Love Me, Love Me Not

By Kim Cottrell

What a roller coaster we women ride. Despite living full lives as mothers, lovers, sisters, workers, exercisers, and do-it-your-selfers, we regard ourselves as not this enough, not that enough. If only we were thin. If only we were tall. If only we were beautiful. If only. At times, we know we are above judging ourselves, and we accept who we are. At other times, we assess ourselves as though we were property and measure ourselves against statistics that would get us on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine.

Years ago, I taught a workshop about living mindfully from an internal knowing. I called it Living Inside Your Skin. During the introduction, I suggested not many women would get to the end of life and wish they had been thin. But one woman piped up, “Maybe I would.” And maybe so, and no wonder we struggle to like ourselves. No wonder we often feel we have failed.

These days we are bombarded with messages that we should like ourselves just the way we are, and the roller coaster rises. Then, we see messages that guarantee if only we lose 10 pounds we’ll like ourselves even more. Or, better yet, if we lose those 10 pounds the man of our dreams will come along and take us away to a wonderful life. And, the roller coaster falls.

Measuring ourselves is so ingrained that there are no simple ways to change our view of self. Maybe though, we can acknowledge that sexiness is not about size. One woman, the director and fundraiser for an early childhood preschool, was sought out and wooed by her constituents, both men and women alike. Her confidence, poise, and style mesmerized all. She was a size 24 and one of the sexiest women I’ve ever known.

And, let’s acknowledge the drive to be other than who we are isn’t the exclusive domain of the woman who wants to lose 10 pounds. Many women, already thin, also chronically “un-like” themselves. We are all violent toward ourselves when we think we aren’t okay, just as we are. We disrespect ourselves in our constant drive to remain the same size we were in high school, disregarding the fact that each decade brings a different shape to a woman’s body.

We women remind me of my stepson who has two pairs of shoes he loves. Very trendy, these shoes are just not worn among his circle of friends. His friends have teased him about these shoes, and now he only wears them at home. Yesterday, he needed a second pair of shoes to take to school and rather than take the ones he loves, he took flip flops because “all the kids wear flip flops to school.”

We women, in our obsession of how we should see and be seen, let others judge who we are or how adequate we are based on how we look. We so frequently give over our sense of self over to others that we end up with love me not. And it is clear these strategies are not working. We are not thinner. We are not happier. We are not feeling more successful. We are rushed, overworked, hassled, and searching for contentment, but we don’t know where to look.

But there is potential for us to change. Potential to accept ourselves a little more often. Potential to soften our harsh attitudes toward ourselves and potential to find peace in our hearts. There is a woman who fell in love during her treatment for breast cancer, in what must have been a time fraught with feeling poorly and being out of control. May we marvel that she overcame the measuring up that creeps unbidden into our collective woman’s mind?

The good news is that we get to choose. We choose clothing that reflects our sassiness, confidence, and love of self. We select the pair of shoes we like. We decide, in any given moment, we are good enough, just the way we are. When we do, we end up with love me.