Do you ever have those moments or days or weeks or seasons when you just don’t like yourself very much?
Yeah, me too.
It’s not that I really struggle with feeling like a bad person or with guilt or like I’m a horrid wife/mama/friend. I mean, sure, I can always grow in each of life arenas, but that’s not the thing(s) about myself that I have a hard time being ok with generally.
The thing I can have a hard time with accepting about myself is…how I look.
You know those moments when you catch a wrong glance of yourself in the mirror or in the reverse camera view on a phone (goodness me that reverse cam! i’m convinced even the most gorgeous-ess of people couldn’t look normal in the reverse camera view on a phone, hehe) or when you’re in the dressing room and those mirrors and harsh lights just aren’t doing anything remotely good for your appearance and it makes you want to just throw down the clothes in frustration and walk out because what’s the point anyway and when your husband tells you that you are beautiful or look pretty and inside you feel like laughing and crying because it just feels so awfully untrue but yet you want it to be true…?
I really hope that you don’t know those moments at all. But I do, and I wish I didn’t. I wish I could always always always at every moment like myself completely. All of me. All of perfectly imperfect me. Maybe that’s a tall order in today’s world full of impossible standards and perfection driven appearance…but it’s my wish. Some days I feel pretty great, and I like those days. Sometimes I have an entire week when I don’t give unnecessary thought and emotions to not liking something about myself and those are good times! And I believe that one day those days and weeks will just last and last, and the inevitable lies that show up and tell me that I’m not good enough, perfect enough, beautiful enough will be distant memories. Yes, one day.
Lately I’ve been in a negative funk about myself, but I’m pulling myself out of it thank-you-very-much. It’s not so much that I’m having a hard time with my postpartum body, even though some things are squishier and bigger and just different all around. My little girl is worth all the squishiness in the world, and I would never ever ever trade her for the sake of having any part of my old self back. It’s really my whole issue with perfectionism that drives me to negativity, and that issue has been around far longer than the last ten months of pregnancy and postpartum-ness.
But like I said, I’m pulling myself out of my funk, choosing grace over perfectionism. I listened to this message again, and every word of it was so convicting and challenging to my heart. I have this quote from that sermon on my nightstand to remind me every day: Comparison and perfectionism brutalize a woman’s soul, and takes what is lovely and makes it reek of death. That literally pretty much sums it all up, right? Because when I’m in that funk of comparison and perfectionism, there is very little that is lovely about my life.
When I take anything about myself and compare it to someone else, I will always always always lose my own loveliness, my own beauty, my own self. It’s not that who I am is anything so super special…but who I am was created by God and that reason alone is enough to fight against the negative self-talk, the lies, the standards, and the idea that beautiful can be defined.
What about you: do you find yourself falling prey to the trap of comparing something or anything or everything about yourself to someone else? What are your tips in overcoming the comparison trap?
I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Some similar reading from the archives:
The One Thing That Keeps Me From Feeling Beautiful
The Thing I Crave
How To Feel Beautiful
What Makes a Woman Beautiful
