BlogHer - Letter To My Body - Comments

Daily inspiration from heroes

kaira — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:28:32 -0500

Jean- Thanks for sharing. I found your blog and loved it. Thats so great that you share so many uplifting stories. I look forward to reading more :)

Kaira Author, Real You Incorporated: 8 Essentials for Women Entrepreneurs www.RealYouIncorporated.com

I change my hero everyday

Jean Philippe — Fri, 29 May 2009 03:45:03 -0500

I really do change everyday :)

Kaira, I like when you say that heroes don't need to be celebrities. There are so many inspiring people that I cannot stick with one. But the added advantage is that I get renewed inspiration everyday!

(and by the way, they are all on my blog)

I know the feeling!

KrisP — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:15:19 -0500

Wow....our stories sound sooooo similar! I got the whole 'beanpole' nickname too! I'm like 5'8" and there were times that I weighed just over 100 lbs... By the time I met my husband I had gained some weight and I was up to around 155....I now weigh 228 lbs....and that's after losing the 10 lbs. I gained throughout this last pregnancy over the last two weeks! And the whole belly jiggle thing....yeah....I'm feeling you on that one!! Somehow through it all my husband still finds me attractive, but I'm having to learn to be comfortable with my own body all over again....because in the end, even what he thinks doesn't count if I don't believe it myself!! Now I'm writing a book in your comments lol...which, btw....I don't mind....I'm just happy to have people who aren't family reading it lol!

http://www.yesiknowwhatcausesthat.blogspot.com

It doesn't stop with you...guess who is listening?

mamaVISION — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:11:32 -0500

You know what the scariest part of this is?

It doesn't stop with us. It all pours directly down to our daughters, our nieces, and the other young women in our lives. But somehow we go on believing - "no, I am a good role model! My daughter/niece is not impacted by my self hate."

Yeah right.

I've been blogging on this very topic for over 3 years now, I am 39 mother of two, while my blog community is 40% 13-19/40% 20-29 and guess what the are all SHOUTING?

My Mom always weighed herself and groaned when she saw the number on the scale.

My Grandma would tell me to watch the sweets so I didn't get fat like her.

My father called me fat and I never, ever forgot it.

Many of these girls go on to disordered eating due to these negative body image/ self image thoughts we pass on to them.

I'd like to see more blogging women and mothers start to unite on this cause. We choose to read magazines, we choose to watch media that makes us feel crappy, we chooseto weigh ourselves every morning. All choices that can be changed in a heartbeat.

So after three years do I feel like there are more women behind me?

Absolutely not.

Instead, I have found the young women are listening. They are rejecting poor role models and finding positive ones. They are stopping this nightmare before it starts. And for that I am very proud.

Thanks for bringing up this topic! As you can see it is close to my heart.

-mamaV

mamaVISION.com

youtube.com/mamavision

mamavision@gmail.com

Your life is now.

Absolutely

mashadutoit — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 01:56:13 -0500

@ the ambershow -

I agree with you ...did I come accross as saying that "whipping yourself" is a successful strategy? I wrote:

"Maybe we reserve those harsh words for ourselves in order to act as a
spur to become better. Except that, of course, it really does not work."

The reason I pointed it out is because I think that women who do this (like me) dont recognise hemselves in the descriptions of women running themsleves down.

Yes, Reasonable Self-Perception is Important, BUT!...

theambershow — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:16:05 -0500

Thank you for quoting me! I'm honored.

In regards the "whip yourself to succeed" sentiment comments: being unkind to yourself isn't good. Period. Sure you can call yourself a fat cow over and over again and loose sixty pounds, and the world will say you have been successful. However, you've done damage to your sense of self, that is, ultimately, so much more unhealthy than carrying around extra weight. I'd rather be fat!

Better yet, I'd rather LEARN how to view myself critically (i.e. "I need to loose x amount of pounds to be healthy") and use postive force to improve myself. it's not second nature to everyone (probably most of us), but it's a skill worth seeking out. You'll never convince me that a woman constantly berating herself can't succeed any other way.

TheAmberShow.net

Competitive baring of tits and other oddities

Nordette — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:20:58 -0500

Kelly, where are these women baring their tits blogs? Wait, I don't really want to know where but I would like to know the motivation behind it. Or are you speaking of the naked teen girls sexting issue? Psychologists think that may be the result of girls feeling that they can only keep boyfriends if they escalate sexual drama to that of porn stars, which may be a little different from why an older woman might choose to show her real breasts on a blog to protest airbrushed breasts in magazines.

I'm kidding with that former paragraph because I suspect you mean flashing tits as entertainment in general and since I'm down here in New Orleans where women have been flashing boobs/breasts to catch beads at Mardis Gras for decades (the tourists mostly) I don't see body exposure for attention as Internet exclusive.

Whatever the reason behind the baring of tits and other overshares online, I see why a parents would be concerned a daughter's perception. Let's hope by the time your daughter stumbles across our varying degrees of insanity and introspection for outer examination, she has a sense of her own womanhood.

OH, yeah. We're all on a diet before BlogHer Conf, right? I know it must be an epidemic and it's something women do before major events--must lose weight before the wedding, before the reunion, before my child's graduation. I'm thinking also now of Oprah, the Queen of Self-Esteem promotion, who was hiding herself from her readers on the cover of her own magazine because she didn't like how she looked, not to mention reports that women measure their happiness by their dress size.

I agree with you that this brave new world of Net madness has added to our folly and self-flogging, including our feeling inadequate as we compete for blog taffic, but it still goes back to taking ourselves on healthier terms not on others terms and realizing that the people in our lives who mean the most to us are rarely as critical of us as we can be of ourselves, with the exception of our mothers, maybe. :-)

Like anything else regarding changing the world--if we really want to change the world we start by changing ourselves, our attitudes, perspectives, and actions. I know, I know, easier said than done.

Thank you for provocative input.

Nordette: BlogHer CE. Blogs @ WSATA & UMBOP. @Twitter

I'd love to talk with other

conversemomma — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:40:07 -0500

I'd love to talk with other women honestly about how blogging plays a role in all of this. How many women probably started a diet the moment they registered for Blogher? I know I did. Do you think male bloggers worry about wearing the right shoes to their conferences?

I think it is cyclic, society tells us to sit quiet, thin, and pretty, we condem ourselves when we don't fit, we lash out at others to make ourselves feel better. And, now we are doing it in the public arena of the blogworld.

I worry that my daughter will one day stumble upon the mommywars, the blogging wars, the competition, the arguments, the flashing of one's tits as entertainment, or the flogging of one's self for comment draw, and this will be her definiton of what we are.

I don't want that, but as I struggle with it internally, I'm not sure I know how to effect great change.

Peace,
Kelly (conversemomma)

http://www.ordinaryartblog.com

LOL

Nordette — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:30:17 -0500

"honey, when you are my age you will look back and feel like you were juicy then. so why not start now and enjoy that opinion for longer?"

Good advice. :-)

Nordette: BlogHer CE. Blogs @ WSATA & UMBOP. @Twitter

Glad to have your input

Nordette — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:28:13 -0500

I liked what you said when you dropped by my blog, and I like your reflections on Lent.

Toasting your journey. :-)

Nordette: BlogHer CE. Blogs @ WSATA & UMBOP. @Twitter

To say we harm ourselves does not mean no one else harms us

Nordette — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:26:53 -0500

True and certainly lots of books have been written to make that point, but you can switch the media off. Getting crap out of your own head is more difficult. And women were taught to please others and worry about what others think of them long before we had TV, radio, or the net.

To say we do harm to ourselves is not to say others aren't gunning for us as well, btw.

You take the power from external voices by knowing who you are on your own terms.

But you've made an important point because we need to be more aware of these external voices that we give power. Thank you.

Nordette: BlogHer CE. Blogs @ WSATA & UMBOP. @Twitter

I know people like this of both genders

Nordette — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:25:59 -0500

It's like a twisted version of no pain no gain. "I've got to kick myself until I bleed for the sake of betterment." It's the drill sergeant's voice.

When dealing with weight loss issues we do this to ourselves, accepting the false belief that if you pick on the fat kid long enough she'll wake up and realize she needs to pull of the pounds. Usually it only leads to the person feeling badly and looking for comfort in more food and isolating herself or himself. While it can work with an actual trainer who stands beside you, I think when we do it to ourselves long-term we fall into a pattern that's hard to dissolve.

This kind of psychic flagellation should not be confused with reasonable self-assessment in which we recognize our own culpability in our lives and how we can do better.

Thank you for your comments. You've made an important point.

Nordette: BlogHer CE. Blogs @ WSATA & UMBOP. @Twitter

Responsibility of Older Women to Younger Women

LPC — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:09:02 -0500

I think about this a lot. When I was a young woman, I fit pretty neatly into the category of a "good figure". Now I am in my 50's, and well, I'm in my 50's. But I am infinitely fonder of my "figure" now than I was then. I have made it sort of a crusade. Any time I hear a younger woman bemoaning her "figure", I tell her, "honey, when you are my age you will look back and feel like you were juicy then. so why not start now and enjoy that opinion for longer?"

http://amidlifeofprivilege.blogspot.com

The media

Vered — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:32:39 -0500

“The older I get, the more I realize that much of our discontent is not about others and what they do or have done to us, but what we do to and think about ourselves.”

I disagree. I think the media plays a huge role in making women feel bad about how they look.

----

A Mommy Blogger and a Blogger For Hire

No One can hurt me like I can.

Lovebabz — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:13:14 -0500

Nordette,

This post is so on point! and thanks for the reference. I totally agree with Mashadutoit. I have seen women work themselves up into a frenzy trying to achieve. Believe if they stop for a minute to catch their breath they will fall behind or fail.

We as women are too focused on how we look to the world. We have adopted the world's critical view of who we should be and how we should look. We are never thin enough, smart enough, coy enough, sexy enough. We are never enough.

I am blogging my life to bring peace and clarity to myself. I am learning to accept the what is as I move toward taking care of myself in a loving way.

There is so much more to say on this. Women have got to do more talking and less criticising.

Be loving & Be in LOVE