I can think of a whole bunch of things I love about summer. I bet you can too. Time at the beach or pool, going on vacation, windows open, ice coffee, cookouts with friends, time in the sun, fun beach reads, sandals and pedicures—the list could go on and on. But if you are a woman, chances are there is one part of summer you’ve been dreading. I know, because I’ve been dreading it too.
It’s swimsuit season.
Time to shed our comfortable long sleeves and jeans. Which, is ok, as most of us don’t mind a cute sundress or even a great tank top. But pulling out last year’s swimsuit to see if it still fits? That is another story. Even just writing about this sends a minor wave of panic through me because, if I’m honest:
My body has never been what I want it to be.
In fact, at times it has felt like it has betrayed me. Puberty hit sooner for me than it did for many of those around me. In junior high, while other girls wore two piece swimsuits, and walked around on spindly legs, I covered my one-piece with my Dad’s big T-shirt. Hoping, it’d also hide my thickening thighs. My body made me different.
In junior high, while other girls wore two piece swimsuits, and walked around on spindly legs, I covered my one-piece with my Dad’s big T-shirt. Hoping, it’d also hide my thickening thighs.
Then came what I used to think of as the worst betrayal of all. Though I grew tall, I never was as thin as the girls I’d see in my seventeen magazines. Clothes that looked so cute on many of my classmates, didn’t seem to hang right on my curves that I had yet to grow into. In fact, there was very little hanging. It was more of a struggle buttoning.
Between all the magazines, TV shows, and even fashion fads, the message came in clear: My body was ugly. I was ugly. Because so much of the world was telling me beauty only looked one way, it felt obvious to me.
My body was the problem.
Only, what I couldn’t see then was that I was joining the ranks of almost every American woman. Our culture offers us a very narrow definition of health and beauty—one that only five percent of us fit into—giving many of us issues with body image. More blatantly stated, training us from a young age to hate our bodies.
Because desperation sells, advertisers have told us for years what is wrong with our bodies. They do this to sell us products that will never give us the one thing we need: self acceptance. In other words, the betrayal was never our bodies’. It was our media telling us lies to make money from us. Lies that have embedded themselves so deeply into our brains that whenever we try on a swimsuit, all we can see are the parts of our body we wish we could airbrush.
Our culture offers us a very narrow definition of health and beauty—one that only five percent of us fit into—giving many of us issues with body image. More blatantly stated, training us from a young age to hate our bodies.
It’s possible that like me, you’ve spent years trying and failing to reach that idealized body weight. Or you’ve reached it and lost it, only to reach it again, then lose it again. Or perhaps, you’ve given up a long time ago, admitting defeat. But I am tired of believing that the war is with our bodies and that we are losing.
When I think about how many beautiful, creative, intelligent, strong, able bodied women are walking around our planet under the burden of believing their bodies aren’t enough or aren’t attractive, it makes my heart break. When I think of all the times I’ve been more conscious of my insecurities about my body, than the life experiences happening around me, I am grieved. Our war is not between our body and the scale. Rather it is between what our world has told us about beauty and what we decide to believe.
I am tired of believing that the war is with our bodies and that we are losing.
This year, as we pull out our swimsuits, a battle is going to start up in our minds. I already know what parts of my body aren’t going to look so great when I stubbornly yet optimistically put on my suit. But we have a choice: To allow all the messages we’ve heard cause us to pick apart what we see in the mirror, covering us in shame. Or to do as Barbara Brown Taylor encourages us, and say
“Here I am. This the body-like-no-other that my life has shaped. I live here. This is my soul’s address.” *
In other words, we can choose to love and accept the beautiful bodies we’ve been blessed with. It may take time. It may require some prayer, which Barbara also encourages. We just need to remember, we get to choose. We can choose what we believe about our bodies. Remembering all that our bodies have given or done for us, we can bless them rather than curse them.
Are you too dreading pulling out your swimsuit?
What words of encouraging truth do you need to speak over your body this season?**
*From Barbara Brown Taylor’s book, An Altar in the World.
** On Thursday, I will share some incredible resources to help us rewire our thoughts of shame about our bodies and one action we can take this week to begin believing the good truth about our bodies.
Are you in the midst of making a decision? Contemplating a life change? If so, you may be interested in my FREE Making Changes Checklist that I give to all my email friends. Want your free copy? subscribe here.
Photo by Analise Benevides on Unsplash
My problem is that when my own body starts creeping towards what I don’t like it to look like, it’s because I have been feeding it junk and haven’t been exercising. I can’t just love my body the way it is at those times because I feel I’d be ignoring the root problem—not treating my body the way it’s meant to be treated. This doesn’t just create a problem with how my body looks, but it creates a problem with my health.
There are, however, parts of my body that I have no choice about that I don’t really like, and THOSE are the parts I need to learn to accept!
Yes, Heather there is definitely a need to parse out the parts where we can take better care of ourselves and where we need to just accept and love our bodies exactly the way they are. Though, for some of us, I would say until we do the latter the former is more of a battle. Thanks for sharing!