May 17, 2016 - Horizontal stripes

I’m tired of these comparison games. I’m over women not measuring up. I’m seriously over women making other women feel as though they don’t measure up. It happens in the work place. It happens at home. It happens in our minds. It happens in our words. And I for one am simply over it!

Who set the rule and standard that we have to make sure the person next to us feels less? Who set the example that we have to use everything in our arsenal to appear to be more? Certain people come to mind, trying to make waves for other women co-breathing their air and carefully planting a jab in the most vulnerable of soil to ensure the feeling of inadequacy grows. Often, the attack sits unsaid to the intended target and instead flutters across the proverbial acquaintance pool of whoever else happens to be in the room. I absolutely detest this gossip mill that circulates the misfortune of being a target. Are you a participator? Are you a propagator?....More importantly, am I?

I’d say at first response “I am not.” But immediately, I feel that lie down in the pit of my stomach, and I can do nothing less but accept my role in this perversion. While I desperately try to find the good in any person that crosses my path and truly do want to foster a safe environment lacking in judgement or gossip, I can at times fall prey to the bad behavior that may plague my day. It’s so easy to get caught up in the rip current of shaming. If she is a little less, and I make it known, doesn’t this in turn make me a little more? Mercy! It is a lie of eternal consequence! There are a hundred kind words said to me in a given year, yet it is that one unkind rumor said out loud that forever comes back to mind 20 years later. One single sentence can result in huge consequences. And one missed moment to provide kindness instead of judgment can set the tone for that relationship for years to come. Nothing hurts the heart more than making someone feel inadequate or indifferent and it is a dangerous seed to plant. But if we want to falsely assume that we play no role in the routine detriment and shaming of another person, I most certainly am to blame for the shaming of myself where the ramifications are equally eternal.

There’s rarely a week (day?) that goes by that I don’t find myself in a liturgical play-out of inadequacy. I walk into a room of women and immediately notice what I have or have not in comparison. I can count out loud the number of potential “moments” I miss because I am too embarrassed to partake. A hike with friends where I am afraid my performance won’t compete. A cool dip in the pool where I am all too aware of this thigh or that. A dinner skipped out on because of nothing to wear or a result of my pudginess being too pudgy that week.  How many spectacular moments never came about because we falsely believe the lie that we are less? Or better yet, what are we instilling into the people around us (or our children!) when we make these subtle statements of inadequacy. I distinctly remember a dinner invitation I missed out on with a group of friends because I was standing in my closet trying to make something work. Instead of throwing on the jeans and t-shirt and letting reality be reality, I chose to miss the dinner. This was years ago, but the impact remains. My thoughts of “not being enough” cultivated a lie and resulted in missed laughter, missed fellowship, missed everything (they had the absolute best time at dinner that night!). My choice spoke that my perceived appearance mattered more than their time and friendship. And spoke the subtle words to them that they need to have it all together in perfection too.

Are we teaching our children to choose the lies of self-inadequacy over the joys of simply living life and all it brings? But you say, Sally, my legs really are too skinny. To which I need to reply, too skinny to have joy? Are the size of your legs more important than every single other aspect of life? There are some things to which we can reply “God made me this way” and therefore we need to embrace and get on with living life. Then there are other things I need to say “Sally, I made myself made me this way”, and I either need to take action to change, or embrace as being what it is and getting on with enjoying life. But either way, there is a crucial and urgent moment for conscious choice to choose which it will be. Will I perpetuate this self-deprecation, or will I pick up my flubber, or skinny, or scars, or bra size and choose the path of joy? The best example I can be to myself, my friends, and my daughter (if I were to have one) would be to take everything I have and call it precious. For that is exactly what it is: Precious, the bumps, bruises, lumps and all. Every single day, our chosen spirit of being gracious and kind will over shadow any perception of physical or emotional inadequacy. Alternately, we choose to be remembered for our spirit of shaming of self or others.

Give yourself permission to not be perfect. Allow yourself the occasional mistake. Embrace the less than and focus on the fact that we are already enough. For we truly are that! Enough! Enough to be the daughter, wife, mother, sister, coworker, friend, disciple, patient, introverted extrovert that anyone else can be. Enough to throw on the pudgy dress in the closet and go to the dinner! Enough to bring a kind word to the person next to you letting them know they are enough as well. But it takes a purposeful approach to lose the thoughts of being less. Remove ourselves from the unkind words of others. Surround ourselves with women who not only get this, but live it. And if you don’t have any of those. You start the trend! We have to go above and beyond to actively praise the women around us. They aren’t perfect either, but there is no reason on this planet that we can’t make them feel like that are. We have to consciously drown out (and correct!) the negative words being said around us. We have to lead the way by purposely speaking out loud the complimentary thoughts that come to mind. We have to quit fertilizing our disastrous need to feel like more by making her feel like less. And then we need to soak our minds in reading the truth that we are enough. It takes a permanent reset! We may not be able to change our self-perceived “less than”, but gosh darn it, we need to take our dimply thighs to the beach and make some incredible memories! Show the women around us that we value friendship and uplifting sisterhood over inadequacy at every single turn. We need to stop losing out to our inadequacies and to quit perpetuating the lies. Our role is two-fold: It is our choice to love others, and equally our choice to love ourselves. And I need to start at ground zero. This week, I am putting on the dress with horizontal stripes. I'm starting with me.







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