#21 Consider How You’ve Been Championed

Tags

appearance, beautiful you, self-image, time

This is hard. Who spoke up for me when I couldn’t. When did I champion myself?

Vincent, Year 7. One of 11 boys who came to an all-girls school when it started accepting boys. I remember the one occasion when he flared up and had a go at the ringleader for constantly picking on me. Don’t know why and nothing came of it, but I remember that moment.

I had a drama teacher during the last four years of school who I worked with on theatre productions. I looked after her. She looked after me. She valued me and said so. I still have the cards that she gave me after each show that said thank you for being brilliant.The necklace she gave me has long since disintegrated but I still remember it and her with great affection. She made me feel good because she told me how valuable what I did was and because she treated me with respect. Thanks Jacqueline.

I used to do some voluntary work with an organisation that I left because I disagreed strongly with an action they were taking. I bumped into Brian, who had dragged me in to help initially a few years afterwards and he gave thanks for the work I had done. He also made the interesting and accurate comment that he could depend on me because I never forgot anything; I always listed all the actions that needed doing, however trivial and would work my way through them, prioritising as necessary, but without letting things slide. I thought about it and realised how true this was, not just in work terms but also personally. So I was pleased that he noticed and thoughtful about what he said.

There have been a few work colleagues along the way who have appreciated my skills. Richard came in one Monday morning daring me to write him a macro he’d dreamed of at 2 in the morning. He liked to challenge me and this was his best effort. It took me until lunchtime but because he had a go himself he knew how difficult it could be. He was appropriately impressed.

That’s all I can think of. Isn’t that sad. This is supposed to be a happy post but it doesn’t feel that way.

The greatest champions I have and the greatest rewards I get are when my children tell me that they love me or that I’m not that bad really. Sometimes they tell me that I’m better than other parents. They make me proud when they put into practice what I teach them without me reminding them.

I’m working on spending more time having fun and being happy.

Beautiful You by Rosie Molinary

Beautiful You, by Rosie Molinary, with 365 thoughts and challenges, is available at Amazon (click on the picture) and her website is Rosie Molinary

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#20 Consider the Time You’ve Lost

Tags

appearance, beautiful you, self-image, time

Consider the time you’ve spent obsessing and faffing about some aspect of your appearance. How many hours were lost and were they worth it?

I think I actually need to reverse this and spend a little more time considering how I look.

Let’s consider the time I’ve saved over the years:

Other than for a brief interlude as a teenager I’ve never worn makeup. That’s what, half an hour a day?

I gave up using a hair dryer sometime after my first child on the basis that it took too long and damaged my hair. I grew my hair long which also meant that it took more than the five-ten minutes it used to take with short hair.

I am trying to dress up just a little when I go out, even if it’s just changing a top. I have spent several years, due to children and lassitude, not wearing nice clothes because I can’t be bothered to get changed and because they need more care. After years of refusing to buy more than the minimum in the forlorn hope it would encourage me to lose weight I’ve given that up and now have a bit more of a choice. I know that I feel better when I look better and while I’m trying to not mind that I look fat (because I am fat) that doesn’t mean I have to look dull and boring.

That previous sentence is actually quite important.

And I’ve lost all those weekly weigh-in sessions at Weight Watchers. Over several years. That time is lost that I’m pleased to not still be losing. It wasn’t worth it.

What I have lost is an awful lot of time being unhappy. Hours, weeks, months, if not years.

I’m working on spending more time having fun and being happy.

Beautiful You by Rosie Molinary

Beautiful You, by Rosie Molinary, with 365 thoughts and challenges, is available at Amazon (click on the picture) and her website is Rosie Molinary

#18 Have A Comeback

Tags

beautiful you, comments, riposte, self-image

So what to say when someone says something that hurts? I used to swallow these things but no more.

I know in my last long conversation with my father when we were discussing whether I should have got over my childhood or not, merely saying “I disagree” with him was enough for him to pause and me to at least think my dissatisfaction was being noted, if not understood.

One common answer I use when people are talking about their need to lose weight is simply to ask “Why?”. This is such a basic question that people find it difficult to answer because they assume we all want to lose weight and believe in some perfect body that we’re all chasing. Actually being asked why they want to lose weight seems to stop them for a moment.

A friend of mine recently asked, having ventured onto dating sites, why men found her photos attractive, as they weren’t that brilliant. I pointed out that she was attractive, and she looked like fun, an interesting person to spend an evening with and that was more important than looking like a doll. She still doesn’t quite believe it herself but I’ll keep on telling her.

As for me, I can’t remember the last time someone was rude about my appearance. This either means that I ignore it, or don’t spend time with people who make negative comments. Either way I would not leave it unchallenged. I feel that’s an insufficient answer.

When, a few years ago, I started putting on weight, one of my neighbours who didn’t know me very well, stopped me in the street and said “Congratulations” to me. I responded “what for?” and then watched her dawning embarrassment as she realised that I wasn’t pregnant and therefore she was being rude. She more or less just ran away from me. I think I may have mentioned this before. Was that the best thing for me to say? It was pointing out that she was making assumptions based on insufficient knowledge.

My children occasionally talk about people being fat, or friends being badmouthed because they, or their parents are fat. I always point out to them that I too am fat, and that it’s not a nice thing to poke fun at. I don’t run away from saying that I’m fat. It’s a statement, not a criticism and they need to learn that it’s possible to make such a statement without including all those negative connotations that we are used to.

Beautiful You by Rosie Molinary

Beautiful You, by Rosie Molinary, with 365 thoughts and challenges, is available at Amazon (click on the picture) and her website is Rosie Molinary

#12 Realise that Your Dissatisfaction is Not about Your Body

Tags

beautiful you, body, matter, mother, self-image

I think I’ve probably covered this already. My dissatisfaction with my body is because I’m not satisfied with me and I punish my body instead.

It started once I first got pregnant. Although I was perfectly happy being pregnant I put on weight and was subsumed into being a mother and I very much just stopped being me. I also hid myself away when trying to repair failing relationships and the message I gave myself was that I didn’t matter. Those people who I was there to look after, partners and children, and my parents and sisters to a lesser extent were the ones who mattered. This was the message my parents had taught me and my partners carried it on in adulthood.

And if I don’t matter, then it doesn’t matter what I look like, right?

My weight then zoomed when I became single and started paying attention to myself. More importantly I started having the time and space to think about myself for the first time in years, if not ever.

I need to regain my own sense of importance and value and learn, as I once knew, that I have the right to look good and feel good and that is actually based on having self-confidence and panache far more than some stereotype size.

Beautiful You by Rosie Molinary

Beautiful You, by Rosie Molinary is available at Amazon (click on the picture) and her website is Rosie Molinary

#9 Consider What Your Words are Really Saying

Tags

beautiful you, fat, gorgeous, happy, monty python, plain, self-image, smile

I wrote this post and then deleted it. Don’t ask me how I could make it unrecoverable but I managed.

“I am plain” – I look at the face in the mirror and I don’t like what I see. I see plain, dull and boring. I remember the years when I could walk tall and proud without hesitation and I miss that feeling, even though I’m fully aware that I’m never going to be 17 again and my body certainly isn’t.

I tend to wear my hair tied back at home as well, to keep it out of the way of 2son’s nits and because it’s practical. But it doesn’t look as nice. I dressed up on Sunday to go out, rather than not bothering or only half dressing up. It felt good and pleasing. I need to do it more often.

What I also need to do when I look at myself in the mirror, however casually, is smile at myself. I can smile at my friends so why can’t I smile at myself.

“I am fat” – well yes, and?

Practical implications of this is that some bits of me chafe or ache more than they should. Some parts of me I haven’t seen for a while. Finding bras that are comfortable but still fit after a couple of months isn’t easy and the bigger the size the higher the price by far, and the less pretty they are. I used to enjoy buying clothes and now I don’t even try. The styles that I want don’t really suit me now.

Do I want to be stick thin? No I certainly don’t; when I see people who are model thinness I feel sorry for them and think they look dreadful. But would I like to lose weight? Of course I would prefer to be a few sizes smaller. Can I accept me for the weight I am? Not at the moment. I recognise the irony that I almost have to stop caring about losing weight having regained confidence in myself before I will lose weight, and then it will be a by-product of life changes rather than a goal in itself. But do I look forward to the time when I stop putting on weight? Too bloody right I do.

 

Beautiful You by Rosie Molinary

Beautiful You, by Rosie Molinary is available at Amazon (click on the picture) and her website is Rosie Molinary

#8 Create A Self-Appreciation Jar

Tags

beautiful you, self-image

Choose a container and put a coin in whenever you have negative thoughts about yourself.

I read this in the morning and thought I don’t do these things. I don’t put my change in a jar as it all seems a pointless way of saving money and you end up with a jar full of change that is awkward to exchange or spend. However I started doing this when I quit smoking and my mother did it when she too quit after my suggestion. She stopped fairly early on as she didn’t feel it was about the money. I stopped physically putting money in a jar, but worked it out on paper and promised myself the equivalent financial treat if I stayed quit for six months. Which I did, and bought myself a massive CD collection as a reward.

So I haven’t created a jar yet. I think I owe it a pound for today. I was thinking about finding a jar before it gets recycled and as I come to bed I think, why use something cheap, boring and practical? Surely for a self-appreciation jar, I need something pretty and beautiful. I will find something suitable.

I also went out tonight, and rather than my usual not dressing up, or slightly dressing up, I dressed up properly, and felt a lot better for it.

Beautiful You by Rosie Molinary

Beautiful You, by Rosie Molinary is available at Amazon (click on the picture) and her website is Rosie Molinary

#6 Ditch the Fat Chat

Tags

beautiful you, diet, fat talk, friends, no, self-image

I have, in the last year, really stopped from joining in friends’ weight chat. I no longer congratulate them on losing a pound or four. I don’t participate in diet talk, of how fattening or calorific something or other is. I tend to stay quiet or just say that I’m not bothered by how fattening something is. I’ll make the quiet comment, saying things like “But does it taste nice?”.

I either don’t feel the need or am not ready to evangelise about HAES and since I’ve stopped participating in these conversations I have become far more aware of how pervasive they are. They’re not just frequent but they are so negative. It’s all about denial of food and negative thinking and total misery.

I have over the last week tried to stop myself when I’m looking critically at the mirror. If I can’t think anything nice, at least I can just stop myself from thinking anything negative. It’s a start.

I never criticise people’s appearance and I think I don’t agree with people when they are being self-critical although I wouldn’t say that for certain. I possibly don’t correct people who complain about their own appearance and will endeavour to so do. I do tell my friends they’re beautiful, probably more the female ones than the male and I shall try to do so more often. We all appreciate compliments and I’ve always tried to remind friends of their wonderful qualities.

Beautiful You by Rosie Molinary

Beautiful You, by Rosie Molinary is available at Amazon (click on the picture) and her website is Rosie Molinary

#5 Consider Your Vision

Tags

beautiful you, confidence, future, inner voices, myself, self-image, worry

I want to enjoy life. I want to stop worrying about how I look and how I feel. I want to genuinely not worry what people think of me.

I want freedom. Freedom from critical inner voices.

I’d like to stop saying “I can’t do this because…” and say “I will find means of doing this because I want to”. Some of that’s about having children, especially with 2son. But that’s also an excuse.

I would like to spend less time worrying about me and more time getting on with life.

I want to have fun and to be content.

What would make me feel more confident? If I knew that I’d get on and do it. I’m doing what I can to grope my way towards that answer, by writing on here, by reading books, by going through therapy, by trying to think about it.

One of things I still have struggle accepting is that I can’t do everything I want and I cannot do any single thing perfectly. I haven’t accepted that “good enough” for purpose is good enough and I need to throw off that burden.

I worry too much.

Beautiful You by Rosie Molinary

Beautiful You, by Rosie Molinary is available at Amazon (click on the picture) and her website is Rosie Molinary

#4 Consider How Body Image Has Impacted Your Life

Tags

beautiful you, criticism, ex1, ex2, kick ass, mother, myself, self-image

When I was a child I watched my mother dislike her body for being overweight and my father never understanding from his permanent stick figure that she really found it difficult to lose weight. I watched her try diet after diet and struggling to eat food she didn’t want to and to not eat food she did. She eventually gave up “proper” dieting and just tried to be a bit more careful about what she ate without trying to lose. My father was willing to be supportive but he still wanted a proper meal and a cheese board, and to take my mother out for meals. So he never really acknowledged her struggle.

I had no problems with my weight as a child or teenager but I absorbed what I watched from my parents. I remember feeling confident in the way I looked and dressed, able to strut as I walked and I remember how good that felt.

I think, although one can never be sure that I lost all that when I became pregnant. My then husband used to criticise me for putting on weight but when I suggested he cut back on cooking with cream he refused. Much like my father he pointed out what was wrong with me whilst refusing to take any action himself. Ex2 used to tell me that I could do with losing weight but he also said that he would love me regardless but that I would feel healthier if I did. I appreciated the fact that he tried to make it about me rather than him without responding to the criticism.

As a mother, through one pregnancy or another, I spent 40 months of my life being pregnant and some 70 odd months breastfeeding. Add onto that all those sleepless nights and that’s a good portion of my life when I didn’t really care what I looked like, I just wanted to eat, feed and sleep. I lost sight of me, I lost sight of that sexy woman I could be. And I didn’t feel it any more either, I felt tired and battered around the edges. I wasn’t interested in dressing up and looking good, and quite frankly, after ex1 and ex2, I didn’t really feel the need to evoke any interest.

So maybe I put on weight in order to hide and I’m still doing it. Maybe not. It seems a slightly glib answer.

For years I stopped buying more than the absolute minimum of clothes on the basis that if I had no nice clothes to wear then I’d lose weight. That didn’t work. Now I do try and buy clothes but feel that all the styles that I look no longer fit my figure. Also, high street shops stock very few clothes in larger sizes so it’s not a happy experience and I do most of my shopping online. I used to enjoy going clothes shopping.

I’ve lost confidence, as I’ve said before, but what else have I lost? I’ve lost a lot of time being unhappy with myself and that cannot be recuperated so I need to stop wasting any more of it. I’ve struggled  with friendships and social contact both in and out of the workplace but that started well before I put on weight.

I might not look as good as I want to, or feel I look like I want, but I still go out and have fun and ignore the little voices telling me I don’t look good. While I have lots of male friends, I don’t even think about wanting to take my clothes off in front of anyone, not even in the dark. There are other reasons all tangled up there too. I don’t want to get close to someone in a relationship as I don’t want to feel vulnerable.

What have I gained from my body image? A whole new awareness of how appalling the diet industry is, the scapegoating that obesity gets, how much public pressure there is on women to be that one size and look. I’ve met, both in real life and on the internet some wonderful people, mostly women, who spread positive images and messages about health, size and empowerment. I’ve always been one for rejecting the majority opinion and felt that I was doing it on my own. I’m not alone any more. Not ever.

Even my father, the other day when I said that the boys hadn’t been outside since Christmas (a whole week) said they would get obese. I couldn’t believe it. They’re so healthy and spend so much time outside during term time running around. As if one week is going to change their lives like that.

As the saying goes, what doesn’t kill me will make me stronger. I anticipate that whenever I get through this, whatever that actually turns out to mean, I shall be stronger, with even more of a kick-ass attitude than I already have.

Beautiful You by Rosie Molinary

Beautiful You, by Rosie Molinary is available at Amazon (click on the picture) and her website is Rosie Molinary

#3 Consider How You Feel About Yourself

Tags

beautiful you, body image, self-image, self-worth

I lack confidence in myself. That’s down to my parents and my partners but it’s now up to me to gain confidence in myself, in my abilities whether professional, social or other. I’m not proud of who I am and I should be.

Do I like myself? I’m not entirely sure. I suppose I reach out for other people’s happiness and feel envy rather than finding my own. That was all right when I hadn’t my own freedom of choice but I do now and it’s time I both looked for my own happiness and recognised it when I have it, whether it’s fleeting or long lasting.

As to my physical appearance well I’m not at all happy with it. I see fat and plain and find it difficult to accept compliments and I hate, yes hate, looking at photos of myself. It’s one of the things stopping me looking for a partner as why should I think anyone else can consider me attractive if I can’t? However it’s not the only reason.

Why I’ve ballooned in weight over the last five years is harder to answer. For the first time in my life I’m living alone (barring children) and have no one living with me and telling me what to do or criticising me. I am released from an awful lot of pressure and that release seems to have manifested in my eating too freely. Clearly I need to find a new balance that is healthy for me although I’m groping at the means. Maybe it’s just how I’m expressing freedom from rules.

What will a healthy sense of self give me? It will give me freedom to do what I want without thinking I’m not capable and the freedom to stop worrying whether I look like an idiot while I’m doing it. It’s quite simple really.

A healthy life will hopefully give me a longer and better one. I moan that I feel I’ve wasted half my life. Well if I was healthier and more active I could pack more life into the time that remains.

Beautiful You by Rosie Molinary

Beautiful You, by Rosie Molinary is available at Amazon (click on the picture) and her website is Rosie Molinary