Bipolar Thoughts= Women

Today I remembered a conversation a few of my counselors were having at the beginning of the summer. It was a terribly disjointed conversation as they attempted to accomplish a group development piece together. So, in between long silences and trying to achieve their goal, I only caught bits and pieces of what was actually being said.

Here's what I recall:

Guy: (rather incredulously) Wait, you mean that a girl wakes up one morning and thinks that she looks good...but then the next morning she wakes up and suddenly thinks that she's fat and ugly?!
Girl: Yeah! ...Guys don't do that?
Guy: No... 

It was a hilarious conversation to eavesdrop on as more and more girls chimed in, trying to get the males in the group to understand their thought process. It was a lost cause. As more people became involved in the discussion, there was a resounding agreement that men feel pretty consistently the same about themselves each morning and think it's ludicrous that a woman will change how she feels about herself on a day-to-day basis.

And we wonder why we struggle to communicate between genders...

It's pretty crazy, though. As a woman, I could definitely identify with this day-to-day struggle. Shoot, I might even admit that it's a 'within-each-day' struggle as I leave my house feeling pretty fly, go to work, catch a glimpse of myself in a different mirror and realize how atrocious I actually look. It was actually quite surprising to hear the echo of men who don't have that happen to them. I probably thought it was this natural thing we all dealt with. Turns out it might just be more of a female thing...

Interesting.
So while I can laugh at this conversation and how/when it all transpired, I don't want to downplay the severity of what this really means for us women.

It means we're crazy. Seriously.
Think about it.

Between yesterday and today what changed about you? Between today and tomorrow what will change about you? How much of the things that you see in the mirror are actually things that we're making up in our heads?

I bet you didn't gain 10 pounds overnight. I bet you didn't develop giant bags underneath your eyes in a few hours (unless you cried and cried and cried- and even then, it's temporary). I bet your hair doesn't really look as different as you might think. I bet that zit isn't as red, those wrinkles aren't any more noticeable, those gray hairs don't stick out more than they did yesterday.

So why do we operate within that mentality? Why do we allow for those to be the things that dictate how we feel about ourselves? Why does it even matter?

I'd like to challenge us all to step into the truth about who we are, versus the roller coaster of emotions that typically determine our view of ourselves. And while we can talk a ton about inner beauty and depth within, I also think there's a certain level of necessity to being okay with who we are on the outside... a certain healthiness that comes with even liking what we look like and how we are created.

Instead of allowing ourselves to wallow in self-pity because we're convinced we became obese overnight, I want us to walk freely into what reality and truth tell us. Or, be willing to own up to the fact that sometimes you might have a bad hair day and it doesn't define how anyone else views you, let alone how you should see yourself.

Reality? You (unless you did something extreme to your appearance) probably look exactly the same as you did yesterday. Truth? You are infinitely more than your external appearance.

Claim it.
And so even if I don't have the solution to not even having the ridiculous change of thoughts/emotions on a day-to-day basis...I think there's a lot to learn as we seek to choose to believe truth even when our emotions are telling us something completely opposite.

I pray that today you would be content with what you look like--that you wouldn't be consumed by it...and that you would move on to something deeper and more meaningful. Someone will be much more turned off by your heart than they will your perfect curls if you've spent the majority of your life only trying to perfect the outside.

So regardless of if your opinion of how you look changes on that day-to-day basis... I urge you to walk steady, being the consistent woman of love and integrity that you desire to be.

Because that matters.
That's what changes lives.

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