self-esteem – Betsy Schow

in which we ramble about rambles

Hello all. It’s a New Year and time for a new format. New format you ask? As opposed to the crickets because you haven’t blogged in years? Yeah, shut it. This year I’m going to ramble. Rambles are good for the soul. A sort of free therapy if you will. I am not going to proof the rambles, so expect the grammar to be atrocious and for me to not give two fox about it. Free writing is what allows creativity to flow, to be uncensored.

I wrote the bulk of Spelled in just over a month, and it worked because I just ran free. I didn’t know you were supposed to hem and haw and try to write perfectly. After I became a “writer” I learned I was supposed to suffer over these words. That I needed to be right. To be great. Which made it so I didn’t write anything? Took me over a year to write Wanted, and I’ll be honest, the book suffers from incoherent spots because I was writing in staggering bits and pieces and couldn’t get me head in the game. I was too worried how to get a big idea on a little page.

Not only that, I had that trouble now talking to my writing peers and fans. I needed to say the right thing. To be interesting. Not to offend. Everything I said would be used against me. I would be compared even to myself, to what I said years ago.

Welcome to 2020 and I’m trying to just be me. Imperfect, evolving, and mostly crazy me. And I’m convinced there are a fair number of other people out there trying to hide the rolly lumpy bits and only show their best insta and social media selves to the world.

Screw it. Be you. Be weird. And quit worrying about people who don’t like you. Because if people only like the plastic version you show to the world, they don’t really like you anyway since you haven’t given them a chance to know the actual you.

Ok. Intro ramble over.

Cya next time

The Running of the Kindergartners

This morning I did another race… sort of. My daughter’s school had a fundraising 5K run. The younger kids, like my daughter, Lily, ran one mile.

One mile is a long way on short kindergartner legs. Though everyone charged out of the gates like bulls, within half a block, we noticed one of Lily’s little buddies falling behind. Last month, he had fallen off his bike or something. He said his back still hurt and he didn’t want to run. In fact, he just wanted to go home.
Lily volunteered us to walk with him, so the three of us kept trucking down the street, hand in hand. Inevitably, we moved to the back of the pack.

Since the fun run was at 10:00 am, not everyone’s mom could make it. I became the lonely straggler magnet, collecting the slow and left behind. At some point, I had gained charge of 6 kids, all holding hands across the width of the street.

At the half mile point, we were passed by the sixth graders on their second mile lap. One of my race buddies said he was sad because that meant he wasn’t going to win. Lily, my little Jr finisher, matter-of-factly explained that as long as we made it to the end, we would all win.

I darned near cried. It was one of the proudest moments I’ve had as a mother. This past year, I have worked so hard to instill the philosophy of finishing into my kids. I want them to have that firm foundation of self esteem that finishing brings. Not the wall of failures that I hid behind until I finally learned how to finish. Today is proof that my efforts are paying off. Lily corralled and encouraged our rag tag band of 5 and 6 year olds. At least until the finish line was in view, then the kids promptly took off at full speed to cross the flags.

There’s something magical about a finish line. I know that even after running miles and miles, that sight gives me new strength to run faster and push a little farther.

So teach your kids to look for those finish lines in everything they do. Encourage that can do attitude with the philosophy of finishing, “Not everyone can win the race, but everyone can finish”. Then they’ll never feel like losers as long as they never give up.

Full Body: Take the darn compliment

Allow me to take you to my Spanish class today. When I handed my teacher the homework, she commented that I had “really nice arms”. So what immediately pops out of my mouth? “Yeah if you like sausages.” To which the teacher responded, “You like sausages?” (she’s from Peru… lost in translation)

Point is, when someone offers me a compliment, I feel the need to add a little bit of self deprecating snark. Do you do this too? Why are we so ready to see the bad and flaws, yet so reticent to jump on the success train?

In my pysch class, forever and a day ago, I heard it takes 5 positive comments to balance one negative. If you have a little inner critic, complaining about body parts all day, is it any wonder the scale leans heavily on the negative?

So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to try to make a conscious effort to take the darn compliment. With no additives. And not just hear it and brush it off, saying the snarky little comment in my head. Internalize what the person is saying. Give the person’s opinion weight and validation.

Join with me in telling the little monkey in our heads to stop throwing poo. What’s that song? “Accentuate the positive… eliminate the negative…”

Dress for Success: Hand me down fat clothes

During my weight loss journey, I’ve tried not to be offended when my skinny friends offered the use of their pregnancy clothes as my waist shrunk. I know they meant well, but still. Here I’m losing weight and need smaller pants, and the ones that are going to fit are the ones you wore when you claimed to be the size of a whale. So when I wore their pants, I too felt like a whale too.

Recently, I had a different experience with it. One of my best friends and fitness mentor got married. The stress of the event caused her to shrink to practically nothing. When I was losing weight and taking her class, I always thought she was the tiniest and cutest thing I had ever seen. In my head I would say, If only I could get that skinny.

Flash forward to last weekend. She gave me a sackful of pants that no longer fit her. She’s like a size 0 now. (I try not to hate her on principle) When other friends had handed me their “big” clothes, I had mixed feelings about it. One hand smaller, yay! Other hand, you’re still wearing someone else’s hand me down fat clothes.

This time I was thinking my friend was on crack. She’s never been fat. Ever. These are not her fat pants, these are her not “stick thin” pants. These were the pants that my skinny little friend wore all while teaching my body blast classes. And I was sure that there was no way in hell that I was going to fit into them.

You might remember last Wednesday a little post called Mirror Image. If not, look it up. Anyway, I talked about having trouble seeing a difference in the mirror. Trying on her pants was a wake up call. I had admired my friend less than a year ago in these brown cords. The same ones that I had wrapped around my butt right now. That’s right, they actually fit.

The whole sackful of pants did, except the size 2, and those might fit on one leg.

I had been so sure that they couldn’t fit. Because that would mean I was roughly the same size as someone I thought looked hot, and I couldn’t see myself that way. But the proof is the sugar free pudding.

The stories behind the clothes we wear color our own perspective. If you’re wearing your once a month pants with the drawstring, chances are you feel like you look bloated, even if you’re don’t. Like most things in life, I think “sexy” starts somewhere inside. Looking back, I wish I had felt every bit as proud in my friend’s hand me down pregnant fat clothes. I was still getting smaller, still looking great. But the label I thought I was wearing prevented me from seeing it.

Mirror Image

I decided to hijack my own blog. I’m taking over Dress for Success. Why? Because it’s my blog and I can do what I want.

Really though, its because sometimes I want to share more of me and less of the how to. Sometimes I just want to have an honest discussion about something. And today’s discussion would be what I see when I stand in front of the mirror.

I see lumps and bumps and flaps of skin. Sags here, old stretch marks there. I see flaws that can be tucked, squished, or camouflaged by a well made pair of jeans. I’m absolutely positive that if anyone saw me in the buff, they would run screaming.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall, who’s the fairest of them all? I can say unequivocally that I have never once thought it was me. Not when I was fat, not now that I’m un-fat.

In the rational part of my head I know that I’m ok being exactly who I am. But the emotional part of my head feels differently. I’ve lost 75 pounds. My pant size has shrunk from 16/18 to 4/6. The evidence all points to the fact that I should be happy and ecstatic with how I look. And maybe half the time I am. But the other half, including in front of the mirror, I still wish I was different. There will always be something that can be smaller, tighter, and um… higher.

The problem is absolutely not with my body, it’s in my brain. And even though I have made great strides in my life, it takes a long time to overcome 30 years of bad self-imagery. I always had a number in my head. And if only I could reach that number on the scale, then I would be happy. Pretty.

In case you haven’t guessed, there is no magic number. How often have we heard celebrity stories of plastic surgery gone awry? They had something nipped or sculpted, hoping to feel better, but they are still the same person underneath. If we feel unworthy, it has a lot less to do with the outside, than what we are feeling on the inside. Even supermodels look in the mirror and cringe.

I don’t have the answer. I just wanted to share, because this is something that I still struggle with. And you know what, it’s ok to struggle. The word indicates a fight. I’m fighting to feel better about my body and myself as a person. It’s not a fight I’m going to win in the gym by toning up to 2% body fat. It will be a battle of wills to retrain the way I think about beauty and worth.

Today it starts with looking in the mirror and finding one thing I absolutely love. It’s my collarbone. I’m not going to let my eyes or thoughts wander any further down.

Baby steps. It’s a process.

Exercise for the Soul: Emotional Eating

My big fat waistline was a physical representation of an emotional issue. They were so inextricably linked, that I couldn’t solve one without the other.

I was happy– I needed cake to celebrate. Rough day– Ben and Jerry’s had a flavor custom made for the heart ache.

I personally had to take a good hard look as to why I was fat, and it wasn’t just because of a love of food.

Take a deep hard look at your eating habits and figure out if a love of butter is making you hefty. Or is it more that the self esteem issues are keeping you from getting thin?

Exercise for the Soul: Top 5

This is an exercise I really need for myself today. You can join along if you’d like.

List 5 things that you love about yourself. I’m going to be big and brave and post mine. I dare DARE you all to post yours in the comments section. Shout it out

1. Fuuny (or some people say snarky. either way)
2. Loyal
3. Open hearted
4. Kind (most of the time, unless there’s traffic)
5. great at problem solving

Aww. I just gave my self a big ol hug. Seriously though, it sounds cheesy, but I really do feel a bit better. A lot of time, we don’t hear enough good things about ourselves. Now it’s your turn…