Tag Archives: self esteem

One in 6+ billion

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Photo: another sergio on Flickr

I was reading an article the other day about Wal-Mart introducing a new makeup and personal care line for tweens. Yes, tweens. Wal-Mart is bringing in a new line of cosmetics for the 8-12 year old girls of the world.

Last I checked, 8 year old girls were very much little girls… without blemish and with perfectly beautiful features. And last I checked, 12 year old girls should be considering nothing more than a little lip gloss and a hair clip to accessorize in order to express themselves if they so choose. What are we doing to our little girls that we are making them feel like they should be trying to alter the way they look?

WHAT ARE WE DOING TO OUR LITTLE GIRLS?!

I had a conversation with Miss Mack this morning about her belly. Miss Mack is 10 years old – almost 11 – and she told me of two of her other 10 year old girlfriends who sat around comparing their beautiful 10 year old bellies stating how fat they are. She told me a little of how that made her feel.

Again I say it: WHAT ARE WE DOING TO THESE LITTLE GIRLS?!

Why are these little girls contemplating their bellies at all? Why should they need makeup!? Have you ever seen a little girl sit around and talk about her elbows with concern? How about her neck? I’ve written before about my own body issues and how I’m slowly – in my thirties, I’ll add – learning to love my body despite its imperfections. And when I say imperfect I do, in fact, mean downright un-pretty by today’s Hollywood standards. While I am learning to appreciate that my body is just one of the billions of prototypes out there, I’ll admit I sometimes feel like a 10 year old girl on the school ground sitting alongside her little friends comparing their bellies and feeling like there is something drastically wrong with me.

I have a confession to make:

I had an appointment scheduled for December 8th, 2010. I had an appointment to visit one of the top plastic surgeons in Vancouver. I had an appointment to hand over an obscene amount of money to have him slice me from one side to the other, pull all of my skin away from my muscles from my hips to my armpits, suck out fat, cut out skin, lift up my boobs, throw in a little volume and sew me back together so I could recover for two months, all in the name of vanity.

You see, after two babies my body is not perfect. My post-baby body doesn’t look like Heidi Klum’s post-baby body. In fact, my pre-baby body was a ways off of hers if I’m being honest. My post-baby body doesn’t bear the breasts of a 20 year old and my post-baby belly bears the scar of not just one, but two surgical births. And I felt an overwhelming fear when I thought about ever being in a position to share my body’s battle wounds with any man other than the one who helped me create those wounds.

But then I met Miss Mack.

She is beautiful. She is tall and strong and has awesome skin, beautiful eyes and lovely thick hair. She is smart and funny and polite and helpful and curious and adventuresome. And she loves God. How can I sit face to face with her and look into those beautiful 10 year old eyes and tell her how her body is perfect, that she was created in the image of God and that she is absolutely beautiful just the way she is but then go to ridiculous lengths to alter my own appearance? How could I justify it?

I couldn’t. And I can’t. And I won’t. I remember being 10. I remember being teased.

Why are we telling our children there is something wrong with them? What are we doing to our little girls? Why are we allowing TV and fashion mags and the entertainment industry as a whole to determine not just the standard of beauty but our worth?

13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
[Psalm 139]

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
[Genesis 1:27]

So to Miss Mack and every other girl on earth who has ever felt like less than everything she was made to be: You are beautiful. You are just as you were created to be. You were intricately woven… knitted together. We can do what we can do to protect our bodies from ill-health, but what we call imperfections are not imperfections at all! The are simply attributes that make us different from one another. You are one in several billion. You are the only one of you. You are just right. You are unique. You were formed in the image of God. Your worth is not determined by the clarity of your skin, the firmness of your stomach or the colour of your hair. You are fearfully and wonderfully made.

You are loved. Just as you are.

All shapes and sizes

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Photo: emmerogers on Flickr

Last night I ran Vancouver’s Underwear Affair 10km, raising money for cancers below the belt. The event was awesome. The course was so beautiful – from the Seaforth Armouries at 1st & Burrard along the entire False Creek seawall and back over the Burrard Street Bridge. Not surprisingly, this run is very much a spectator sport; hundreds of people racing in their underwear has a tendency to bring out the people-watchers in droves.

What I loved about the race was that there were bodies of all shapes and sizes donning their skivvies for a cause and, quite frankly, I was surprised and impressed with the level of confidence many of the runners seemed to display. I did not run in my underwear… mostly because I was running this event by myself and thought it would be weird without a team of buddies. But if I were to get a little group of friends together, I wouldn’t necessarily be averse to doing it in future.

Most of my life I’ve struggled with body image issues.

I’ve been fat; I’ve been thin; I’ve been in-between. I’ve had big boobs and small boobs. I’ve worn flattering clothing and not-so-flattering clothing; I’ve worn fully-covering wrap things on the beach and I’ve donned a bikini. I’ve made poor food choices; I’ve suffered from disordered behaviour including binge eating and over-exercising and I’ve smoked cigarettes to help me control my weight.

Even now I often think about having a few things fixed: The lines in my face seem to be developing at an astonishing rate, my mangled two-c-section tummy is a bit of an eyesore and the girls are not what they used to be; but beauty is more than the physical. Besides, what is the ideal anyway? God made all of humanity to have the same components in such varying shapes, sizes and colours that, aside from biological anomalies like identical multiples, there are billions of unique designs. Which one exactly am I supposed to be modeling myself after?

In the last couple of months I’ve developed an appreciation for the skin I’m in. Life is too short to worry about how well we stack up physically against those around us…  besides, it’s not a contest.

When I think of how critical I’ve been of my body over the years I cringe when I think of just how normal I was and yet how awkward and destroyed I felt on the inside. And now with my beautiful imperfections I can at least appreciate that this body has grown two babies, run hundreds of kilometers, earned a black belt, jumped out of airplanes, and will spend (hopefully) the next 50 years or so serving my children, my family and friends and enjoying this beautiful life I’ve been given.

My friends, it’s time to start loving the bodies we’ve been given. Whether you’re tall, short, skinny, fat, freckled, hairy, balding, jiggly, muscular, dainty, scarred, lanky, apple or pear shaped… if you’ve got wrinkles, varicose veins, saggy boobs, man-boobs, a flat bum, a round bum, thick ankles, big ears, hair in the wrong places or nasty toenails, enjoy that you are alive for a purpose and that beautiful body of yours is the only one you’ve got.

… and I think it’s perfect, just the way it is. So does your mom.

Fuelling Passion

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Photo: Erzsebet on Flickr

I was at Mom’s Morning Out on Thursday – it’s a group at Valley Church where moms can go and have their kids looked after while they get a chance to sit with other moms, have a coffee and a snack and talk about various topics of interest. Thursday we watched a short video about addictive behaviours and the reason they come about. One of those reasons has been going around in my head since then and I thought I’d put it out there…

When peoples’ talents or passions are squashed by someone – no matter how significant or insignificant in their life – they may suppress that gift forever but replace it with poor self esteem and unhealthy habits.

I thought about my husband, who when he was a kid wanted to fly fighter planes (what little boy didn’t!). He joined the air cadets and was a star student, but one instructor told him flat out, “You’ll never fly. You don’t have perfect vision.” And a dream died.

He never pursued flight training any further and to this day longs to take to the skies in any way possible.

I feel very blessed that my parents always taught me that I could do ANYTHING I put my mind to. I mean it. Anything. And for the most part I still believe that (perhaps as evidenced by some of my current pursuits).

So I’d like to put it out there and ask you? What did you want to do when you were a kid? Or even as a young adult or… not so young adult? What are you good at? Go one… brag a little. We’re all good at something!

I’m good at singing, spinning hook kicks, physics, solving problems and I’m the queen of parallel parking.

Now did someone down the line tell you you couldn’t do it? Did that make you back away from that dream or did it make you that much more determined to get there?

I suppose it has to do with personality type. Despite being shy, I am very determined. For someone who is more hesitant, being told you’re too short, too tall, too fat, too tone-deaf, too dumb etc. could be absolutely devastating.

I pity the fool who crushes my kids’ dreams.