This morning I came down to sit at my computer to find a random site open. I presume it was left open by one of my 3 teenage daughters, but I don't know which one. The site was http://www.operationbeautiful.com/. As I began to read, I was impressed by the creator's mission to help random women, who are strangers, to overcome negative self image and sometimes paralyzing negative self talk. She and the others who have committed to do so, leave notes of positive affirmation in random places. It's just the kind of thing that I would do anyway.
As a person that has always "struggled" with my weight, I have tried diligently to teach my daughters that beauty does not come from a certain size, shape, color or age, but from a person's willingness to treat others with respect and kindness. I have always told them that they are beautiful, followed by "but pretty doesn't matter if you're not kind to others".
When I was 10 years old, my best friend, whom I thought was beautiful, was murdered. This is hard on anyone and you never, ever really get over it. Shortly after that, puberty hit and I was awkward and pudgy. Probably within a year or two, I had thinned out, but my self image had already been formed by the pudgy, awkward girl. I hated myself.
By the time I was 16 and filling out papers to get my driver's license, I was humiliated to admit I weighed a whopping 106 pounds. The number has been burned into my memory by the horrible feeling I had admitting I was over 100 pounds! Looking back, I see now that I was one of the smallest and actually quite average, but for some reason, I thought I should be shot!
Now, I truly am overweight and 75% of the time, I don't really care. I feel that I am a good person, I try to treat others well and I have truly realized that people come in all shapes and sizes. Have you ever noticed that a basically thin person who puts on a few pounds only has to think "I should drop a few pounds" and they do? And yet...the person who is basically naturally more curvy, only has to think about a Cinnabon and they find those pounds the thin person lost!
The other 25% of the time, I am still just as negative about myself as ever. Since I am overweight, I often say self deprecating things right off the bat so that nobody else can judge me more harshly than I have already judged myself. I think it is an unconscious defence mechanism.
Overall, I hope that my daughters remember their whole lives that relationships and integrity are all that matters. I hope that they have learned to reserve judgement until they know of a person's character. I have known people lacking in the surface, shallow, physical beauty that are among the most beautiful people in the world. I have also known some "beautiful people" that are very ugly indeed.
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