Dear daughter, please don’t be like me.

Dear daughter,

Please don’t be like me.

I look at you, with your beautiful brown eyes and pretty long eyelashes, your chubby little thighs, and the prettiest smile I have EVER seen and I am just absolutely smitten. You are the baby girl I have always dreamt of. I feel so very in love with you. I want to protect you from everything and everyone. I never want you to feel not good enough, pretty enough, smart enough, nice enough, funny enough, or thin enough. I never want you to feel rejected. I never want you to feel that you need to lose ten or fifteen pounds to be accepted. And yet, I know some of those things will happen. It’s really inevitable. What I hope, is that you can learn confidence comes from within and that truly, your worth has nothing to do with the way you look. I hope that you aren’t constantly needing someone to validate you feelings or tell you that you’re beautiful. I hope you just know. So, while I can’t protect you from everything, I can share my story with you and hope that you learn from my mistakes. I hope I will be a role model for you.

I don’t think there is a girl alive that hasn’t dealt with feelings of not being good enough? If there is, I have yet to meet her.

I have found over the years, some of the prettiest girls, with all of the friends and all of the attention, are the ones who have the lowest self-esteem. Why is that? I asked my bestie one day and her response kind of surprised me. She said, I think it’s because they are so used to people telling them how beautiful and wonderful they are. When they aren’t being told that, they wonder why. Then they start trying to seek that approval once more. Makes sense. I can buy into that.

I was raised in a Christian home by great parents. I had friends and participated in extracurricular activities. I had boyfriends. I was invited to things. But, I have spent a majority of my 29 years feeling inadequate.

I truly believe, my feelings of inadequacy at times have taken me away from things that I should have been and was meant to have been a part of. I have gifts and talents I have refused to share because of the fear of rejection. What happened? A mixture of my personality, the personalities of those closest to me, and a few instances of being bullied. All of those, added up the the false narrative that I was not good enough. Not really just not good enough though, not pretty enough. Not thin enough. T H I N enough.

Body Image.

Never underestimate your ability to make someone feel on top of the world or underneath it. Sweet girl, your words are so very important. Never use them to break someone else.

6th grade. I was chubby. Not extremely overweight but not thin like all of my friends. I had a boyfriend from another town. He was cute, popular, and athletic. I had talked to him on the phone a few times and I really had a crush on him. I could not believe that he had chosen me to be his girlfriend. We had a track meet that day and it would be the first time I would see him as his girlfriend. He was from another town (BIG time stuff right there haha!).

I still remember how absolutely nervous I was to see him. Butterflies and everything. I don’t know if he had just seen me from far away or what? But when he saw me, I was apparently not who he had in mind. He said hi and then avoided me like. the. plague. the entire track meet. I was, of course, heartbroken. I needed to know why. Why was he avoiding me? What did I do? (Because obviously, I had done something wrong. Duh.) A friend of mine found me and told me he didn’t want to be my boyfriend and we were breaking up. Obviously, this was the end of my little 6th grade world. I had to know why. I had to find him.

When I finally caught up to him, he was with one of his friends. I asked him what was wrong and why we were breaking up. He told me it was because I was SO FAT. FAT. Ugh I hate that word. Then he and his friend proceeded to make fun of me. It was incessant. They told me I needed to buy a nordictrack treadmill. They told me to call Jenny Craig. They called me every single variation of the word FAT in the English dictionary. I ran away with tears streaming down my face. I couldn’t get away fast enough. It was humiliating. Luckily, the track meet was over and I ran to the bus, buried my face, and cried. Then, I hear them. They followed me to the bus and continued to taunt me. Throwing around that word. FAT. It was so embarrassing. Not only to be called that, but for everyone to hear it that walked by.

I know, I know… one time? One thing. One instance of being bullied was that big of a deal? I don’t think it was that one time that did it for me. But that day was the day I started absolutely obsessing about my weight. I never wanted to feel that way again. I never wanted to give someone the chance to make me feel that small again. I think because of those feelings, I learned to kind of protect myself. I wouldn’t put myself out there for someone to hurt me like that…not again.

Satan has used that story and many more stories in my life to block me from things God had in store for me. He has stolen moments and opportunities from me because I believed the lies he told me, instead of believing what God says about me.

We all have stories. We have all been bullied about something. We have all probably said some things that we are not proud of about someone else. I’m sure those boys would not be proud of themselves today. They were kids. Kids are mean. What’s interesting, is that I have probably been told I am beautiful a million times over (mostly by your dad and brother haha) and yet when I think of that story, those feelings of shame and inadequacy creep in. Dr. Phil says, “It takes 1000 ‘atta boys’ to erase one ‘you’re an idiot’. I would agree.

Thankfully, my self-confidence and body image have evolved from that sixth grade girl. I would love to say I no longer have body image issues but that would be a lie. What I can say, is that I don’t define my worth any longer by the number on the scale or by what someone else thinks of me. My worth is defined by what God says about me. It is defined by the type of mother I am. It is defined by my accomplishments, my resilience, my faith and tenacity in the middle of some very dark times in my life. It is defined by the type of wife, friend, sister, daughter, and granddaughter that I am. By the way that I treat others and by the heart and love I have for those that are hurting. It is defined by my purpose in life, my calling, and by the gifts God has given me. It is defined by my work ethic and by my undeniable crazy amount of determination.

Don’t spend the first 20 some years of your life looking for validation. Don’t equate your worth to the number on the scale or by what some boy thinks about your body. Learn from your momma’s mistakes. What matters is what you think of yourself. If you love yourself, the opinion of others really won’t matter to you. Build your confidence on what your Heavenly Father says about you. Understand, your worth is based on who you are on the inside and how you make others feel about themselves. It is based on the impact you are leaving on this world. Are you leading others to Christ? Do others see His light in you? Are you thinking about others before yourself? Are you kind? Those are the things you should use to build your confidence.

My beautiful daughter, you are so worthy. You are so loved. You are enough. You are our dream come true and I hope you always know how breathtakingly beautiful you really are.

but please…don’t be like me.

All my love,

Mom