Love Thyself

As we all know, a key part of dating is about attractiveness.  How we feel about ourselves and our bodies, the confidence we draw (or don't draw) from how we appear, and what we think our partners are looking for all impacts our relationships.  I am inviting you to an honest conversation on body image...and I'll even go first.

Like most women, I struggle with how I look.  I am constantly judging myself: sneaking glimpses in window reflections, measuring myself against women on television, and spending excess time in the bathroom examining my pores.  I have a ballerina's build that has stuck with me even though I haven't danced since I was in college: a small bustline and muscular legs that NEVER fit quite right into skinny jeans.  My figure is boyishly straight.  I have hazel-green eyes, pale skin, and dark chocolate brown hair.  I'm an all-American mutt--a true mix of western European ancestry with no distinguishing characteristics.  

By contrast, my best friend is curvy in all the right places.  She's about 5'6" tall, with a perfect hourglass figure and thin legs.  Her American Indian heritage is beautifully captured in her long black hair, soft olive skin, and deep brown eyes.  Without a doubt, she is exotic.

In spite of this, I can easily remember a dozen times in the last few months when we would trash ourselves and complain about various aspects of our bodies.  We're constantly "on a diet"--a condition shared by a majority of women.  One British study found that women spend 31 years of their lives on a diet, compared to 28 years for men.  Each diet lasted just five and a half weeks.  

While I'm not advocating we just abandon trying to get healthy, I do have to wonder if all this "dieting" is good for us--physically and emotionally?  

I was watching tv this morning and it seemed like every other commercial was an advertisement for a health-related product: probiotics, weight-loss supplements, cleanses...the list goes on.  While I conscientiously avoid fashion magazines to avoid feeling like I have to compare myself to waif-thin models, I feel barraged by the media and ad moguls reminding me about diets.  Am I supposed to be on a diet? I wonder anxiously.  Am I healthy enough?  Maybe I can diet away these tree-trunk legs...

The truth is, my weight is fine.  My body mass index is fine.  I could tone up a little more, but the reality is that most of us fall into that category.  The bottom line is that we are exposed to this culture of dieting not only because America, in general terms, has an obesity problem, but also because there's considerable money to be made from it.  Did you know that Americans spend $40 million each year on diet-related products?  And yet the obesity rate has been climbing steadily since the mid-1980's.  On the other end of the spectrum, an estimated 8 million Americans suffer from an eating disorder, with almost 90% of them women.  Treatment for eating disorders can range from $500-$2000 per day.  What if we saved our dollars...and just stopped the war on our bodies and self-esteem?

And why do we try so hard to be so thin?  Arguably, it's not as much for the health of our bodies as it is an attempt to find social acceptance, especially from the opposite sex.  Women truly believe that men are more attracted to very thin women.

To that end, an article in Psychology Today magazine presents a compelling discussion on what men actually find attractive.  According to the piece, co-written by two medical doctors who have studied why women need body fat, men actually don't find ultra-thin women more attractive.  They cite the fact that the average Playboy model is 5'6" and 115 pounds, with a BMI between 18-19.  While that may seem light, compare it to the average fashion model that has a BMI of 17.1, while almost half of all models have a BMI under 17--grossly underweight according to the Centers for Disease Control.  If men were attracted to extremely thin women, wouldn't Playboy magazine capitalize on that?

Dove Beauty Campaign recently published a video wherein seven women described themselves to FBI sketch artist Gil Zamora.  A second sketch was then compiled by the sketch artist, but this time as described by a stranger who had spent time earlier in the day with the women.  The two sketches produced marked differences and underscored the point that, as Dove says, "you're more beautiful than you think."  Watch the video here.

So the next time you're standing in front of the bathroom mirror practicing sucking in your stomach (c'mon, I'm not the only one who does that!)...maybe just cut yourself a small break.  Just once.  And then think about how much better it feels to love yourself than to hate some perceived "flaws."  Because what you think might not be the way others see you.  Only 4% of women in this world consider themselves beautiful.  I personally KNOW that more than 4% of the people that I see are beautiful.  

Including you.

feedback always welcome!

leahc168@gmail.com

Invasive Species

Last night was ladies' night out.  You know the kind: we get all dolled up in too much makeup and too high of heels to head out on the town to taunt men, with the rule being that we all leave the bar together.  Always a good time...unless you're a guy trying to break into that circle....sorry, guys...

Around midnight, we descended on a St. Paul hot spot called Wild Onion.  As the girls headed out to the dance floor, I hung back to survey the crowd.  Within two minutes, the Creepazoid was at my side.

"Hi!  I'm Eric." (Or is it Erik? Or Erick? Erich?  I didn't ask.)

I stared blankly at him.  Who was this creature?  Was I in a 1996 time-warp?  He wore a plain blue v-neck t-shirt that was two sizes too small, a heavy silver chain necklace, and gel-spiked hair.  

"I love Spice Girls!  Let's go dance!" he yelled in my ear.  What guy says that?!  For that matter, what girl in a post-Y2K world would say that?!  It should also be noted that he was quick to tell me that he was sober--doesn't drink--and that he was there alone.  Red flag!  Red flag!

Before I knew it, I was on the dance floor, trying mightily to keep a healthy distance between me and the Creepazoid.  I quickly located my gal pals and gave them the pleading "help-me-out-here" eyes.  They laughed at my misfortune and we tried to make our escape from the him.

Unfortunately, it wasn't that easy.  When we found a table to sit at, he squeezed right in next to me in the booth. He was not to be deterred by our girl talk or blatant texting to each other about his obnoxious behavior. To quote Vince Vaughn's character in "Wedding Crashers"...we had a Stage Five Clinger.  As other guys came up to try to talk to us, he brushed them off and whispered to me that they were "number two" to him.  To say I was horrified is to put it mildly. 

Anyone who knows me at all knows that I HATE being a possession.  Being owned.  Being caged.  It makes my innards queasy.  And it made me think: what is the right amount of "possession" in a relationship?  Where do we draw the line between "we" and "I"?

Earlier in the day yesterday, I had coffee with a dear friend who is in the beginning stages of divorce.  As we talked about our failed marriages, we found that we had both struggled with how much of ourselves to turn over to our partners.  At the beginning my marriage, I neglected my friends and my personal needs in order to be with him, (wrongly) thinking that doing so would make our relationship stronger.  But instead, I lost sight of who I was and what I needed, which was a contributing factor to the failure of the marriage.  

An article in Psychology Today discusses this very issue, and urges partners to find ways to communicate regarding personal space needs.  Failure to communicate the needs can foster a breeding ground for "negative feelings: rejection, insecurity, jealousy, mistrust, and resentment."  When one partner moves away without telling the other what (s)he's up to, even when the motives are pure, it can cause a rift in the relationship.  Talking about space needs before it becomes an issue can head off a potential storm.

"Space" is a multi-faceted thing--it comes in many forms.  There's emotional space, physical space, and even spiritual space.  A failure to provide enough room in one of these areas will likely result in the partner taking space in another form.  Dr Vondie Lozano, a California marriage and family therapist, stated in a Wall Street Journal piece on relationships that "if you don't give them their physical space, they will take emotional space."  

But when we do give our partners what they need, our relationship is much more likely to thrive.  In romantic relationships, we seek to give comfort and increase happiness for the person that we're with.  That may come in the form of a good meal, a sweet note, or a thoughtful gift.  What if the best gift you can give your partner is the gift of personal space?  

Don't make your partner resort to this:

As always...feedback welcome!

leahc168@gmail.com

The State of our Family State

American marriages are in crisis.  And no, I don't mean because of gays.  Hell, if gays want in on this broken institution, they should be more than welcome to it.  If "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" is any indicator, maybe gay marriage could even improve things!

But I digress.  Back to boring old heterosexual marriage.  The "traditional" kind--a dad, mom, two kids, a dog, an SUV, and a sprawling suburban home.

Once upon a time, I had all that.   We were living the American dream...but it was a nightmare.  He worked a lot to make sure we could afford it all and I was over-stressed between upstarting a career and primary responsibility for the kids, who were both under age 5.  Daycare expenses were eating us alive (as they are for a majority of Americans, especially in our area), home ownership was a chore, and our jobs had us working opposite shifts.  We spent very little time together as a couple.

Not surprisingly, the bubble burst and we divorced before our tenth wedding anniversary.  While the reasons for our divorce are far more complex than I will outline here, suffice to say that the circumstances outlined above were all contributing factors to our failure.

And we're not alone.  In fact, a plurality of marriages in the United States these days are like ours was: stressed over money, work, and children.  Despite societal and technological advances that allow us to work from home, wash clothes in half the time that our grandparents did, and prepare pre-cooked food in microwaves, Americans still report being unhappy.  Why?

A major reason can be found in the way we spend our time.  A longitudinal study over four decades by three sociologists from University of Maryland (College Park) found that my generation's mothers report spending more time providing structured parenting than our moms did--this, in spite of increased hours spent outside the home working.  The trade-off?  Leisure time and interpersonal relationships such as spouses and friends. In order to achieve that "perfect" work-life balance, in other words, women are foregoing their own needs (and the needs of extended family, friends, and husbands) in favor of work and child-rearing.

Why does it take so much more time to be a parent in the 21st century?  One reason lies in the rise of "helicopter parenting" so called for its comparison to hovering, in this case over children.  It requires a great deal of time and energy to hover over a child's homework, TV selections, internet time, sports, and personal lives.  Bear in mind that helicopter parenting goes beyond normal levels of childcare: in its extreme, it's found in parents who do their children's homework, call their college students to remind them to get up for class each day, or berate a coach for not selecting their child for the varsity team.  As sociology professor Margaret K. Nelson of Middlebury College writes in a Washington Post opinion piece, this style of parenting is "is not just exhaustive; it sounds exhausting."  She continues: "Working a demanding job while paying painstaking attention to one's children leaves little time for maintaining a marriage."

But this rise in Intense Parenting also gives a socially-acceptable excuse to couples who may want to get divorced but remain married, for any number of real reasons.  "We're staying together for the kids," I hear over and over again.  After all, who could argue with a parent who chooses their children's well-being over their own happiness?  As if I could say to them, "Awww...to heck with the kids!  What about YOU?"  I'm pretty sure that response would be unappreciated.

Unfortunately for those unhappy couples that employ this reasoning, social science research has posted results to the contrary: unhappy parents do not raise happy children.  In fact, one study of 1400 families found that over 75% of the children of divorced parents were just as well-adjusted as their counterparts from non-divorced parents.  The author of this study, E. Mavis Hetherington, a developmental psychologist, notes that it is "very bad" for children "if [they] are in marriages with parents who are contemptuous of each other, not even with overt conflict, but just sneering and subtle putdowns that erode the partner's self-esteem."

So while divorce should be the last resort for a couple, those of us that have experienced it and worry about our children's well-being can perhaps find a bit of peace of mind in Dr. Hetherington's research.  The "staying for the kids"-mentality can actually have a less positive outcome than we once believed.  It's important to note, however, that well-adjusted post-divorce children don't just happen.  When we divorce, we owe it to our kids to ensure that they have the emotional and psychological tools to handle this major life disruption.  But the act of the divorce alone does not have an innate ability to ruin the lives of children.


Families are complex creations, but that is what makes them beautiful.  Love exists in all familial forms: single parents, married parents, gay parents, childless couples.  Far be it from any one of us to judge another's choices or lifestyle; rather, we can only do our best to extend a helping hand when one is needed. 

A family isn't the presence or absence of a partner, children, a pet, a car, or any tangible item.  A family is defined by love.

As always:

Thoughts/comments/ideas/rebuttal welcome: leahc168@gmail.com

Spring Clean Your Heart

Spring has sprung!!  .....Or so I'm told, from people who have been to warmer parts of the United States.  Here in the Midwest, it's been lingering at a bone-chilling 40 degrees, although I will say that the sun is stronger and stays out longer.  Still, I'm ready for green grass and daffodils.

There are lots of reasons to love springtime, not the least of which is that glorious day of the year when you can pack up the parkas, clean the house, and throw the window open to let clean, fresh air in.  As we transition from dark winter to bright summer, we look at all aspects of our lives to ready ourselves for the new season.  Diets clean up as we get ourselves beach-body ready, calendars lighten up as we make time for gardening and lawn care, and we reconnect with neighbors not seen since before the first snowfall.

As I was cleaning out my kids' room today, I got to thinking that this ritualistic seasonal activity should apply to more than just our diets, calendars, and closets.  What about our hearts?  What are we doing to prep the field so that love can grow?

I spent my 20's living in a small town in western Wisconsin.  Every spring, I saw the farm fields that surrounded our community turn from dusty, dry brown to rich, dark black after the farmers turned the soil to prepare for planting.  The seeds, laid in neat rows for miles on end, held so much hope for the future.  The right summertime conditions of warmth, rain, and nourishment yielded a bountiful fall harvest.  If the soil was bad or the rain didn't come, the seeds were stunted or perhaps failed to sprout at all.

Like those acres and acres of Wisconsin farmland, our hearts are the fertile soil in which we must sow seeds of love.  If the space in our heart is tainted with fear, hurt, sorrow, or impatience, the seeds have no chance of growing.  They will die without ever having seen sunlight.  But if we offer our hearts a bit of peace and provide room for knowledge and growth, our seeds have a much better chance of realizing themselves.

As there were varieties of crops on those vast Wisconsin fields, there are varieties of love as well.  If we plant romantic love and have not seeds of self-love already in the ground, romantic love will surely result in failure.  Promises made to a partner are meaningless if we fail to know what lies within our souls.  Discovering the habits of our hearts are the very key to unlocking our ability to fully experience love.  If we don't know ourselves, we will never have the capacity to understand another person.

So ask yourself a few questions as you ready your heart to find love, keep love, or expand the love you already have.  Turn these thoughts over in your head, as a farmer turns his fields:

• What circumstances do I need in order to be happy?  
• In what activities do I find joy?
• What can I offer to my partner?
• Am I communicating effectively?  Does my partner know these things about me?

Answering these questions will be like pouring sunlight on your heart.