Repeat After Me: There is No Perfect Woman

“I have an iron will, and all of my will has always been to conquer some horrible feeling of inadequacy… I push past one spell of it and discover myself as a special human being, and then I get to another stage and think I’m mediocre and uninteresting… again and again. My drive in life is from this horrible fear of being mediocre. And that’s always pushing me, pushing me. Because even though I’ve become Somebody, I still have to prove I’m Somebody. My struggle has never ended and it probably never will.”  (Madonna, in a 1991 Vanity Fair interview)

I’ve been told that this is predominantly a girl-problem.

Body Envy/Worship Envy

In every arena of life, I relentlessly compare myself to others.  Not men, other women.  There are the obvious ones, like comparing my muscular build to their hour glass figure, or my hipster/writer costume to their sophisticated duds.  The mall is hell for these sorts of things.

But that isn’t all.

I get angry because so-and-so in my church cell group is better at worshiping than me.  They have their eyes shut and their hands raised, while I just got distracted by the sound of my own pure soprano.  And they’re crying and getting all lovey-dovey with the Father and I’m thinking, “Jesus, I really hate this song.  Can you zap this song and make it disappear?”

And then I look at them and think “You’re faking it.  I just know it!”

So women push themselves toward the crippling burden of perfectionism.  Perfect body, perfect hair, jeans that fit perfectly, perfect hostess, perfect Mom.  Not only do I need to run three times a week to fight back the potato chips, but I need to go out in stylish gear so I look hot while doing it.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure that ain’t happening.

That is why most people who suffer from eating disorders are women.  Women are more likely to self-harm and commit suicide.

I am Remotely Controlled

But this attempt to control our lives and make them perfect is actually to give ourselves over to be controlled.  We may desire peace and contentment, but the popular opinion of beauty and fashion will not let us.  ‘The Jones’ won’t let us be happy until we keep up to them.  Heck, as I’ve talked about in Still Fat on the Inside, we won’t even be able to enjoy innocent pleasures like food.

We will miss opportunities that could be life-changing, all because we were afraid of looking stupid.  I can think of fun activities that I didn’t participate in because I was afraid of failing.  I’ve never been to the gym, because I’m afraid of looking stupid (that will have to change soon–ugh).  I won’t ask for help, i.e. in finances, because I don’t want to admit areas of weakness.

So while I am trying to control how others think of me, they are actually controlling me.

And why?  Tell me: would we like a perfect person?

The Flawed Hero is the Best Hero

As we stood outside my building after a run, my friend Rosie and I were talking about a book series she’d been reading.  The one book had this character who was a good Christian girl, willing to do whatever God asked.  It was like she could do no wrong.  The second book starred a young gladiator who hated God.  Who did we agree was more fun to read about?

I’d say this was part of our comparison and perfectionism, but I suspect there is something else to it.  Our subconscious minds can spot a fake.  The author can sell us that godly goody-two-shoes as reality but in the back of our minds we know that this is just wishful thinking.  There are some really awesome people out there who love God and want to follow him.  But we know ourselves, and we know how hard we have to fight just to do one or two good things every day.  We know that we treat God like we treated our parents.  We do what he asks, while stomping around and kicking the dog to prove that we’re only doing it because we have to.  And only for the briefest moments do we experience the harmony with Him, and that intimate friendship that we so desire.

If we love the loser characters, can’t we accept ourselves too?  Can’t we look into our own hearts and see the weaknesses, and realize that no one is without flaws?

You can’t see what goes on inside another woman’s mind.  You can only see the external accoutrements of her life.  You haven’t seen the price she paid for what she has.  I worry sometimes that people look at me and think I have my whole life figured out.  Like today, I mentioned the awesome run I had to an friend.  She asked, “how long did you run?”  I immediately felt the need to downplay and said, “Well, 10 kilometres–but I don’t run 10K every day!”  I used to think that ‘real runners’ practically floated above the ground, and ran without pain and gasping for air.  Now I know this is a fantasy every time I pull off my jacket and the stench of sweat emanates from my shirt.  I know the perpetual tired legs, and the burning chest, and the foolish feeling one gets when prancing around in skin-tight pants.

So allow others their weaknesses, and own up to your own.  It can be immensely freeing to admit that you’re weak.  I’ve found great relief in telling my friends my struggles, only to have them smile and say, “I feel the same way.”

Repeat after me: there is no perfect woman.  And we aren’t so different after all.

 

 

 

 

 

Would You Rather Be Beautiful, Smart or Good?

“Which would you rather be if you had the choice–divinely beautiful or dazzlingly clever or angelically good?”–Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Humour the thought for a moment. Say you could remain where you are in the other two, which would you choose? Which would I choose?

Divinely beautiful? I’d never call myself ugly. I think I’d fall into the ‘average and does well with what she has’ category, or so I’d like to think. I’ve always wanted to be thinner, have fewer blemishes, and figure out how to tame my curly hair. Of course I want to be beautiful.

But divine? You see, I’m afraid that if I were movie-star, red-carpet beautiful, people wouldn’t treat me the same. They’d be distracted by my face… or my boobs. And I’d rather be thought of as ‘me’ than hot.

So, not that one. Though if anyone knows how to tame curly hair…

Okay, how about dazzlingly clever. Now this has real appeal, because I have a bit of a complex about being smart. I remember crying in high school because I couldn’t get my marks up just a couple percent so I could graduate with honours. Well, if I hadn’t been taking Advanced Physics and Calculus, maybe I would have been fine! My parents weren’t making me take those, I was!

I just wanted to be smart.

My hardest course in college was history. The prof had a reputation for writing brutal exams, and wouldn’t hesitate to fail someone. I was determined to ‘beat him’. I studied a solid eight hours for the exam and woke up thinking ‘history!’ I walked into class, was handed the exam and realized I knew all the answers. I sat there, vibrating going ‘I got this!’ When I got the exam back in my mailbox with the 100% on the front, I sank to the floor and shouted “Yes!”

If I was genius wouldn’t I be able to do that all the time?

Oh, but that would be too easy. I wouldn’t have to fight for it. It’s the fight that makes it a good story.

Well, not that one I guess.

*sigh*

Angelically good. Oh, this one strikes close to the heart. I wish I were good. I wish I no longer struggled with pride, impurity, lack of self-control, malice. I wish could say that I’d never, ever hurt someone again.

Could I be angelically ‘good’?

But in the end, I can be none of these things and I don’t need to be. I am who I am, by God’s grace, and designed exactly for the spot I’m in.

And so are you.

So, which did you pick? Let me know. Perhaps none of those three appealed? How about ‘outrageously athletic’ or ‘divine singer’ or ‘fantastic cook’. Oooh. Now there’s a thought.

Why You Might Want to Practice Your Smile in the Mirror

Ah, the smile-grimace.

As a retail clerk, I see it a lot. I greet a customer with a smile and a ‘hello’, and what I get in return is this… how should I call it? Lip curl, twitch, frown thing. I think they think they’re smiling. Well, they ain’t.

Dale Carnegie said, “An insincere grin… doesn’t fool anybody. We know it is mechanical and we resent it.” A genuine smile is an expression of genuine happiness, delight, amusement. It says “I’m glad to see you”, “I like you”, “You make me happy”. The grimace thing says, “I’m acknowledging that you exist, now beat it.”

The expression on your face is one of the first things people see. It is part of your first impression, and we know that a first impression is often all you have. As far as I’m concerned, a pleasant countenance is far more important than what the person is wearing, or what sort of body composition they have. The best beauty tip my Mom ever gave me was “Smile, and you’ll look beautiful.” True that, Mom.

My favorite people are all smilers. I work with some fantastic smilers and jokers. When I walk into the preshift meeting, I look for them because I know they’ll smile like they’re glad to see me—and I’m glad to see them. They make work a fun place to be. When they’re gone I miss them.

Carnegie quotes Professor James V. McConnell: “People who smile… tend to manage, teach, and sell more effectively and to raise happier children. There’s far more information in a smile than a frown. That’s why encouragement is a much more effective teaching device than punishment.”

So, if you’re convinced, or if you aren’t, I challenge you to go to a mirror, shiny window, or your smartphone camera, and look at your face. Close your eyes, pretend someone just walked up to you, and smile like you always do. Open your eyes. Is that a smile or a grimace? Worse, is it a rictus?

Oh dear. I hope not.

Then consider this. Daniel Pink says:

A genuine smile involves two facial muscles: (1) the zygomatic major muscle, which stretches from the cheekbone and lifts the corners of the mouth; and (2) the outer part of the orbicularis oculi muscle, which orbits the eye, and is involved in ‘pulling down the eyebrows and the skin below the eyebrows, pulling up the skin below the eye, and raising the cheeks.’
Artificial smiles involve only the zygomatic major. The reason: we can control that muscle, but we can’t control the relevant part of the orbicularis oculi muscle. It contracts spontaneously—and only when we’re experiencing enjoyment…
In other words to detect a fake smile, look at the eyes.

Observe. Here is a picture of me faking a smile.

And here is a picture of me actually smiling.

Now that you know how to detect a fake smile, you’ll see it in yourself and in others. Stop it. Stop faking it. Leadership guru Tim Marks says that he had to practice in front of a mirror, and even practice smiling while driving in order to make a genuine smile a habit.  It mattered that much to him.

I’ve tried to make it a reflex—walk past a person, and smile. Or, if nothing else, try to look pleasant. I’m not sure if I’ve succeeded, but I’ve made progress.  And now I work at a place where I have to wear a mask (not the retail job), and the eyes are the only way to tell that I’m smiling, so it better be genuine.

Well, am I smiling? Am I?

And no, my profession is not ‘bandito’.

Life is hard, and sometimes we are so tired and beat down that it feels impossible to eke out a smile. In times like those, we need the kindness and the smile of another person. It’s important to realize that others have the same need. If a smile is what it takes to brighten up a day, a room, a conversation, a job then that is not too much to ask. And whatever you do, rid your life of the smile grimace, and you will, at least, offend fewer retail clerks.

Much appreciated.

Works referenced:

Carnegie, Dale: How to Win Friends and Influence People. Simon and Schuster, 1936.

Pink, Daniel: A Whole New Mind. The Penguin Group, 2006.

A Fat Girl’s Guide to Fashion Freedom

Because learning to dress myself was only the beginning.

They were white, with purple and pink roses. No wonder I still remember them. I doubt those hand-me-down sweatpants were ever stylish, but I rocked them. When I was six I wore what I liked. Purple and pink were my favourite colours, so I wore them together, along with every barrette in my arsenal. I even had this splendid set of pearl earrings (clip-ons), which I would wear to church and embarrass my mother. Those were the carefree days, where I didn’t even stop to consider what people thought of my clothes. Would that I could go back.

Or not.

Bellbottoms, or flares, were coming into fashion as I was entering my teen years. Pants, with flared-out legs so wide that you could park my little car under them, were paired with platform shoes—the clunkier the better. And I had neither.

When my birthday rolled around, I took my birthday money and bought a pair of black flares with white stripes down the side. They were haute. I wouldn’t be caught dead in them today, but I was twelve, and anxious to fit in. I asked my most stylish friend if they suited me, and she assured me they did. Great, I had one pair of fashionable pants.

I was a chunky, acne-riddled teenager. While my friends were wearing low-slung jeans and baby tees that showed off their flat midriffs, I was wearing a hoodie and modest jeans. Stores for kids that age don’t sell size XXL, and even if they had, my allowance didn’t permit much clothes shopping. I wouldn’t have known what clothes to put together anyway. That had to be learned.

I thought I wasn’t popular because I was fat, that I didn’t get attention from boys because I wasn’t beautiful like the other girls.

I did what I could. I bought makeup and experimented with covering my acne scars until I got it right. I tried different clothes, though I refused to shop in the plus sizes because that, somehow, made me ‘fat’.  But somewhere in my late teens I started to pull my wardrobe together. I had this great jacket that made me feel like a million bucks, and some pretty tops that dressed up my jeans. I remember (and laugh) about the first scarf I bought, when they were a new thing. I was afraid that my family would think it was too ‘out there’.

I suspect growing up and gaining confidence did more for my body image than new clothes ever did. I got a job in a meat-packing facility, which is a direct route to looking like crap every day. But I was forced to associate with guys (gasp), stand up for myself, and assert myself among a group of adults that didn’t give a damn about me, or my feelings. It thickened my skin. Knowing that I could hold my own in the real world helped me hold my head high, even when I couldn’t afford to dress like a show-window mannequin.

Shortly thereafter, I began college. My wardrobe consisted of 90% MCC thrift-store items—like a ruffled ‘pirate coat’, a spangled tunic, and a never-ending supply of cardigans. I had classmates who rocked their eclectic thrift-store duds, and from them I learned that clothes were art—meant to be original and expressions of your inner self—not one size fits all. My clothes might not have fit into the prepster, hipster or sophisticate categories, but I was accepted anyway. I was accepted for being me.

I’m still learning that.

These days I work as a ‘fashion associate’ part-time, which comes with discounts that make trendy clothes affordable. I’d say I’ve found out what I would wear if I could wear anything I liked. Right now it’s purple, fish-scale pants, a wine-colored blazer, a sequined black tee, and boots that have caught my fancy (notice the reappearance of purple?). And, I’ve at last found peace in shopping in the plus-sizes. Face it, they fit me better, and they look great.

It will eventually get through to me that my clothes have never won, nor lost me any friends. Rather, it is the content of my character that attracts others. The coworkers who see me in a cerulean uniform and safety glasses like me just as well as the ones who see me in purple pants and sequins.

I can’t go back to being five years old and carefree, but maybe I’ll grow up a little more and care a little less about what people think of me.

The Backhanded Cure for Low Self-Esteem

This is what happens to me when I walk through a mall: I observe another woman’s effortless elegance, hour-glass figure, or the handsome dude she’s with, and feel like a pitiful excuse for a human being. I might have felt like a million bucks when I left home, but once I saw what she was wearing… jig’s up.

And so I take the next left into the clothing store, or the makeup counter, and spend money I shouldn’t–or I medicate with a Pumpkin Spice Latte (no need for a spoonful of sugar to make that medicine go down). This insidious form of low self-esteem, called comparison, lurks at every corner of the mall.

I say to myself: “There must be something wrong with me. If I was beautiful like she was, I’d have a man.” Or, “It’s bad genes that keep me fat.” Or I just medicate with a Pumpkin Spice Latte.

That would be a lack of pride, right? I don’t feel proud of myself, so I lack self-esteem.

Edward T. Welch has a different take:

“Low self-esteem usually means that I think too highly of myself. I’m too self-involved, I feel I deserve better than what I have. The reason I feel bad about myself is because I aspire to something more. I want just a few minutes of greatness. I am a peasant who wants to be king When you are in the grips of low self-esteem, it’s painful, and it certainly doesn’t feel like pride. But I believe that this is the dark, quieter side of pride—thwarted pride” (1).

That’s a head-scratcher. Let me get this straight: low self-esteem equals thinking too highly of myself?

Right.

But it actually makes sense. Welch said “I feel I deserve better than what I have”—as if the hand I was dealt by the Creator is beneath me. I’m too good to be single. I’m too good for acne. I’m too good to be fat. I should have been given a better hand!

I’ve always believed that if someone was truly great at cards, they could win with whatever they were dealt. The glory was in winning against the odds, not with a stacked hand. We root for underdogs—just watch any sports movie Hollywood puts out.

Reason number one to stop bemoaning my life: if it’s bad, all the more impressive when I win. I must make the best of it.

And the biggest reason: God gave me this life and its set of circumstances. How prideful of me to say he was wrong!

“Yeah, you’re Creator and omniscient, but you should have given me a better face.” Tear, sob, sip of PSL.

Stop it, you big baby! (Talking to myself, here—or the person beside you). Put on your big-girl panties and get to work.

I’m not preaching fatalism, here. I’m saying play the hand you’re dealt, and play it well. It wasn’t given to you at random, but for a particular mission. If you don’t believe there is a creator, that doesn’t exempt you. What makes you so good that chance should have dealt you a better hand? Make good on it.

Get your focus in the right place—not on yourself, not on the other person’s stuff, but on the face of Jesus Christ. “And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace.”

Let’s work on this together, shall we?

Reference:

(1). Edward T. Welch, as quoted in Confidence of a Champion by Tim Marks.

A Lesson from Purple Fish-scale Pants

I’m a vain, vain soul. I know this because of the inordinate amount of time I spent staring at my purple fish-scale pants when I should have been paying attention to the pastor this morning. And yesterday my coworker teased me that every time she turned around I had my scarf arranged differently. And that would have been almost true.

I can buy new clothes every month and still not have enough. I can fix up my hair (which never falls perfectly even if I’m trying) and do my makeup, wear my most stylish outfit, strut around like a peacock, and feel like I’m really quite a spectacle—and that’s not enough.

And it isn’t enough. All the outer trimmings can’t make me truly beautiful.

The Apostle Peter said, “Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight” (1).

Someone once told me a story about a woman I know. This lady was working at a summer camp, and, as a grandmotherly woman, went to one of the girls’ cabins at bedtime to say goodnight to the girls, tell them stories and pray with them. As she gave out goodnight hugs, one of the girls said to her ‘you are the ugliest lady I ever saw’.

I was taken aback when I heard this. Ugly? The thought of this lady being ugly had never occurred to me. If I thought about it, I could reason that perhaps she wasn’t going to be on the cover of a beauty magazine. But ugly? Never. This woman, who is very dear to me, is a constant positive, smiling, encouraging presence. She has the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.

I was convicted today, while gazing down at my purple pants, that I spend far too much time and energy on my outward appearance, and far too little on my inward appearance.

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (2) and “the mouth speaks what the heart is full of” (3).

I’ve been praying for God to graciously show me the selfishness and hardness in my heart, and clearly this is one such example. I pray that as I know him more, this self-absorption that keeps my eyes on the mirror and on my purple pants, will dissipate, and leave behind the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.

References:
(1) 1 Peter 3:3-4, New International Version
(2) Proverbs 4:23, New International Version
(3) Luke 6:45, New International Version

All verses taken from Bible Gateway, at http://www.biblegateway.com/