love,
Me

So here’s a list of things I actually do love about working out:

~Lifting weights and watching myself grow stronger.
~Doing harder cardio and watching myself grow stronger.
~Getting all sweaty and gross. No, really. I love that.
~Being able to do the more strenuous hikes without my head feeling like it’s trying to explode for lack of oxygen.
~Feeling good overall. Happier, more awake, less foggy. Regular exercise does this for me.

I’m going to keep those in mind and I’m going to do my best to live by them, to keep me motivated to exercise for me.

I’ve been a member of this gym now for almost a year and, while I certainly haven’t gone regularly, I’ve avoided that perfectionist attitude of, “well, I haven’t gone for a few weeks now so I just give up and when my contract is up I’ll cancel.” Instead I just go when I can, or sometimes just when I do.

And so what if I don’t? Well, now I know – on a conscious level, at least – that it won’t make me a failure.

I don’t have to be fit any more than I have to be thin. My personal value doesn’t rest upon size or fitness. It doesn’t rest on my health. It also doesn’t rest upon beauty, or intelligence, or sense of humor. I am valuable because I am a person. End. of. story.

Gymming.

(7 Days is a quarterly self-portrait group project I have taken part in for the last sixish years. One selfie a day for a week.)

Lady Links, This is a Woman

The As-Yet-Officially-Un-Renamed Weekly Roundup of Women’s News

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Well. That’s a name. Of sorts. Want to help pick a new name for what was formerly called the Weekly Awesome? Click here.

awesome formerly known as weekly

~TIAW on Pinterest and Tumblr.
~This is kind of old news (I’m kind of behind on Awesome stuff so a few of these are old news) but I’m sharing it in case you haven’t heard it yet. Sometimes I feel voiceless in this world. I’ve boycotted Nestle for years, but they don’t care. But sometimes – hopefully more and more often – companies listen. And, in this case, Facebook also had to listen. And it’s about damn time.
~Another one on Facebook and misogyny. Also with an awesome ending.
~Here’s an interesting article from NPR about fat-shaming and career/higher education options.
~Remember that one Dove ad a few weeks back where the women described themselves to a sketch artist? XOVain decided to do something similar and got very different results. Now, I do this this was all somewhat intentionally skewed – and so was the Dove one for other reasons – but, if nothing else, it’s SO refreshing to hear women speaking about themselves with such positivity. LOVE.
~What better way to fight misogyny than with snarkasm? I give you Forehead Tittaes, a “product” “endorsed” by Marion Cotillard.
~Last one today. Patrick Stewart. That is all I need to say.

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