“I am not ______ enough.” In last week’s post, I shared about a conversation that I had with a mentee about negative self-talk. Specifically, we discussed the ways my mentee did not feel “good enough”. In her TED Talk, Dr. Brené Brown calls this shame and says we all have experienced it in some way. I know I have.
We all have an “I am not ______ enough.” We just have to fill in the blank: “I am not tall enough”, “short enough”, “thin enough”, “smart enough”, “beautiful enough”, etc. For me, it was I am not thin enough.
For as long as I remember, my size was a source of conversation. As a child, my family affectionately called me a “butterball” because I weighed over 9 pounds at birth. When playing basketball, my teacher selected me to play center in junior high because I grew sooner than my classmates. Over and over, people said I was “big” for my age, but I wasn’t overweight yet.
Once, when shopping for bathing suits, my mother tried to get me to try on a bikini. Out of obedience, I did it, but I was uncomfortable the whole time. My mother didn’t understand. According to her, I was “big-boned,” not “fat.” There was no difference to me.
Either way, I wasn’t small and petite like my sisters, cousins, and friends. I felt fat and thought I looked fat. With that self-talk, it wasn’t long before perception became reality. In high school, I gained weight. In an effort to help, my father told me, “Men don’t like fat girls.” I was crushed. Not only was I big, now I was undesirable too. An emotional eater, I gained more weight. It was a big self-fulfilling cycle. The more I thought I was fat; the fatter I became.
“People often say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder.”
Salma Hayak
What finally led to my breakthrough was an article in a women’s magazine that said men weren’t nearly as hung up on how women’s bodies looked as women think they are. That got me thinking. When I looked back over my life, there were always men around who seemed to find me attractive regardless of my size. Don’t get me wrong. Not every man did, not by a long shot, but some did. Eventually, I came to realize that, yes, some men don’t like fat girls, but some do.
Some men prefer blondes, but not all. Some prefer redheads and some brunettes. As the old adage says, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” So, when men who found me attractive told me so, I began to believe them. I also stopped allowing other people, especially those who didn’t appreciate me, to define me or my beauty.
Now, regardless of my current weight, if a man doesn’t find me attractive, I just chalk it up to preference. Everybody has a preference. It doesn’t make the other options ugly. I prefer dark-haired men. It doesn’t make Brad Pitt and Sam Heughan ugly—far from it.
So, when my mentee told me what her “I am not ______ enough” was, I shared my story with her. I told her she was beautiful and that plenty of men agreed with me. My mentee smiled and had to agree. Something in her thinking shifted. She couldn’t fault my logic about preferences and beauty being in the eye of the beholder.
The most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. ~Salma Hayak Share on XI share this with you in hopes that if you struggle with “I am not ______ enough” that you would rethink that thought. You are beautiful. You are good enough. In fact, you simply are enough.
Questions:
- How has your self-talk impacted your body image for the better or worse?
- How has the media and/or other people defined beauty for you?
