A couple of days ago, I was riding on my bike and noticed this thought coming up that I haven’t written a blog post in almost 2 weeks and that it was time for a new one. Then I asked myself why I would pressure myself of writing something if I had no idea what to write about? Why did I think that it would be time for a new one? Wouldn’t it be time when I felt like I had something to share? Then my ego set in even more…why don’t I have to say anything? Didn’t I have all these ideas of blog posts when I started blogging? And now I felt empty? I calmed myself down and invited some faith and trust in that I will feel when the time is right again…something will come up that needed to be said…
And then WOW, it happened that day that a Facebook friend of my mine, a neighbor, my kids’ friends’ mother posted beautiful professional pictures of her family. Everybody was in matching outfits in a beautiful fall scenery with colorful leaves framing this happy family. But the post said something like: ‘Friends who know me better, know that I never have pictures taken because of my weight and my appearance. But I do know that some day my kids will ask me and want to see family pictures of their childhood, so I had my friend, a professional photographer these. And I am glad, I did. So many sweet moments…’
I almost cried, this struck me deep inside. I felt like, yes, you did it! I am so proud of you for doing it for your children and then being glad that you did it! I looked at all the pics and there were such sweet close-ups of her and her daughter laughing and being happy and totally in the moment.
Then I felt the hurt, the pain and dislike, maybe disgust that she must feel about herself. How can she live like this? The daily struggles she must be facing…
How could I help her? Do I know anybody who can help her to love herself more and see herself a different way? How can she stop judging herself so harshly and stop being afraid of being judged?
I wanted to write a comment under the post, but I didn’t know what to write. How much would be too much? What would be encouraging? What could be hurtful … so I never commented … but I couldn’t stop thinking about this post.
But because of this and some of the following things that came up this week, I feel called to write this post and share my thoughts with you.
It is a way for me to process these experiences and in a way comment to that post … I am also sure, that she will read this and she will read my deepest truth in these words …
After reading that post and looking at the beautiful pictures, I thought a lot about peoples’ callings and that appearances really don’t matter if you are living your calling.
How many people are on this planet that really serve people by their looks? Whose calling is to be skinny and ‘pretty’? There are some, of course, but most people will find their higher truth for this world on the inside and not on the outside of their bodies…
I see her as a very loving, kind, smart, nurtouring, encouraging, motivated, out-going, musical, happy nature and very active person. She always compliments others, has a very positive energy around her and it’s just very easy to be around her.
How can we stop having these limiting beliefs about ourselves?
I thought about my own struggles that I’ve had about my body from a very young age. I remember two incidents very clearly that have been present throughout my life.
When I was 14 I stood at my grandpa’s hospital bed. He was still a little woozy from meds just coming from the ICU after having a heart attack. He died a month later, so this was the last time I talked to him. I handed him my invitation to my confirmation party and he looked at me from top to bottom and said: ‘Look at those thighs, I can tell that you come from your mother’s and grandma’s side of the family. All the women have these big thighs’…(or something along these lines).
Of course, I had noticed this already that friends of mine had thinner legs…but in that moment, I realized that others saw this too and I started to be even more self-conscious.
I always wanted to loose weight as a high school student, a college student… After my first pregnancy I naturally lost so much weight that I felt better than ever before in my life, concerning my weight and body…I was almost 10 pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight and I liked that a lot.
After my second pregnancy I had troubles loosing the baby weight and always felt full and bloated, so I decided to eat gluten free and sugar free for a while and that helped me loose all my pregnancy weight and more of it, again. Breastfeeding was very crucial for the weight-loss, but then of course when Niki weaned himself, the weight-gain slowly happened and I got a bit anxious.
Just recently I gave up stepping on the scale every morning and just try to feel into myself to know if I feel good or not. The scale is not showing me the truth that I so long believed in!
There is another incident that came up this week when Niki picked his clothes one morning. He put on a light green long-sleeve shirt with white polar bears and turquoise trims and over this he put a turquoise/bluish short-sleeve shirt with black monsters and grey trims. The alarm bells went on in my head, because my mom once told me that I can’t combine green and blue clothes. There apparently is a german saying that goes like: ‘Grün und Blau trägt die Sau.’ It means that green and blue is what a (sow) pig wears. Blue and sow rhyme in german, so it never really made sense to me, because you could exchange any color with green to still make this saying rhyme…
The evening when she said this to me I remember like it was yesterday, I had put on an olive pair of pants with a long turquoise undershirt and an olive t-shirt over it. We were going to have one of her friends over for dinner. I guess, she somehow felt embarrassed by my clothes choice… I did not change, but didn’t feel very comfortable in the clothes I had picked all evening…
So, I remember that many times after this, I decided against wearing green and blue together.
I think, it’s just very interesting how these beliefs manifest in our brains and how we live with them for so many years, since our childhood. It usually needs a lot of practice to get rid of them. But it’s a first step to recognize what they are and where they are coming from.
As a child I rarely liked to have pictures taken of me. I didn’t feel pretty and I didn’t like the process of it. I hated to stare at a camera with a fake smile on my face waiting for that person to finally push the button. I just don’t like fake! I still feel like people are harassing their children when they yell at them to smile at the camera if they just don’t feel like it. I must say I love an honest screaming baby pic more then a series of heavenly sleeping baby faces 🙂
For me it’s very important to try to not plant limiting beliefs into my childrens’ minds. I want them to feel good about themselves and their bodies and actions. It’s so hard to do this though, because even at a young age, my boys for example, know that they are very skinny…pants usually don’t fit them. Niki makes a game out of this at times. He jumps on the trampoline until his pants slide down to his knees. Of course at the same time they notice that other people have other body types. I try to raise them to be non-judging human beings, and I want to have faith that they’ll like themselves and don’t judge others.
We all need to work on more self-love and compassion for our bodies and minds.
Especially in these times of division, it doesn’t matter what we look like, what we eat, what clothes we wear, who we vote for,…we all need to get a little closer together and love a bit more. We need to realize that we all want the same thing…we all want to live a safe, happy and full-filled life! We make different choices on the way, but let’s face it, we are all one and we all want the same! So let’s honor everybody for their choices they make and judge everybody less. Today and from now on we will try to see us and others through love and not through hate!
With much love and gratitude,
aNNika
nonimadewithlove.com 