Healthy Body Image: Acceptance isn’t always positivity

The trend in advertising and social media toward healthier body images for women is, by and large, a very good thing. Ads for Dove soap and many other companies are showing women with a variety of body shapes and sizes and celebrate beauty with a wider range of diversity-these are all good things. But in this new push toward healthy body image I have noticed a subtle shift toward body positivity, which is not the same.

While I am certain many, if not most, of the poor body images women have dealt with over the years originated in rigid standards for beauty and shape that were unrealistic for the average woman to achieve, I do not think the solution is the converse: like every part of your body and embrace yourself “as is” even if parts of you actually need attention and care to be healthier.

What is the difference between healthy body image and body positivity?

Body positivity says: I must like all parts of my body and see every aspect of it as beautiful and affirm all parts as good. To critique or aim to improve any aspect of my visible physical self is a rejection of my body as being good. For anyone else to imply there could be greater health or wellness through change to my body, is a negative stance toward my body.

Healthy body image says: I accept myself for who I am- flaws and weaknesses, strengths and beauty; I like who I am and I value the body God gave me as a part of me: I do not have to like every single thing about my body (size, shape, tone, structure, features, strength, abilities etc) to accept and appreciate it and I can work to improve specific areas that are uncomfortable or unhealthy while enjoying myself at the same time.

When my children were young, there were many traits I experienced as adorable, delightful and fun. Their sense of humor, curiosity, laughter, snuggles and inquisitive minds provided a consistent source of joy for me as their mother. At the same time, their whining, bickering and disobedience were a regular source of frustration and angst. So, as any loving parents does, I praised them for the good and worked to discipline and train them in areas they needed to improve. What I did not do was relabel those traits as good, pleasant or enjoyable because they weren’t. While common and understandable based on their ages and development, those traits still needed to improve, change and mature for my children to become the fully functioning adults they are now. (I am happy to let you know, bickering eventually ends!) Just because I was not always positive about my children does not mean I did not accept, value or love them. I was realistically accepting- which allowed my perspective to contain positive and negative views while still loving my children.

The biggest danger of body positivity as a blanket perspective is not giving yourself the freedom to be realistic about health and wellness. Sometimes we do need to lose weight, gain strength or increase our cardiovascular fitness to be the most functional healthy version of ourselves. Between you and your doctor these can be good conversations in caring for your body well as you age. Other times we need the permission to try a new hairstyle, wear make up differently than we used to or learn to style our clothing in a way that gives us a confidence boost- without feeling we are betraying ourself to admit we like how we look and feel better after those adjustments. And it’s also okay to have parts of our body we just don’t like very much (my extra wide feet and line across my neck, in my case) while still enjoying other parts and feeling confident overall.

Ultimately a healthy body image is not primarily about liking your appearance, though we should be able to acknowledge our unique beauty! It is appreciating your body for how God designed it, and enjoying what it allows you to do. When you see the beauty God gave you, care for yourself in ways that embrace growth and challenge and accept the less enjoyable parts it brings both peace and contentment. Then we can focus less on stretch marks or wrinkles or numbers on the scale and instead accept our body for where it is today, work to be a good steward of the aspects of health we can change and use our bodies to bless others around us and enjoy life.

Ho, Ho, Hold it! 3 Ways to have a Merry Realistic Christmas

I just got off Pinterest. High frequency in my current feed are titles like “25 Ways to Enjoy Advent” and “12 Best Family Activities at Christmas” and “101 Ideas for a Memorable Holiday Season”. I’m already tired just thinking about trying to accomplish 101 memorable advent holiday family activities! This year will be my 28th Christmas as a mama. I have had beautiful moments and utterly disastrous moments. So dear friends, if you will indulge me, here are just three ways to be realistic as you approach a season that is rightfully special, but often, inappropriately loaded with expectations we can’t live up to. Nor do we need to!

Look ahead at your calendar and plan a loose, flexible list of ideas, scheduling no more than two special family activities per week. Often the biggest mistake we mamas make, is feeling the pressure to use every great idea you see your friends doing. There are hundreds of possibilities, but only a set number can fit into the average families’ life and not induce utter chaos. For us, two per week is the max. Which means, yes, we have only 8 Christmas-y plans,including of course, Christmas Eve dinner at my in law’s and Christmas Day fun. So really, we have 6. What scheduling a reduced number of plans allows for is spontaneous ideas and moments to evolve- which often become the BEST memories!

Keep a stack of games, books, craft paper and movies (Christmas or family favorites) in a central place. Ours is in the corner of our dining room. I have a stack of books that I get out only in December. I pull ALL our games out. I have a small basket with scissors and craft paper and tape/glue. And I round up all the Christmas movies we own. Then as we eat, sometimes if there is energy/time, we can add a game or movie to our evening before bed. But there is no pressure. Over the years, our kids have gone from home every night, to home rarely at dinner, to now-often just Emma and I at the dinner table. When my older two are around, I have learned to let them take the lead with ideas. Older teens are more likely to engage in family fun if they make the plans. So, I get very few scripted “precious moments” any more, but I love the hilarity and noise and “hey, let’s go on a late night doughnut run before we watch Home Alone”moments we have swapped for.

Focus on staying entirely present, which means put your phone away. Before we were Instagraming and face booking our lives, we could fully immerse ourselves in a moment without thinking about how to present it to others. Babies grow up. You will completely regret the times you missed a chance to connect because you were too distracted by the picture you were taking. Or the picture you had in your head you were trying to create. Families are often messy and cranky and disinterested and difficult. None of that changes because it’s December. Allow yourself to take each moment as it comes, and not be devastated if you had to step out of line while visiting Santa to address a melt down, or miss the class party because of a stomach virus or not wear the cute holiday outfit because ketchup got spilled all over the front. Each of those moments, are a chance to express the kind of love Christmas is all about. God came down to our mess and difficulties to be with us. Emmanuel, God with us. When you step into real moments with your kids or spouse or friends at Christmas to be with them, you are showing a picture of what Jesus did for us. It doesn’t ruin the Christmas spirit-it affirms the truest thing about it.

When Silent Night Is Lonely and Christmas Isn’t Merry

The pictures on the Hallmark cards at don’t tell the whole story do they? They don’t show…

faces stained with tears while quietly hanging ornaments on trees with missing spouses or children to share in tree trimming this year

… drives back and forth to hospital bedsides, and nursing homes and rehabs visiting family who are not well

…empty apartments, beds and seats next to singles who feel especially aware of their lack of coupleness during the most wonderful time of the year

We all have pictures in our mind of how Christmas should be. Visions of warm and cozy a moments, filled with family and love and joy. Our pictures simply do not include suffering, sorrow and pain. These feel so out of place and no cup of cocoa or festive carol can change it.

Sometimes Christmas is hard. Not in the “wow, how will we afford to get the toys? Or geez, we have too many commitments this month!” hard. No, this is the kind of hard that makes you feel like you may not be able to stand the pain that wells up from the deepest places in your heart, threatening to engulf you. The kind of hard that crying and yelling and sleeping does not relieve.

This is grief. And grief and Christmas are unlikely companions.

Yet, the very first Christmas, before Santa and Macy’s and Black Friday and Ugly Sweater Parties, carried it’s own share of grief. A young woman outcast in her community, through scandal. A man unsure how to care for his new wife and their coming child. Poverty, injustice, pain and loneliness were hand in hand with the birth of promise, redemption and new life. Jesus came into our pain and our poverty, our need and our mess to live with us. He did not paint a Norman Rockwell portrait with his arrival. Everything did not get better for those around him right away- in fact, it got worse. Children were murdered, his parents forced to flee in the night- injustice and pain seemed unquenchable.

Yet, the promise of his birth was Emmanuel. Christ with us. We were no longer alone and his eventual death and resurrection would secure an eternity of joy and peace that no suffering can ever touch. Christmas is a promise of Christ with us. We are not alone in our grief. We will not be defeated by sorrow. We will not be swallowed up in suffering.

If this December meets you in the midst of darkness, take heart. It was a dark, dark night when Light first arrived, and real life, in Christ can never be taken from you. Hold on to the promise of Emmanuel.

Nasty vents, pretty trees and the comparison trap

I had one of those productive Saturday’s where I woke up with energy and began cleaning with gusto. The dust bunnies were going down. One of those days where I was sick of the dust and grime and ready to whip my house into shape and conquer the mess. In my cleaning frenzy, I noticed my return vent in the dining room. With absolutely no exaggerating, I can say- it was atrocious. Maybe I hadn’t cleaned it in…..well, somewhere between four years and ever. So, imagine the worst. Because that’s what it was. Now, I feel no personal shame about this because I am a working mom and also, it’s a return vent- who remembers to clean those?? But, as I sat down with a soapy bucket of water to rid the nastiness, in my line of sight was also my beautifully decorated Christmas tree. The contrast between the disgusting vent and the festive, lovely tree was striking.

Both were true at the same moment. In my home I had beauty and filth. The prettiest and the ugliest parts staring me in the face and it hit me- this is the ridiculousness of comparing lives on social media (or at all). We end up staring at each others Christmas tree’s and feeling ashamed of the return vents. But, if we are honest, we all have both. There are parts of my home and my life which wonderfully reflect the image of God and the talents he has given me, just as there are parts that show my broken sinful nature and limits in ability. I began thinking about all the insecurity and jealousy and discontent we stir up in ourselves by comparing our worst to their best. And it made me angry at how we miss the opportunity to celebrate other’s beauty because we are ashamed and fearful of our ugly.

I am not afraid to name my stuff. I have learned to own it and I share it. My closest friends, my community group women and my family know I am sinful and full of limits. But, in an attempt to show we have no need to compare to each other or hide from each other- I’ll name some of it right here: self righteousness, fear and anxiety, codependency, emotional eating, lack of self control and speaking the whole truth. That’s sin stuff I battle and pray about and confess very regularly. Then there are limits- I have mediocre handwriting, cannot do anything involving hand-eye coordination, have a terrible sense of directions, am forgetful and rarely get birthday cards out on time, have almost no artistic ability (save a cool cartoon penguin I can draw!), tendinitis in my right elbow, high cholesterol and hair that gets gray way too fast lately. Oh and a poochy stomach and one million stretch marks!

None of those truths negate that I am fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of my Creator. I have talents and beauty at the same time that I have weakness and sin. Same life; same house. I don’t think the solution is to stop posting pictures of our good stuff or start posting pictures of the ugly- I mean, ya’ll don’t want to see that vent- it was gross. Rather we need to remember that the pictures we post and the statuses we share that Celebrate beauty and love and order and fun can’t possibly be the whole picture of anyone’s life because we all need a Savior.

We do not have to feel insecure about our friends good moments because trust me- their homes and their lives have the same stuff yours and mine do- Broken and beauty will always be together until Jesus returns. Instead we can celebrate the good with each other and encourage one another with truth- we are all flawed and all loved. Both true at the same time.

The Opposite of Trauma

I work with a lot of trauma. The impact in men and women whose lives and hearts were ripped apart by pain and brokenness. One definition of trauma I use is "being negatively overwhelmed.” There are so many things in this broken world that can simply overwhelm our person- war, abuse, assault, death, abandonment, a diagnosis, an affair…so many things we really weren’t created for.

We were created for The Garden.

Shalom.

Peace with God and each other, everything as it should be. But from the moment sin entered, we began living in a world where sometimes, it’s just too much of what we weren’t made for, and in those moments we experience trauma.

Perhaps because I work with trauma, or maybe we all feel this way, I am drawn to moments that are corrective to the injury of souls. Moments where some kind of healing or repair or blessing shows up and changes the hurting person involved for the better. I love to hear the stories about those moments. And do you know what I find as a common denominator in all of them- connection.

Confess your faults (weaknesses, mistakes, wounds) to one another and pray for each other THAT YOU MAY BE HEALED. -James 5:16

Above all love each other deeply, for love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4:8

There is a healing power that comes from taking off the mask and sharing honestly what is happening and then being loved deeply in return. Love from others has the power to heal us, just like God’s love is the power that saves us.

Our world celebrates openness while simultaneously creates a ton of obstacles to getting there. We applaud people who have the courage to “speak their truth” but we so often feel alone and isolated. Because connection doesn’t come from proclaiming your ideas on a platform- it comes from sharing your heart with a person. It’s so easy to lose the healing power of connection in a world that is obsessively focused on crafting an image and curating a life. Connection is about being deeply known and deeply loved. I can’t be deeply known unless I allow you to see the real me- with all my mess and strength and sin and victory. And platforms are simply not safe places to do that. If the primary place we try to connect is a dead end avenue, we will always feel alone.

One of the most beautiful things God gave us to get through this life is each other. We have the ability to sit- face to face and talk.

And cry.

And pray.

We can live in connection with people around us in a way that brings life and hope and healing into our lives. We can choose to climb down from our crafted platforms and be regular, fragile people who share the hurts and receive grace and love from each other. It’s one of the most powerful things we can experience- being known and loved- so much so that it has the power to drive out the darkness around us and heal the injuries within us. It takes great courage to seek out deep connection in a world that lives in the shallow waters of screen connections. Yet, when we do what God tells us we were created to do- stop hiding, confess, be vulnerable, open up- then we are able to be “positively overwhelmed” by love.