Posted on: November 9, 2009 by Diane
from Diane’s desk…
On my way home today, I was lamenting my body. As usual. Too big, too fat, too bumpy, too lumpy - you know the drill! And this thought popped into my head - what if I can never lose a pound? What if my bumpy thighs and thick, muffintop waistline, are mine forever. I own them. What if all of this is mine.
What if all of your body image challenges - your height, your ‘cankles’, your weight, your skin color, your nose, your eyelashes, your toes - will never change (and in most cases, they won’t!).
It will never change.
Think about that for a moment. It’s a sobering thought.
For any of you who avoid mirrors, or hide behind clothes too big for your body, or hate the exposure of summer clothes. For any of you who hide from life to hide your body. This post is for you! (For the rest of you, keep up the great self-image!! Awesome!!)
But this ‘What if…?’ epiphany changed something in me.
When I got home, I went into the bathroom and took a look at my body. I took off my clothes and stood in front of the mirror. For awhile. And I cried. I cried because it had been a really long time since I had done that. A really long time.
And I cried because I realized that God had given me every single inch of my large frame. Every bump and jiggle - God loves every inch. Every muffin top - God loves every one.
I know that a healthy body is a thinner one. I know that. (So all your health nuts, don’t panic!!) But to get there, I think I had to arrive here first. To love what is staring back at me in the mirror. To touch it all. And to love it all, just like God does. To know that no matter what - even when we gain weight, lose hair, get a zit - God loves it. All of it. All of it. All of it!!!!
What if…? What if you loved every inch of yourself the way God loves?
Love is patient, kind. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. I Cor. 13
Does this describe how you love yourself? Is this how you think about yourself when you look in the mirror?
It’s what God is thinking when he looks at us. It’s how God loves.
What if…?
Posted on: October 25, 2009 by Diane
We rely too much on ourselves, and too little on God.
Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ~Matthew 6.25
Gosh, wouldn’t it be so cool if we could see the world, others, and ourselves as God does. Gosh, wouldn’t it be so cool if we could live life as if God was at our side, sometimes pulling, sometimes pushing us along. Encouraging us. Believing in us. Loving on us. Too bad we spend our lives thinking we are alone in the battle. Too bad that we spend so much time and energy hiding the authentic person that God needs to be fully activated. Too bad that we wear our Spanx so tight that even God can’t get in.
But all of that is a decision we are making. And decisions can be changed, altered, reversed.
Spanx are good to manage people’s perceptions about our body. They help with our body image, our self-esteem. They make clothes feel more comfortable. None of this happens when we Spanx our real uniqueness. We end up in constant state of withdrawal, uncertainty, fear of discovery.
We overthink our ideas.
We underthink our value.
We are in constant comparison of our insides with everyone else’s outsides.
We are in continuous denial of authenticity.
We rely too much on ourselves, and too little on God.
Sad part of all of this is that when you do this for years and years, it starts to feel normal. I don’t think God sees it that way.
His normal is a little different…no Spanx involved!
Posted on: October 24, 2009 by Diane
Ah, the bumps and wiggles that a Spanx hides. I don’t deny I need the stupid little invention. But too often, I deny the existence of the real me. I deny that there is someone else - the real me - lurking under the tight reins I have wrapped around myself.
We are in continuous denial of authenticity. Deep down we know who we are. Deep down we know exactly the kind of person that we want to be. But we expend a great deal of energy in denying that the authentic ‘me’ is what God really wants us to expose to the world. Better that I masquerade, than I unmask!! Better that I expend my energies hiding.
But what might happen if you take a step beyond the protective covering? What’s the worse thing that could happen? Really.
Brennan Manning wrote ‘there is a beautiful transparency to honest disciples who never wear a false face and do not pretend to be anything but who they are.’
Next Spanx: We rely too much on ourselves, and too little on God.
Posted on: October 23, 2009 by Diane
We are in constant comparison of our insides with everyone else’s outsides.
Ah, the black ooze of the real me.
And ah, the seeming perfection of everyone else - they look and smell and talk and act and think perfectly. Or do they…???
The face that we, and everyone else, show to the world is as close to perfect as we can possibly get it. It’s only when we honestly look inside ourselves that we see the blackness. Then we look around our world at the bright, shiny faces of the inauthentic. And we come up short. We tighten up the Spanx a bit. We, too, need to present the inauthentic perfection so that everyone has something to compare themselves to, so they can come up short.
And around and around it goes.
But the vicious circle can be stopped. We each have to remember that everyone has their own story. Everyone has their own black ooze to deal with. And reacting to others by tightening up our hold on our uniqueness defeats God’s purposes. People excel in so many ways when they are in authentic community with each other. When everyone ungirds and releases. But inauthentic people will sit it out, rest on the bench on the sidelines. Never engaging.
Before Jesus left earth to go to heaven, he walked on the beach with Peter. A ways behind, walked John. Jesus had just forgiven Peter for denying that he knew him when Jesus really needed him. Instead of feeling the full weight of the burden that had just been lifted, Peter chose to compare. As Peter glanced back at John…
When Peter saw him, he asked, Lord, what about him? Jesus answered, If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me. ~John 21.20-22
No matter what seeming perfection you see when you look at others - when you glance back, I ask you…what is that to you?
Next Spanx: We are in continuous denial of authenticity.
Posted on: October 22, 2009 by Diane
When you wear a Spanx, you tighten up all of the wiggles and bumps of a normal body. You keep it all buttoned up in a tight corset of protection. Deceiving yourself and others about your true body. Love Spanx!
But too often we use the same philosophy to hide - to Spanx - our God-given uniqueness. Here’s one way we do that…
We underthink our value. For me, this plaques me most when I am surrounded by people who appear more creative, quicker with their comments, sharper with their communication. It’s a comparison game I too often lose.
God knew us before we were even born. He knows how many hairs we have on our head. He knows what we think, what we love, what we worry about. And he knows what talents, gifts and abilities he gave us. He knows what we are capable of doing and being. He did not create us to hide ourselves in a corner, or under a layer of girdled rayon. He created us to add value to the world.
Craig Groeschel says, “You are not who people say you are. You are who God says you are.”
So, we should strive first to see ourselves as God sees us - to see and realize and internalize the value he sees in us. Take off the Spanx and let it out. Show the world what God created you to be.
Only let me live up to what I have already attained for which God called me. ~Phil. 3.16
Next Spanx: We are in constant comparison of our insides to everyone else’s outsides!
Posted on: October 21, 2009 by Diane
Spanx.
The greatest invention since the curling iron!!
Comfortable corset, requiring a level of sweat equity to earn the smooth curves. Sausage casing holding back the lumps and bumps, wiggles and bounces of our physical body.
Restrictive. Tight. Binding. Hiding what you really are.
But even though we do that with our body, the more deceptive camouflage is the Spanx we wear around our own uniqueness - the real you! We girdle our creativity in the name of a ‘normal’ life, guarding the perception that we fit with everyone else. That we are accepted, and involved, and somehow, OK because of it. We never really let the ‘real me’ out for fear that we wouldn’t fit, we would be ignored, disliked, avoided.
Spanx of Uniqueness comes in many forms. Over the next few posts, starting today, I’ll highlight a few that have plagued me. There are probably many more. But for me, these are a few for which I remain in a perpetual sweat keeping them all in the right place.
We overthink our ideas. Instead of just getting our ideas out there in the light of day, we turn them over and over in our head; noodle on them; analyze them. And too often that analysis is peppered with our own fears of acceptance. Once those fears take over, the ideas are deadened, tightly held in the Spanx cocoon. Safe from probing judgments of others. Safe from rejection. Too bad. The world sure could use creative ideas from a mind that thinks differently than anyone else’s.
Next Spanx…we underthink our value.
Posted on: October 16, 2009 by Diane
Body Image.
I am so tired of revisiting this topic in my own head. About every three months I find that I have slipped down the same ole slippery slope. Hate my body! Hate myself for letting my body go to flab in too many places! Confidence dips in every area of my life! Get crabby for no other reason than being mad at myself! Then I drag myself back up the slope. Pray and commit and decide and declare that I won’t go there again! I need to concentrate on what’s inside, not outside. Sure, getting fit and healthy should be the goal. not a specific weight or size. To know I am who I am because of what’s on the inside…beauty comes from inside. But still…
Body image is a female nemesis. Fueled by what we see in the media, on TV, on the covers of every magazine and tabloid. “Real” women - desirable, beautiful, worthy - are thin and fit and magically perfect. You can show me as many of those ‘without airbrushing’ photos as you want. My mind will still tell me that even if they airbrush my body, it will still look like my body, not hers!! OK, there I go, sliding, sliding, sliding down into the pit again.
I say all of that to tell you that in the September issue of Glamour magazine, there was a photo of a woman with a normal body - size 14-attainable, curvy, lacking six-pack abs - healthy and happy. The magazine received over a thousand comments on their blog about the 3″x3″ picture, buried on page 194. It was so odd to see that kind of body portrayed in a fashion magazine that, even small and buried in the back, it still was noticed - in a big way!
Women are craving that kind of reality!!! Eager for that kind of validation and support!!!
Hats off to Glamour for doing it again in November!!!
Posted on: December 30, 2008 by Terri
The January cover of O Magazine shows two pictures of Oprah - one trim and fit with her abs exposed; the other she’s in a purple workout suit. The quote under the image says, “How did I let this happen again?” Oprah on her battle with weight: a must-read for anyone who’s ever fallen off the wagon. I’ve been on and off that wagon with Oprah for most of my life. She’s probably one of the wealthiest women in the U.S. and has all the latest and greatest trainers, chefs, and equipment at her fingertips yet she still can’t seem to win the battle. It just goes to show you that all the ‘bests’ in the world aren’t the keys to staying fit and healthy. There’s something that keeps us, Oprah and those who share the struggle, from changing our mindset or habits or whatever it is that needs changing.
I wonder so many things when I think about my own battle with weight. What if I was raised differently - different food and more than your normal childhood exercise of swimming, bike riding and walking? What if I had played sports? What if my dad hadn’t been so worried about what I weighed when I was a kid? Why is it when I lose weight it’s always about how I look and not about my health? Did some of the creepy things that happened to me as a teen girl have an impact on my behavior around food and my body image? Let me tell you it’s a head trip for sure. There isn’t a day that goes by I don’t think about what I’m going to eat, how I look from head to toe and what size clothes I wear. I’m sure some of the same things swirl around in Oprah’s head everyday too.
Does being overweight mean you’re out of control? Does it mean there’s some underlying issue in your life where you use food to fix it? Or does it mean you enjoy eating and you don’t enjoy exercising as much? Face it; we’ve all got something in our life that’s a struggle. Sadly, if you’ve got the perfect body the world thinks you’ve got your act together.
At nearly 49, I’m still trying to shed my unwanted pounds and stay healthy through better eating and exercise. As much as I have those daily thoughts, they are minor. They don’t consume me like they have in the past. Honestly, I feel pretty good about how I look on the outside and I think it’s because I’ve worked so hard at how I look on the inside. The words from Psalm 139:23-24 are the words I’ve used to ask for God’s help:
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
I’ve asked God to help me understand all the stupid stuff I’ve felt and believed for years; to change those feelings and beliefs and to give me his perspective on how I should feel and what I should believe going forward. Trust me, it’s like a well-made garment - if it looks good and is put together well on the inside, it looks great and holds up better on the outside. Who knows, maybe if we all felt right on the inside, our opinions about what looks good on the outside would be drastically different.
Posted on: November 21, 2008 by Terri
Yesterday on the Today Show, People Magazine announced its Sexiest Man Alive. Drum rollllllllll – and the winner is: Hugh Jackman. The magazine’s executive editor said that not only is Jackman’s career at its peak, with the “X-Men” movies and his upcoming epic “Australia,” he’s “built like a tank.” His wife of 12 years refers to his body as the “The Body of Doom” – but said what she really likes is what’s on the inside.
Jackman’s wife said a mouthful when she said that! That comment is so true. I don’t want to be too general, but I think women are attracted to way more than physical appearance. Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate a man’s looks. Personally, I think the current James Bond, Daniel Craig, is up there when it comes to sexiness. But there’s so much more that makes a guy sexy!
I think my guy is very sexy, but his sexiness comes from who he is and how he acts in addition to how he looks. I do love the bald head and goatee and that he’s a ‘manly’ man. What really attracts me, though, is how he treats me and our family. He’s a man of amazing character. There’s never a doubt in my mind that he’s madly in love with me just by what he says. He supports my hopes and dreams and is willing to put his aspirations on hold for me. He works his butt off to support our family through his actions and through the money he earns. He’s as generous as they come. And as corny as it sounds, I feel protected by him, even though I’m not that kind of girl. These things are very attractive and very sexy and what’s amazing is that I feel this way after 24 years of marriage. Hmmm, maybe I’m married to the sexiest man alive?
Posted on: November 2, 2008 by Diane
I again find myself in the throes of losing weight once and for all. But this time might be different. My goal in January was to become svelte and trim by the time my daughter got married in October (it’s now November!). But life got in the way since January.
My sister died, and all the family drama that ensued (and continues); and the months of a personal fist-shaking anger at God for all of that!
My company downsized, and although not personally displaced, I watched as many of my colleagues were. Survivor syndrome is a real thing!
And, on a more joyous note, the stresses and excitement of my daughter’s wedding!
Yup, life got distracting. Thus - the roll around the middle of my waist still persists.
On a side note, I saw this extra poundage around my Equator referred to as a “muffin top,” alluding, I presume, to how fat hangs over waistbands like the top of a muffin oozes out of the muffin tin while baking! Don’t you find it just the least bit ironic that excess body fat is equated to one of the culprits that may cause the extra poundage to begin with? A bit circuitous, if you ask me!
But, I digress.
The reason I think my weight-loss battle is different this time, is because I am different. Not different goals. Me. I am different.
Three weeks ago, I emerged from my six-month funk as a new Diane. Perhaps for the first time in years – maybe decades – I return to a deep, abiding love for me. Without it, I have been unable to love others very well! And I have gladly returned to the innocent, overly naïve, peace and wonder of knowing I am loved by a really big, glorious God (save that one for another post!).
Here is what I am sure of…I am a fifty-six year old, grayless-blonde woman with a killer smile, great skin and a strong body. I have emerged from years of being worried and guilty about what others think of me. What they think of my lack of discipline, lack of a svelte body, lack of good hair, lack of perfect kids, lack of better home, better car, better vacations. Lack. Lack. Lack. I spent so much time thinking about what I lacked in others’ eyes that I forgot to celebrate what I truly had.
What happens when you turn this corner, when you stop thinking about what others think about you? You get to decide - or not - what to change about yourself, because you want to change it (or not!). The motivation is entirely internal. It’s an incredible rush! You no longer choose to let ‘them’ decide what decisions are the ‘acceptable’ ones for you, and how you are going to feel about yourself.
So, my first decision of this newfound freedom was to decide to make an improvement – to improve my health. And improving health is a totally different perspective for me than just losing weight. I choose to make a decision each day to make health a focus. Not because others will see, pass judgement (good or bad) or ‘like’ me. But because I am choosing to do it – for me.
I choose to take the stairs all the time, which does wonders for my butt! I park as far away from my office as I can, which has provided some great stress relief at the end of a day. I eat oatmeal! Ok, I gotta be honest here – I CHOOSE to add brown sugar and bananas to mask the disgusting taste and consistency!! I snack on raisins, nuts or apples all day long because I choose to not ever feel hungry. I choose some simple yoga stretches in the morning, and some meditation during lunch. And I don’t care what that sounds like or what you, the reader, thinks of it. I truly don’t! I gotta tell you, I am grinning from ear to ear as I write this ;-] This is truly fun!
As a result, the first twenty pounds have come off slowly and I am very OK with that. Cause it’s me deciding that I am OK being me - no matter what I weigh. No matter what anyone thinks of me.
It’s a freeing, wonderful, life-giving way to live! I can’t wait to choose what to do next - cause there are so many areas of my life that have been driven by this ‘others’ mentality!!! How about you - how are you letting others cripple the person that God made you to be? Who are you letting take away your joy, your thrill of life, your fun in just being YOU?
I double-dog dare you to join the fun I’m having!!
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