Beauty

I just read a paper by one of my friends that was really encouraging. It was about body image and how the world has such a narrow view of what is beautiful. My friend touched upon how we are so much more than just our appearance. What makes us beautiful is fulfilling who we are meant to be. I admit, sometimes I can be so concerned about my outward appearance and how others perceive me, that I forget to work on who I am on the inside and let myself fall into a dark place of obsession and insecurity. I fail to value my good qualities and in the process slowly allow them to dissipate when I let my concerns about physical beauty take over. I have always judged myself harshly and I have used that distorted lens to see others and judge others harshly as well. Not only that, I would always find myself comparing myself to others and would be riddled by jealousy. I have to say, being in this constant state of seeking for and accentuating the flaws of others to make myself feel better and my neverending self-consciousness makes for a seriously tired psyche! Instead, I want to be the type of person who can see beyond the appearance of others and seek out the good in people! In her paper, my friend states that change begins with our thoughts. There are a lot of good quotes in it, one of them was by Albert Einstein who said “we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used to create them." So true! I feel like the forefront of so many battles we have is within the mind! And we can begin to solve our problems by altering and changing our perspectives about ourselves and life. And we can do this by choosing to change simple everyday thoughts. Instead of telling ourselves that we are ugly & fat, we can instead replace that thought with something positive, like I am so much more than my looks. I am creative, spirited, funny, worthy and beautiful in so many ways! I mean, it's easier said than done, because this self-loathing has been rooted in many of us for so long! It's hard to change the way we think and how our mind works because they are thoughts we are just so use to having that they've just become automatic. But I want to keep trying and fighting these negative thoughts, because if I don't I know I will keep spiraling. I encourage anyone else struggling with body image issues to give my friend's paper a read, because it is quite encouraging and to not give up! You're not alone!

the paper:

Beauty: The Way I See It

To any girl who struggles or has struggled with body image issues:

            You are so much more than you think you are. All those thoughts you’ve had about how you’re not good enough are nothing more than that: thoughts. You have so much to offer. At the risk of sounding terribly cliché, I want to ask you to listen to me: you are beautiful. Your beauty does not come from anything external—your beauty is what happens when you are the person you were meant to be.

I know you get this all the time, but hear me out. The beauty you see depicted in society is not real. It’s airbrushed; it’s fake. You know that. But look, do you really believe it? When you see something so much, you start to believe it’s true.

            Dove recognizes that this is a problem. In 2004, it launched its Campaign for Real Beauty to try to expand the world’s definition of beauty. Who gets to say that beautiful only means skinny? I’ve been where you are, and I know that it’s hard not to listen when you see beauty portrayed so strongly through this definition. The female love interest in movies is almost always skinny, and if not, the story usually shows her losing weight before she’s allowed to get the guy.  The words that Dove uses to describe what our society expects of young women are “limited and unattainable.” It is limiting—in more ways than you think. When you can’t get past a narrow definition of beauty, you limit yourself from reaching your full potential. If you’re always worried about how you look, you won’t have time to develop those parts of you that really speak to your character. You were made as you are for a reason. Nobody else in this world can offer what you do, because only you have had your experiences and your thoughts. You have something specific and valuable to contribute to the world, and when you’re focused instead on how you look, you’re losing an essential part of that.

 We’re all made differently: it’s true when people say that we come in all shapes and sizes. It’s simple anatomy to look at your bone structure and say that you can never look like a certain idea of beauty. No matter what you do, it won’t be possible. You’ve probably heard that if Barbie were a real person, the measurements of her body proportions would be impossible to sustain life. Realizing this can be either limiting or freeing. You can choose to recognize that what the world wants doesn’t matter, or you can be held back by it. I know it isn’t that easy, but you should reject what society says because they don’t even know you. When they tell you that you have to look a certain way to be beautiful, they’re looking past everything that is special about you and disregarding it for something that only matters on the outside. And tell me, what is the impact of that?

            Model Candice Bergen said, “Though beauty gives you a weird sense of entitlement, it's rather frightening and threatening to have others ascribe such importance to something you know you're just renting for a while.” How you look will change over time. That weight you work so hard to lose may creep back with pregnancy or old age, but that doesn’t matter because weight does not define you. When you get wrinkles one day, that’s what makes you who you are. Wrinkles are the roadmaps of the laughter you’ve shared with friends. When you have cellulite on your legs, that doesn’t matter. Those are the hours you spent in your grandmother’s kitchen learning to bake all your favorite recipes. What you choose to see as flaws are actually some of the most beautiful things about your physicality because they define the moments you spent becoming the person you are today.

            Think about this: if you were only defined by how you look, why would it even matter for you to go to school? What would the point of your education be, your friendships, the goals you try so hard to achieve? I know that there’s something you care about: maybe you’re a gymnast, maybe you’re all about environmental sustainability, or maybe you just really like to draw. If you beauty were based solely on appearance, that would say nothing of everything you stand for. Your passions bring something specific to the world, and that is something worth loving.

            In Beauty and the Beast, the most desirable man in town, Gaston, only wanted Belle because she is the most beautiful girl. He does not care that she is smart or has her own opinions; in fact, he makes it clear that this does not matter at all. Seeing this depicted time and time again in movies and fairy tales affirms this as truth to young girls, as much as other voices try to show them otherwise.

            Sometimes something inside me wants to rebel against everything beauty should mean. I get defiant and angry at society for how I feel because I can’t get over the fact that it’s not fair. It’s not fair that girls are targeted with the pressure to be pretty, it’s not fair that this pressure seems to be present no matter the situation, and it’s not fair that there are insecurities for every size. I can hear my grandma’s voice saying, “Elizabeth, life isn’t fair,” but that doesn’t change the disgust I feel. So instead of starving myself, I try to get back at society by overindulging. I wonder why I can’t be a “normal eater” and do what I want, so I eat a lot of cookies and pizza and pretend that it doesn’t matter. Because no matter how you look, society always has a problem with it. Even if you are really skinny, somebody with well-meaning intentions will tell you that “real women have curves.” And though their intentions are to make you feel better, they do not realize that they are actually perpetuating the problem because that just alternates the ideal.

Dove says that it wants “to make beauty a source of confidence, not anxiety.” Girls, you are beautiful. Why do we let the fear of not being beautiful cause us anxiety? Why do we let ourselves believe that if we aren’t pretty enough, we aren’t good enough?

Don’t believe everything you think. This should be obvious, but it’s not because we’re so consumed by it. It’s the same thought process that led us into this mess in the first place. When we tell ourselves for so long that we aren’t pretty, we leave ourselves no choice but to believe it. But what if we chose to believe differently? What if we chose to believe that we could be wrong about that, even though we tell ourselves that the reason people won’t admit “the truth” is because they don’t see what we see? Well, we’re right about that. Nobody sees what we see, because the reflection we believe in is deceptive.

For the longest time, my perception was flawed. I operated under the mindset that if you were skinny, you had minimal problems. I chose to ignore the blatant issues that I knew others had because I justified it with, “but they’re skinny.” I couldn’t understand why they would let other problems get them down when they had what I wanted most. I couldn’t understand that they did not share my sole desire and that there were things they wanted with my same desperation. I thought that skinniness was enough to trump a parents’ divorce or problems at school, but that was because I was blind to the fact that pain is universal. We all hurt deeply, but we hurt very differently.

            Even when fighting body image issues seems hopeless, it’s not. Famous writer Dale Carnegie once said, “Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” This isn’t something you can just get over—it took years to engrain this insecurity in you, so what makes you think you can let of go it so easily? When you have another bad thought, don’t think of it as failure. Think of it as another chance to prove to yourself that you’re stronger than you think. If you give up now, you’ll never know what you’re capable of accomplishing.

            It doesn’t make sense to call ourselves ugly, because we don’t see ourselves for who we really are. We see small parts of our physicality, but that will never be enough to sum up the life of a person. You may not care about what happens to you, but what you’re going through affects every part of you. Your physical, emotional, and mental health are all impacted. When you embody yourself, you embody beauty. When you embody yourself, you are the confident woman you’re meant to be. This was a job created only for you, and nobody can do it better. Every little quirk is there for a reason—and it’s beautiful. Your beauty is not in all the ways you don’t think you measure up: it’s the joy in your smile and the power in your voice when you speak about something you care about. Your beauty is the little things that you miss every day because you’re chasing something that you were never meant to have. Your beauty is defined by the moment your passion meets compassion and you look beyond yourself at a world that so desperately needs what you have to give. You’re beautiful, and you can’t let society take that away from you.

            A study in Fiji measured the impact of introducing Western television to native adolescent girls who were statistically less likely to have eating disorders, and the results probably won’t surprise you. In a culture that traditionally valued more fully-figured women, these girls started to change how they looked, and one even admitted that watching these shows made her feel fat. Don’t underestimate the impact that society can have. We’ve grown up in a culture where television is all we know—we can’t imagine walking around without the knowledge of television shows, movies, and magazines. What they proclaim has become a part of us because it’s what we are accustomed to. But it doesn’t have to be that way, because in spite of everything, we still have the power to think for ourselves.

            You may have heard the quote “we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used to create them.” This means that we can’t expect the way we think about ourselves to change on its own. We have to actively take steps to change it. I know that dealing with this is hard. Honestly, it sucks so much sometimes because you don’t even know how it got this far, and yet it never stops haunting you. When you look in the mirror, don’t be so blinded by what you see. You aren’t getting the full picture. You don’t see the friend you just helped, the proud grandparents thinking of you miles away, or the test that you just passed. All you see is the physical representation of a reality you have yet to understand. You may never know the impact that you have, but wouldn’t you like it to be more than that you were beautiful on the outside?

“Success in life can never be an accident. It is the result of right decisions at the right time. Champions are not the people who never fail, but the people who never quit.”

Let me tell you my story. I’ve struggled with body image issues since elementary school, but never had a diagnosed eating disorder. Some people refer to what I experienced as disordered eating, or having irregular eating behaviors, such as hyperawareness of what you’re eating or regularly restricted eating. I remember standing in the cafeteria after lunch at eight years old, convinced that everybody around me would think I was fat. Being fat translated to not good enough, and that was something I couldn’t handle. I would suck in my stomach and hope that nobody would realize the truth. This thinking got worse as I went to middle school. At one point, I refused to eat in front of my peers and would sit in the guidance counselor’s office and eat a banana every day during lunchtime. I was ashamed of myself, yet at the same time, not eating became a source of pride. After not eating for six days, I passed out in the checkout line of Walmart, lucky enough to be caught by my mother. She knew that I thought I was fat, but she had no idea what I was doing to myself. I didn’t realize at the time how much it hurt her. Let me tell you this: There is no victory in skipping meals. I know the confidence that comes from denying yourself and knowing that you have the self-control to say no, but this confidence is false. You think that it’s making you stronger, but really it’s only tearing you down.

In high school, I went through various phases of not eating and a short phase where I threw up after I ate. Growing up in the age where it is popular to educate girls against media and body image issues, I knew all the facts about anorexia and bulimia. What I had was never that bad; I wasn’t losing tons of weight, or really any weight for that matter. It was all in my head and I thought I had so much control, but really I was at the mercy of how I thought others saw me. I was skeptical about the idea of purging because I heard that it could make you gain weight. I couldn’t understand why anyone would put themselves through that torture just to have the unthinkable happen. But all it took was one conversation with one good friend, and I was sold. She said that it worked for her, and she told me what to do. I did it, and honestly, I hated it. I cried every time I purged because I couldn’t stand the way that it felt. I don’t know where you are on this issue, but if you can identify even a little with what I am saying, hold on to that part of yourself that says this isn’t worth it. Think about what you’re doing. You’re on your knees in front of a toilet, and for what? Throwing up never made anybody prettier—throwing up is a sign of sickness.

One girl said that her awareness of her physical imperfections makes her body a backdrop for her everyday life. Her stomach, hair, and thighs are always in her peripheral vision. Is that how you feel too?  For the longest time, public speaking was marred by the fear that I would stand in front of an audience who saw me as fat. It was not always my main focus, but those thoughts were always there. All it took was the way my clothes fit (or rather didn’t fit) or seeing a girl whose body I admired for me to think about how much my own was lacking.

 It’s a process, and it’s likely that you’re going to regress a lot, but it’s very important that you continue anyway. You don’t know how long it’s going to take, but you do know that there’s something worth obtaining at the end. If you want to change your body, start by changing your thoughts. Your actions stem from your thoughts, and by focusing on the positive, you’re more likely to make positive changes instead of negative ones. Change your thoughts to healthy ones that don’t depreciate who you are, because physical beauty is fleeting, but who you are lasts forever.

            “And if I could tell you one thing, it would be: you are never as broken as you think you are. Sure, you have a couple of scars, and a couple of bad memories, but then again, all great heroes do.” Don’t be discouraged just because it feels hopeless. A lot of things feel hopeless. Think about the first time you did the thing that you love to do most. You may have struggled, but you did it anyway. When I was learning to write, I struggled a lot with how to form the letter “A” and thought that I would never get it. Now I love to write and plan on writing my own book one day. The same is true here: just because you don’t make it at first doesn’t mean that you won’t eventually. If you don’t believe that you’re worth it, look at everybody around you who would argue differently.

This is something I didn’t really understand until much later, but it’s possible that you don’t see how this is hurting those around you. If you’re like me, you see the frustration in your friends when you bring up how fat you look in those jeans…again. We vow to try to keep quiet about it next time and tell ourselves that they don’t understand, that we don’t deserve to be understood anyway because we aren’t good enough. But this is not true, and we can’t let ourselves think like this.  

            Think about this: body image issues are frustrating on both ends. The worst thing is watching someone drown and not being able to convince them that they can save themselves just by standing up. Remember how I said that everybody has their own thoughts and experiences? Those who have never struggled with body image struggle to see the depth of the issue. Your friends think that telling you that you’re beautiful will be enough to make you see what they see, but they forget that you’re looking at two different pictures. They look through the lens of love, and you see through a cloud of judgment. You may have heard this said about girls before: “If she had any confidence, she could be really pretty.” Everybody can see that she can stand, but she's still drowning. And maybe the only reason that she is drowning is because she assumes the water is deep enough to drown in without testing it for herself. She listens to what society says is beautiful instead of simply recognizing that she is.

            I know I’m simplifying this, but it took me a long time to begin to understand how others saw my struggle. It takes a lot to redefine how we see beauty, but this starts and ends with how we think.

I have a close friend who has been to rehab twice for anorexia. The most recent time was a year ago, right at the end of her first semester of sophomore year of college. Let me start by telling you that this girl is beautiful—she is selfless, caring, and one of those people you can talk with for hours. She is passionate about animals and has been a constant source of encouragement to me more times than I can count.  However, for years she has been plagued with the fear that she is not good enough physically. I’ve seen her drop weight rapidly, and it’s scary. Even for somebody who understands what she is going through, at least on a small scale, it’s difficult to watch her crumple to the point where the school nurse tells her not to exercise out of fear that her heart will stop. Last year, while everybody else finished finals and was playing Christmas music with their friends, she was packing her bags to spend Christmas alone in a rehab in New York City. She confided in me that gaining weight in rehab was painful, that feeling her jeans fit tighter and tighter brought her to tears no matter how many times she knew it was coming. It was hard to watch her be in so much pain and feel powerless to help her, and I wouldn’t wish either plight on anybody.

            I’ve always hated hearing to “be myself.” For the longest time, I didn’t know who that was. Throughout high school, I would look at the girls around me who seemed so sure of themselves and wonder how they seemed to have it all figured out. I can’t speak for them, but I can say that they probably were just a lot better at hiding their insecurities than I was. But I’m not telling you to just "be yourself"; I’m telling you to find the good in your life and use it to make more good. 

 Look at the movie Mean Girls. It shows a girl who takes her confidence and uses it as a weapon to gain acceptance from the people in her school. Once she gets what she wants, she’s terrified of losing it. Just like power, looks are fleeting. No matter how much weight we lose or how much we alter our appearance, our fear won’t go away; it’ll just change. If we ever reach a point where we see ourselves as beautiful, we’ll still be held captive to the “inadequacy” we've accepted.

            Body image is still something I struggle with, but it’s improved drastically. Instead of focusing on myself, I look at the beauty in the world around me. I am astounded by the great friends that I have: I see so much beauty in their honesty, their ability to care, and how differently they see the world. Instead of seeing myself as not good enough, I can look at the strength of the bonds I share and know that in this there is real value. In those moments, it isn’t about how much weight I think I should lose or what flaws I think I have. In those moments, it is about the beauty that I find in the words we exchange and the time we spend together. Beauty is never simply on the surface: beauty has always been about embracing what is within us to love every part of us.

            I hope that you are able to recognize what it took me so long to see: You are beautiful. As you know, nobody else can convince you of this. It has to be you.  So what are you waiting for? You’re worth it, so challenge what the world is telling you and instead, tell them what beauty means.

the challenge:

challenge #1:

Before you go to bed think of three good things you like about yourself 

challenge # 2: 

Think of the three of the most pervasive negative thoughts you tell yourself and think of three positive thoughts to combat them! 

Ex. I'll never be good enough...X

In God's eyes I am valued and worthy!

challenge #3:

Put your positive thoughts into action!

Whenever you feel one of those negative and limiting beliefs about yourself rising up, quickly combat it with the positive thought you wrote about!