It started as a rhetorical question.
“What are you willing to give up?” I asked my students.
“What standard are you holding yourself to that isn’t real or fair or right? Maybe it’s a scale. Maybe it’s the idea of being effortlessly perfect. Maybe it is something else. You have to figure out why it is you don’t feel enough and give that rule up. Because for every day that you don’t feel enough, you really can’t be you. And not being you is the greatest loss of all because we’re all here for a reason. We’re all here on purpose.”
Not long after that, a student shared that she liked to use a measuring tape to gauge her body. Everyday. Compared to the day before. And it broke my heart. And, so, I offered a gentle thought– maybe that measuring tape could be something that she gave up. But I didn’t push it because sometimes we all just need to work through things in our own time. We need to let the idea germinate and see whether or not it takes root for us.
A couple weeks later, that student approached me before class and handed me a small white circular object. My eyes opened wide, trying to figure out what it was.
“It’s my measuring tape. I am ready to give it up.”
I wanted to hoot and holler. I wanted to hug her. I wanted to make a proclamation. Instead, I just quietly told her how proud I was of her. And slipped it into the side pocket of my school bag.
I thought about that moment a lot over the rest of the semester. But I didn’t look at the measuring tape again until summer, when my hands reached into that pocket, looking for a pen, and instead found the round disc.
“What’s this?” I thought.
And then I realized what it was– literally and figuratively. A measuring tape, yes, but more than that, right? A rule. A standard. A soul reducer when the body wouldn’t reduce itself enough.
I was reminded, too, of the question I had asked my students. That rhetorical question, I thought.
What are you willing to give up?
Today: I am asking you the same question. What belief or practice are you willing to give up in order to quit punishing yourself or rating yourself or diminishing yourself? What practice or viewpoint no longer serves you?
Name that thing that no longer serves you– like my student so bravely named her measuring tape. And make this commitment today, I will no longer measure my worth with _____________. If it is something tangible (a scale, a measuring tape, an old photo), throw it or pack it away where you can’t get it right now. This will cause anxiety, I know it. But the most important things are always the hardest to do. If it is not a tangible thing but a scale in your mind, for example, then come up with a sentence that you will use to respond to yourself when you bring that scale out. For example, “I am not longer 25 and I will not use the idea of that body to punish me today.”
1. What did you commit to giving up today and why?
2. How did it feel to either literally or figuratively pack away your measure?
3. How might this change your life? How might it allow you to more definitely live your purpose and give your gifts to the world?
The only way that we can give up that which harms up, that which limits us, is by both imagining that it is possible to give it up and flirting with the life that would come if we didn’t live that way.
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Oh, wow! Rosie, your post comes just at the right time to help me by visualizing.
What I want to give up? The “good-girl” ideal picture. I have to, I WANT TO accept – I ACCEPT!! that I cannot please everybody anytime – even if it is anyway impossible – and not good!
I thought I went already quite far on this path, but there are still some hills to climb on and leave behind me. More about it in your resilience post in the coming days!
Your post brought me to find words to express it. Now I can visualize how I shred a photograph of this non-existing ideal everybody’s darling. It feels strange, a new unknown land – OK, so I just won’t react as usually, but so far I don’t know how I will react? I’ll just surprise myself with my resources.
My reminder: “I have a lot of worth by myself. I don’t need to please anyone now. I am worth being myself.”
So Cecile I was struck by your visualizing yourself shredding a photograph of this non-existent ideal and it made me think, “SHE SHOULD REALLY DO THAT.” Here is what I mean. What if you make a visual representation of that girl. Maybe you do it with images or words or whatever you think of and then, when you are done, shred her to pieces. Physically end your relationship with that idea, if you will. Just a thought that you can totally take or leave! Love witnessing your journey!
1. What did you commit to giving up today and why?
I commit to giving up my eating disorder and the image of myself as the little girl, the thin girl, the petite and tiny girl. I have kept myself trapped in this body for so long, but my voice and and ideas and ambitions are so much larger.
2. How did it feel to either literally or figuratively pack away your measure?
I cannot say this is the first time I have given up this ‘measure’ or that it will be the last, but it feels refreshing to think of the possibilities. It feels freeing, and I feel like I am allowing myself to imagine a future as a true adult. I am an adult. Today is my third wedding anniversary- I have a marriage, a home, two rescue dogs.. I need to respect myself and my future, and if I continue to hang on to that measure of myself as a little girl, I’ll miss out on so much.
3. How might this change your life? How might it allow you to more definitely live your purpose and give your gifts to the world?
I will be able to achieve so much more and will have the freedom to experience things I’ve imagined in my mind: road trips, new jobs, physical challenges, and deepening relationships. It will free up so much mental and actual space and time for me to commit myself to doing good in the world.
Congratulations on your wedding anniversary, Marissa. That’s very exciting. As I was reading your reflection, I was struck by the fact that your idea of yourself as that little girl has served it is purpose and that it does indeed make sense to tell her goodbye and to then step into your bigger dreams. Your words here are powerful. I hope you will print them out for yourself and read them periodically as inspiration along the way.
I commit to giving up my constant need for my mother’s approval, giving up my daily goal of finally completing that ever-elusive task to make her happy, because I can’t. She can only do that herself.
Honestly, I feel scared. I feel like 98 out of 100 things I’ve done in my life were to make her happy, so where do I even begin and where does she end? Who am I beyond that impossible goal?
Living with this perspective will change everything. Everything.
How much I feel with you Sara! You made the first, most difficult step: you became aware of the situation! Congratulations! Go on one babystep at a time, you are worth it! Take care
Sara, what a self-empowering thing to give up. You go. Now, what if you didn’t push yourself to already know the answers about where she ends and you begin. What if what you gave yourself right now was the time and grace to explore who it is and how it is you are in the world. What if you don’t need the answer right now but the decision to go on that journey to the answers and let the journey be the goal. What if everyday was about learning one more thing about you. I kind of envision a journal that you go to each night and record one revelation about yourself. I think it would be such an amazing gift to allow yourself to bask in you.
I commit to giving up measuring myself by the size of my clothes. As long as I am feeding my body well and exercising it kindly, who am I too say what size clothes “ought” to fit?
I also commit to stop measuring myself by what other mothers can do. So what if someone else makes having three (or more!) preschoolers seem effortless? That does not me less of a person on the days that my precious two kids are about to drive me out of my mind.
I’ve put away a lot of clothes recently that didn’t fit that will eventually go to the thrift store. It feels good only having clothes that fit staring me in the face while dressing, but the process of packing away the small things wasn’t fun. But I have so much more important things to do with my life than fight with my body, and I think this is an important step.
In terms of packing away measuring myself against other moms, wow, this one is not tangible but it’s a journey I’ve been on recently. I remind myself I’m comparing my inside and my worst days to my friends’ outsides at their best. Not a fair comparison. I also am trying to take some time to tune into what *I* want, not my kids, not my hubby… it’s hard to stop doing something without replacing it with something better. So instead of comparing myself, I’m trying to replace that attitude with a practice of tuning into what I want.
Oh, Jackie, all of this is just so, so wise. Yes! YES!
1. What did you commit to giving up today and why?
I commit to not letting the numbers on the scales influence my day. I have weighed myself every morning for a long time, and I’m not ready to give that up yet, but I am ready to see the numbers for what they are.
2. How did it feel to either literally or figuratively pack away your measure?
It felt good – and tomorrow, I may be a little heavier or lighter, but that shouldn’t matter. I am still me.
3. How might this change your life? How might it allow you to more definitely live your purpose and give your gifts to the world?
If I can stop thinking ‘I am gaining weight, I am getting fat, nobody wants to know me or see me’, then nothing can stop me!
Susannah, If you aren’t quite ready to give up the daily scale, then I do encourage you to go back and just quickly reread Day 3, the passage from Polly Campbell encouraging us just to see things for facts and not with judgment. Later, it might be interesting to explore what need the daily weighing provides but you can decide if it would be or not.
And I can promise you that without ever having laid eyes on you, I want to know you. I bet everyone else does, too!
1. What did you commit to giving up today and why?
“Good enough” – almost my entire wardrobe consists of things that are good enough: things bought only because they were on sale or inexpensive, not because they fit well or are flattering. And because I might lose weight some day, or whatever event in the future that I am hanging onto. I am giving up “good enough” because I am more than good enough right now, the way I am, and I want things that I love right now, even if I am sitting in my house by myself working.
2. How did it feel to either literally or figuratively pack away your measure?
I went through my entire closet and drawers, and put anything that did not fit well or wasn’t something I loved in a big pile on the bed, then anything that was in good shape went into a large garbage bag to donate to the women’s shelter in town. It was weird at first; I found myself feeling like I should keep things just in case. Except I couldn’t explain what the “just in case” instance would be. After the initial nervousness it felt very liberating. Now when I look in my closet, all I see are things that I like, that actually fit me right now (not later when I lose weight) and it makes me smile every time.
3. How might this change your life? How might it allow you to more definitely live your purpose and give your gifts to the world?
I don’t have to constantly hate what I am wearing, or fight with it because it doesn’t fit quite right, and that is really just a reflection of what I feel about myself. So I could move further along the path toward loving who I am now. Because “good enough” means that I am always waiting for the magic time when it all changes and I am suddenly excellent. If I am more than “good enough”, then I could have that much more mental space to do things I love, like my own writing, or working with some other people in town who are interested in starting a group that would work toward making residential renovation/preservation of older houses easier and affordable.
Oh my goodness, Trish! I so resonated with this as I have long had a “that will do” attitude that I realized was actually really punishing me. And while I could see the good enough mindset most easily manifested in my clothing (I did some posts earlier this year about really taking myself out of that mindset when it came to clothes. Here is the first of those posts that I did (I think the other two posts were the very next two days, if you are interred: https://rosiemolinary.com/2012/04/15/moving-past-cardigans/), it was for me, like you, a larger issue. Loved your powerful closing thoughts. Go for it!
The example you gave of the student who gave up the tape measure hit me square between the eyes. I have measured my daily success with a tape measure for 5 years. The past 6 months, though, I haven’t measured with a tape measure, because I “want to get back to a certain size or weight” before I am willing to measure. I haven’t lost the desire to measure, but I don’t want to measure my imperfections. I need to give up that “feeling” of having to be perfect before I consider myself a success.
I believe it will be a long time before I successfully give up that need for perfection; I’ve lived with it for many, many years. I have to take small steps, but just thinking about small ways to do that encourages me.
Taking this step scares me; it makes me cry inside and sometimes outwardly. I honestly don’t know how not striving for perfection in all the areas of my life might even feel or how it might change my life. I might begin to see myself as human, as someone who makes mistakes just like everyone else, who has a normal body, but not perfect by any means. I would like to see myself as someone who does not need to “be fixed”.
Valerie, I so appreciate your honesty and vulnerability in this post; it is beautiful for so many reasons but most of all because it brings you to the core of your truth. I was reminded of this post http://www.voxxi.com/you-are-beautiful-just-the-way-you-are-mujer-vox-populi/
and this post https://rosiemolinary.com/2012/06/24/it-is-all-just-information/ as I read. Thank you for taking the shine journey!
I’ve decided to give up all the pants in my closet that are too small. I’m not going to try them on anymore, knowing before I put them on that they won’t fit, and I’m not going to be mad at myself about it.
Good one! I need to do the same…I have a box of “clothes for Jamie to shrink into”….and I need to give that box to charity! Giving those clothes up is going to be hard because (a)they are so cute and (b) because it feels like I’m giving up “hope” to be thin again. But hanging on to them is not good for me at all!!!!
Bravo Emily and Jamie! And if you want to make those old clothes do work for you, consign and trade that cash in for clothes that speak to you today!
1. What did you commit to giving up today and why?
I committed to give up the opinions of others as a measure of my worth.
2. How did it feel to either literally or figuratively pack away your measure?
It was frightening, yet liberating at the same time.
3. How might this change your life? How might it allow you to more definitely live your purpose and give your gifts to the world?
Oh, this will change my life immeasurably! I won’t be consumed by fear and worry that people won’t like me or that they’re judging me! My new motto is “So what? Who cares?”
So what? Who Cares? Indeed, Chibi!