Born Again Dreamer

Monday, July 27, 2009

R.R.'s

Being raised with a comparison based love and acceptance formula, breeds an inability to be genuinely happy and joyful for others accomplishments. Haven't you ever wondered why, when someone you love, like your sister or best friend etc., attains some type of success or achievement, you are happy for her, but still...there's that bit of resentment or competitiveness that soils the moment?

Think back to how you felt, (this is not a blaming session for how you were raised, it doesn't matter now, you're an adult with free will, I'm only pointing out the obvious necessity of understanding what formed your values) when you felt most loved or approved of, was it when you had----what? Do you know? I think that in my family, beauty was a very high commodity, and as it were, I never felt I was even slightly attractive, so you can probably see where this is going. I had extremely low self-worth, and extremely high self-loathing. There were other things, of course, I'll save that for some other time, but beautiful and thin were definitely precursors to love, or at least the was the message I interpreted.

However, I am free from that bondage, and have been for some time. (don't get me wrong I'm not perfectly content 100% of the time with what I have, however, most of the time those attributes don't play any kind of significant position in my self-image) So, when I say I'm free, I'm not free from wanting to take good care of myself and looking nice (puuhleez, I love to shop!) but I am free from believing that the way I looked, based upon the very skewed perspective of the world, has nothing to do with who I am, and my value as His daughter. Not only that, but I am able to use His system for assessing my beauty, and never comparing myself to that ideal that the world spews out as "desirable". Not only that freedom for me personally, but the ability to be genuinely filled with joy for others as they succeed is an amazing blessing! How freeing to understand that my significance and value are not negatively impacted by your accomplishments, and I don't have to "be" you, and I get to participate in the wonderful excitement by celebrating with you and I haven't done one thing! Too sweet.

This is such a huge issue for women, I would love to hear some others thoughts, ideas, beliefs, struggles, answers etc.

Been good talking to you!

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