Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Insecurities

I think we all have them. I wrote the previous post about how we are not our bodies.....we are so much more than that. I know that inside....I honestly do. But then I look at the way society expects women or girls to look. We are bombarded all our lives with all these pictures of very thin women....women on magazine covers who are airbrushed and changed in more ways that you can imagine. We are told to go on this diet and lose 30 lbs in a month. Get plastic surgery to feel better about ourselves. Get liposuction. Get botox in the lips. Breasts not big enough? Just get them enlarged! Just change yourself into a human Barbie doll. This attitude can really mess with people's minds. People just don't get it. In my previous realtionship, I could never look good enough. At one point I was what I considered to be pretty thin and I thought I looked good.I got a lot of compliments from people at work. So anyhow one day we were sitting there watching tv and he said to me....do you think you can get as thin as that actress on tv? She was an anorexic looking woman by the way. I had no desire to look like that but that told me right there, I would never look the way he wanted me to. I could never be who he wanted me to be. I went into that relationship feeling pretty good about myself but by the time I got out, I was a total wreck. I just wish that people could look beyond the physical and see what is really inside of that person. Get to know them on a soul level. There are so many missed opportunities because people judge others solely on looks. It's a shame but unfortunately that's the way it is.

I am a mother of four. I am a grandmother of 6. I have wrinkles. I will probably never be as thin as society says I should be. I hate being overweight. I sometimes barely eat anything for days and lose a couple of pounds and then finally do eat and gain it back. There have been times in the past when I have eaten and then gone and got rid of it. Quite a few times....but not anymore. I will never again let a man make me feel like I need to do that again. I can take maybe 50 pictures of myself and not like any of them. The picture above is the only picture I have ever retouched, I removed a couple of wrinkles. Why? I don't even know. Do you know how difficult this is to write? It's extremely difficult. But I am doing it because putting my feelings out in the open and maybe having someone read it who can relate to these feelings is helpful.

On the inside, I am not the person that I talked about above. I am this eternal, free spirit who does not understand why any of the superficial things that I worry about even matter. Like I said before, life is about remembering who we truly are and letting go of the rest......

Peace and Love to y'all.

12 comments:

  1. I see you in that picture and think, what a beautiful woman - and then read your words and think - what a beautiful and SMART woman - that offers the world a lot of positives... she's hard working - organized - compassionate - dependable - and has beautiful children and grandchildren to boot. In short, she's someone so well-worth knowing.

    Funny you mention the boob thing... my brother and I were talking yesterday about a clinical trial that wanted healthy volunteers in the first (early) stages of testing - and 1/4 of the women in it had "breast augmentation" and I asked my brother, "I thought they had to be healthy in order to get into this study, any woman that thought she had to have *that* isn't healthy?"

    He nodded in agreement.

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  2. The media is especially hard on women. I wish the actresses and models would all form a union and tell them all to go to hell! But instead they do whatever is expected of them to keep working...if they have to starve themselves or have surgery or whatever. Not all of them, but the majority.

    You look gorgeous! I've been a couch potato, recluse for seven years and can't exercise. I wasn't thin to begin with. Now I'm fat. Been working at trying to forgive myself for that. Not easy.

    I also was with men who complained about what I looked like--and I look at pictures from back then and I looked just fine. Well, at least as big as I am now I won't have to worry about attracting some shallow guy like that again--ROFL!! ;) Yes, we all have insecurities. You are beautiful, Barb!! I've always thought that. Inside and out. :)

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  3. Good on you Barb. Are you a Star Trek fan? There is a wonderful speech by Leonard Nimoy about his photography and his opinion about the "beauty industry" which kicks butt. Search it out on YouTube if you are interested.

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  4. OMG, you are a beautiful soul. I don't know why, but I have not been to your page in a long time and I hate that as I love reading your posts. You and I have so many of the same beliefs.

    Thanks for sharing...

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  5. ♥...How can I not feel a connection...I am a crone of 52 years finally learning what it is to be me after an insane history chasing perfection...♥

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  6. People care too much about physical appearances, and it makes those of us who don't look like people think we should suffer for no good reason. If people didn't care so much about how everyone looks then we wouldn't feel so pressured to look "perfect" and wouldn't make ourselves suffer so in an effort to achieve that perfection.

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  7. Intense Guy: Thank your for the absolutely wonderful comment....or I should say compliment. Makes me feel a bit better.

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  8. Rita: (soul sister)Thank you once again. All the emails that we have sent back and forth have really helped. It is so good for me to talk to someone who can relate to what I am feeling and what I have gone through. Love you.

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  9. Anthony: Yes! I love Star Trek. I will check that out. Thanks.

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  10. Steph: I have not written on this blog for a very long time but have written on my other one occasionally. But then I deleted most of the old posts on the other one in order to erase my past with Russell.....did not work though.

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  11. Sacred Keep: I feel that connection also. There is no such thing as perfection and lets never chase after it again. We are who we are and we are amazing, strong women. I just need to remember that always.

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  12. Tori: You are one of the most amazing person I have ever met. While you may have lost your sight.....You are more *sighted* than most. I think you know what I mean.

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