Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes, Part II

Happy Love Your Body week!
This is LONG. That's all there is to it. I promise I tried for economy.

Quotes are from Jeffry R. Holland's 2005 October Conference address To Young Women.

"May I address...[a] sensitive subject. I plead with you young women to please be more accepting of yourselves, including your body shape and style, with a little less longing to look like someone else. We are all different. Some are tall, and some are short. Some are round, and some are thin. And almost everyone at some time or other wants to be something they are not! But as one adviser to teenage girls said: "You can't live your life worrying that the world is staring at you. When you let people's opinions make you self-conscious you give away your power. . . . The key to feeling [confident] is to always listen to your inner self—[the real you.]"

Time out (are you thinking Saved by the Bell? Good job).
I love that comment about confidence. It makes me reflective. Would you like to hear a personal saga of self confidence?

I was never a skinny, tiny child or teenager. I was rather round. But I was confident. Naturally, I had moments of typical insecurity. But I valued myself. I didn't long to be someone else. I had lots of friends and family who helped me understand my real worth. I was happy. Happy, happy, happy.

In college I discovered that I loved to exercise. And when exercising became a regular part of my life, I lost weight. Imagine that. I've never known how many pounds I lost. I was not into weighing myself. But I certainly didn't complain when I could start buying size 2 clothes. That was new and fun. I felt healthy. I felt good. I was still confidant and still happy. But looking back I recognize that interesting dynamics were at work. My smaller-sized self received so many compliments. It didn't take long for thin to became part of my personal identity. It became a distinct part of how I was perceived by new friends and acquaintances and even of how I perceived myself.

Fast-forward...(remember the sound VHS players used to make? Back in the good old days?)...stop about half a year after my wedding. A physically challenging time for me. Birth control was a nightmare. And I was ill for two and a half months with some undiagnosed sickness that wiped me out. (I remember going on a hike with Wes and some friends and having to concentrate so hard on just putting one foot in front of the other). Turns out it was "an overwhelming case" of mono. "You are one sick girl," my doctor told me on the phone. No big deal, people get mono. But, like I said, I was wiped out. And emotional (Thank you, birth control). Just as the mono symptoms started to ease up, I had emergency surgery for an ectopic pregnancy. The recovery was only hard because it caused the virus to flare and hang on for several more weeks.
Now. Please understand. I don't mention these things because they were earth-shatteringly horrible. They weren't so horrible. Woe was not me. But my physical world was rocked a little bit. It took me a few months to get back into an exercising routine. By the time I did, I wasn't the same sized self I had been a year before.
This is where you readers can laugh. I had not gained a large amount of weight. I was still probably smaller than I had been in High School. But all of a sudden, I cared about the weight. I was scared about it. (And while that seems silly, I can't tell you how many people I've heard express fear of weight gain.) I was scared because extra pounds - even just a few - were not part of my new identity. For the first time, maybe in my life, I was significantly worried about what people would think. For the first time, I wanted to be something other than what I was. I wanted to be the "old" me.

Suffice it to say that while I was certainly not depressed about this issue, while I certainly still valued myself, it was emotionally difficult. I had lost a little chunk of confidence and with it, a little chunk of happiness.

The intervening years (and life's bigger, more significant problems) have helped me put all of those feelings in better perspective. I certainly still have insecurities related to my looks, but I can see now the mistake I made then:
I let myself be, in part, defined by an appearance rather than a characteristic or a quality.
You see the difference, don't you?

OK. Time in.
The key to feeling [confident] is to always listen to your inner self—[the real you.] And in the kingdom of God, the real you is "more precious than rubies." Every young woman is a child of destiny and every adult woman a powerful force for good. I mention adult women because, sisters, you are our greatest examples and resource for these young women. And if you are obsessing over being a size 2, you won't be very surprised when your daughter or the Mia Maid in your class does the same and makes herself physically ill trying to accomplish it.

Time out.
Did you know that it's National Eating Disorder Awareness Week? Did you know that every one of my five years as a Hall Advisor (and also my year as an RA, and also my year as a RS Pres in a student ward) I've watched women struggling with eating disorders?

Time in.
"We should all be as fit as we can be—that's good Word of Wisdom doctrine. That means eating right and exercising and helping our bodies function at their optimum strength. We could probably all do better in that regard. But I speak here of optimum health; there is no universal optimum size.

Time out.
That is what I mean about defining ourselves by qualities vs. appearances. "Health-conscious" is a quality. A desirable quality. One I'm still working on and will always be working on. The good thing about focusing on qualities vs. appearances? Qualities are attainable.

Time in.
"...no universal optimum size.
Frankly, the world has been brutal with you in this regard. You are bombarded in movies, television, fashion magazines, and advertisements with the message that looks are everything! The pitch is, "If your looks are good enough, your life will be glamorous and you will be happy and popular." That kind of pressure is immense in the teenage years, to say nothing of later womanhood...In terms of preoccupation with self and a fixation on the physical, this is more than social insanity; it is spiritually destructive, and it accounts for much of the unhappiness women, including young women, face in the modern world. And if adults are preoccupied with appearance...those pressures and anxieties will certainly seep through to children.

Time out.
Want to know why I was such a happy round child? My mother was (or at least seemed to be) the most confidant women on the planet. I have actually come to learn in my adult years that Mom is human and experiences a very normal amount of insecurity - about her appearance and other things. But I didn't know that until I was probably 21. She never vocalized complaints about her own appearance and she NEVER vocalized complaints about mine. Neither did my dad. Bless their hearts. I sometimes struggle with this issue as a mother. We all know that it's hard not to say, "I'm so --- (insert you're favorite sneering adjective)." But here is a truth if there ever was one: the more we complain about our appearance, the more the people around us feel insecure about their own. And it breaks my heart to think of Lucy - or Spencer -wishing to be anything but the sweet, beautiful souls that they are. And so I'm working on it.

OK.
Time in (and time to conclude!).
A woman not of our faith once wrote something to the effect that in her years of working with beautiful women she had seen several things they all had in common, and not one of them had anything to do with sizes and shapes. She said the loveliest women she had known had a glow of health, a warm personality, a love of learning, stability of character, and integrity. If we may add the sweet and gentle Spirit of the Lord carried by such a woman, then this describes the loveliness of women in any age or time, every element of which is emphasized in and attainable through the blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Thanks, Elder Holland.
You're the man.

And to any reader who made it to the end of this record-length post,
You're the reader.