If so, you probably hate many things about yourself. Your physical self, that is. I've been reading a lot lately about self esteem and keep reading that 'positive self talk' is a huge part of the solution to a negative body image. One of the suggestions is to name ten things that you love about your body, and only your body in this case. I lay in bed last night trying to do this...the first half dozen or so were nearly impossible. I found myself having to think of each body part from my feet to my hair in desperation to come up with enough. But, by about 7 or 8, I began to realize that there were tons! I bet I could do 20! So here they are!
1) My hair is a nice colour
2) My hands
3) My eyes are a lovely shade of blue
4) My elbows! (Andrea pointed out once that I was the only person she had ever known who didn't have rough or flaky elbows *beam*)
5) My butt
6) I look good in hats
7) If I wanted to, when I woke up in the morning I could leave the house without even glancing at my hair and it would probably look okay, if not even good
8) My once broken, now crooked finger
9) My tattoo
10) The fact that I never had anything pierced but my ears
11) My pale, pale skin
12) My shoulders
13) The scars from my knee surgery
14) My wrists
15) The back of my neck
16) The dark circles under my eyes
17)
18)
19)
20)
Okay, I didn't quite succeed at getting 20, but still pretty good! What amazes me most about that list is that so many of the things that I love are things that I spent most of my life hating. It's weird, but once you get over hating something that you have had for 34 years, you don't start to just tolerate it, you start to love it.
Some examples: I used to hate my pale skin and the fact that I could never get a tan. But now, I look at other women my age who have tanned a lot and I see that their chests and shoulders especially are getting all leathery and wrinkly. Mine, however, are smooth and line free. That's a huge freakin' benefit! Another example is my rear end. I used to hate how big it was, even when I was verging on thin. But after a few years of dating, I could recall that almost every guy I had ever dated said that they loved my butt. My broken finger is another example. It was broken in an...episode that I shan't go into here cause I come off looking stupid in it, but as the story goes...I didn't think it was broken at first so I didn't go to a doctor. After a few days, my friends pointed out that all I had done for two days was whimper on the couch cradling my finger so I should probably go to the ER. I did and they claimed it wasn't broken. Eventually it healed, but in a way that it never straightened out or laid flat with my other fingers. Years later I asked my new doctor if he had any suggestions to make it stop throbbing when it was cold and what have you and he looked at it and asked why I had never had it splinted since it had clearly been broken. Doctors! But, long story long, it now reminds me of a great time in my life. Of certain people and places and things that were part of some of the best couple of years I've ever had. How can you not love that? I could go on and on...each thing on the list reminds me of something that makes me feel good.
Of course, I have a long way to go. If you asked me to make a list of the things I hate (please don't), it would be much longer. I defy you to find a woman who says "ooh, I just love my thighs!!", for example. But making this list turned out to be rather a fun exercise. I highly recommend it for every single one of you.
I also read recently how a particular woman hated her stomach so much. She would literally grab hold of it and look at herself in the mirror and tell herself how disgusting it was. When she was given body image counselling they asked her about her childen. She had four kids and it was suggested to her that instead of the old mantra of 'I'm gross', she should try looking at that stomach and saying 'this stomach bore me four beautiful childen. Without this belly, I would have been denied these blessings, the biggest blessings of my life' etc. What a change! I think we could all benefit for this style of self talk.
Of course, I mention women because in general their self esteem seems to be a lot poorer than men, but men, you should do this list too. You don't have to display it for the entire internet, but just make up a list in your head. I bet you'll be amazed. And hey, if you do want to post it for us all to see...that's even better!
*** EDIT*** This seems somehow relevant: I just read an article about a hugely famous fashion show in Madrid that wouldn't let models below a certain body mass index participate in their show. Normally around 300 models attempt to be in the show. This year only 68 showed up and five were rejected as too thin. It is terribly sad that this is the state of fashion. But utterly fantastic that someone, somewhere is trying to put a stop to it.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060916/ap_en_ot/spain_skinny_models
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