Fat & Skinny are the Same

Even the skinny girls think they're fat.
Have you ever noticed that before?

It's maybe one of my pet peeves. Maybe not so much that they feel like that, but that they make comments in front of me (when I'm clearly larger than them) about how fat they are. Well, who am I kidding...it's annoying that they feel that way at all. Annoying because I want to shake them and say, 'THIS is not something YOU have to worry about...so stop it already.'  Because out of all the things in the world to be obsessed over, their invisible fat shouldn't be one of them. And I'm not sure how much they realize that when they call themselves fat, it makes me feel like they are calling me obese (even though they aren't and I'm obviously reading into the situation...).

I did have one skinny friend who was the opposite of this, actually. In fact, I caught her shopping in the maternity section on the day of her rehearsal dinner because she wanted clothing that wouldn't cling to her body in such a way that revealed her skinniness. It made me laugh and love her all the more.

It doesn't always work this way, though. The most beautiful girls tend to think they are ugly, the skinniest girls tend to think they're fat...and the ugly girls still think they're ugly and the fat girls still think they are fat. It's this universal problem that, surprisingly, we all seem to have in common, no matter what we look like.

I've tried to wrap my brain around it so many times. I've tried to wrap my brain around the fact that women seem to always come back to 2 huge issues: how we look and men. Why...? 

Why are we so obsessed with looking different than we do? Why are we so obsessed with seeing every small imperfection within us and instead of embracing it, we try to change it....or if we can't change it, we either hide it or beat ourselves up for it. Do we care about what our bodies look like because we care so much about men and we know that they care about what our bodies look like? Is that the deal?

It's rather exhausting, don't you think?
I wish I had some great advice to give you, but I think this is one of those times where I could spout off a bunch of truth and you'll take it worth a grain of salt because, while I may be able to identify with you, I don't know what's really going on with you in the specific place you're at in life. I don't know who has said what to you, I don't know whose standard you're trying to live up to, I don't know the ways you've been hurt or wounded, I don't know where you're finding your identity, I don't know what your expectations are of yourself or others. I don't know.

But, I do know that we're all involved in this viscous cycle of trying to desperately accept who we are as we were created to be while simultaneously longing to know we are beautiful, wanted, worthy and desirable. In our heads, no matter how much we hit them against the wall to try to knock it out, we believe that beauty means thin....and then a longer, more personalized list of things we accredit to the word. Until we achieve that, we aren't beautiful at all.

It doesn't matter how many people tell us something different, at the depth of our soul, we always come back to a place of despising how we look because it isn't what we wanted to look like. We are too often truly too unhappy with our appearance.

I guess my word to you is that no one else cares as much as you do. No one else notices...and even if they do, it doesn't prevent them from being your friend or not. If your eyes were bigger, your hair thicker, your hips slimmer, your stomach tighter, your legs longer, your boobs larger, your feet smaller, your face clearer...would it really change anything?

I think it only changes the way you feel about yourself...and I hate that the external changes are the things that bring a greater confidence within. Doesn't that seem backwards?

It's all stuff you've heard before: it's what's on the inside that matters, your beauty should not come from the external but from the internal...

At what point do we allow that truth to sink in? At what point do we focus more on the radical changes that need to happen within our hearts before we're ever worried or consumed by the external? Because, at least in my own life, the darkness within me is far uglier and more powerful than anything I look like on the outside.

I want to stop avoiding the internal because I'm too focused on the external.

So, I don't care if you're skinny, fat or something in the middle... I don't care if you're beautiful, ugly or plain and average. There is more on the line than how we look. We have to be willing to get over it, to move into the depths of our hearts, and allow ourselves to be changed there. We have to be willing to get over ourselves and see others who matter more than our diets, our make up, our hair-do... and live lives that truly matter.

What are you waiting for?

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