I haven’t had a chance to say this yet, but thank you soooo much for your support and encouragement on my Last 5 pounds post. I was a little afraid to declare a change in the direction of my blog and had no idea I would get such an overwhelmingly positive response from you guys. So, thank you, thank you, thank you for your kind words and for sharing little tidbits of your own stories as well.
Besides feeling validated and so encouraged through your comments, another wonderful thing came out of that post; a comment from Lauren.
…I’ve decided that whenever I’m with my girlfriends and they start saying negative things, I’m going to do more than just tell them they’re being silly and brush it off. I’m going to say, “I wouldn’t change a thing about myself, and you shouldn’t want to either” and really mean it.
I didn’t even think of my post in respect to how I interact with my friends, but I’m so glad Lauren brought this up.
Usually, when my friends are complaining about these kind of things and likewise when I am complaining about these types of things, these are the kind of responses I give and get:
– You do NOT need to lose weight. (insert eye roll here)
– EVERYONE wants to lose a few pounds.
– EVERYONE gains a little weight here and there sometimes. I’m sure it will come off in no time.
While these comments aren’t mean spirited and what my fellow females and I are trying to do is make our friends feel better about their current “situation”, these comments are really counter productive. While trying to diffuse their feelings, we are not really addressing the issue at hand. The real issue isn’t extra baggage around our midsection, the real issue is how we feel about ourselves, how we don’t feel “good enough”, how we feel like we could be so much better if we could only accomplish this one feat. I’m guilty of this as much as the next girl.
But, what if all of us committed to not allowing our friends to degrade themselves or complain about how they don’t stack up against their ideal? What if every time a friend said, “I really wish I could just lose X pounds,” or the like, what if we replied with…
I wish you could see what I see. You are a beautiful person and I wouldn’t change a thing about you.
Could that response change someone’s self esteem? Could it make them feel special? Could it show them their perception, is just that, a perception?
Maybe, maybe not. Maybe the change isn’t spectacular, but it puts a little seed into their head. A seed that says it’s not okay to bash yourself in front of me and it’s not okay to bash yourself period. I’ve read over and over how to really change your mind set, you have to stop internally saying negative things (the negatives) to yourself and replace the bashing with positive phrases. Some people have mantras or other things they say to get the negatives out of their head. When our friends, our mothers, our sisters, and our daughters don’t have the tools to replace the negatives, we can choose to replace the negatives for them.
For me, this is easier said than done. While I feel totally comfortable writing these things, it’s difficult for me to be “touchy feely” with my friends. It’s a challenge and one I would really like to overcome. I can write pages and pages about what they mean to me as a friend and how wonderful they are as a person, but sometimes the verbal words just won’t come. This issue with overcoming the negatives is so important to me, for myself and for the women I love. It might seem trivial, but I really believe that big results can come from the small efforts of all of us. We are greater than the sum of our parts. I can definitely do my part. Will you?
So what do you think? Can you commit to stopping the negatives in your conversations with friends? Will you attempt to turn the negatives around when your friends are engaging in body-bashing and fat talk?