Call it weight. Call it body image. Call it whatever you want.

We live in a world driven by beauty. Driven by perfection.

And I am a woman who lives in a world where the big bad wolf isn’t hiding in the woods behind her house.

He is hiding in my bathroom.

That stupid, ugly scale. Every morning. Always lurking. Always frustrating. Always reminding me of the things I shouldn’t have eaten. The numerous ways I failed this week. The nagging feeling of never being quite enough. The dependable measure of how much I am allowed to love myself today.

A symbol of the 10 lbs that won’t come off. The meals I skipped. The water I didn’t drink enough of to wash the calories away. The carbs I never should have enjoyed. The strict diet I LIVED and died for that barely worked. The miles I ran that were never far enough. Because if they were I would’ve hit that number. Made my “goal weight”. That heavenly sweet spot where maybe you are always hungry but at least you are THIN. And thin means happy. Thin means enough. Thin means people will love you. Thin means you can finally love your body. Finally love yourself.

Am I talking to you?

For the sake of being real, I’ll be REAL. I have been 110 lbs and I have been 180 lbs. I have run a half marathon and I have eaten cheeseburgers and Taco Bell for lunch… in the same day. I am a normal human woman. I have boobs, and hips and I love doughnuts too. Today I am 5′ 7 and around 145 lbs give or take. I don’t eat a great deal of carbs. I do eat lots of veggies and I run 3x a week. In fact I ran my first (and maybe last) half marathon in January. I am “healthy”. I am within a very healthy BMI (whatever that is) and with the exception of about 5 lbs I have gotten most of the baby weight off.

But I am older now and my body is changing and I find myself still at war with my own image in the mirror no matter how “healthy” I am. Trying to live up to the standard of beauty that has been set before me. The standard I have accepted myself as truth.

I like to believe that I am a forest for the trees kind of girl too. It seems pretty obvious know what the problem is and it isn’t isn’t a sane one.The entire world obsessed with looking EXACTLY ALIKE. We are given a steady diet of beauty images from the time we are old enough to walk. And up until recent years, a lot of those women looked almost identical. Same bodies. Same thin frame. Same height.

Yet, we are literally ALL genetically different.  Different skin tone. Different hair color. Different heights. Different frames. Different people. How is it fair, or even sane to expect the entire world to live up to this incredibly unhealthy standard of beauty.

And here is another double standard. I try so hard to teach my daughter to love herself just the way she is. And y’all she does !!! She is so confident. She told me the other day so proud, “Mommie, I literally look good in everything”!

But I have realized that I secretly hold my own body to a completely different standard. I hold my body to a standard this WORLD has set. The unattainable. The perfect. And the bar isn’t just too high. The bar is completely unreachable.

Okay. Here is the silver lining. For all the rational women (and men) out there.

I have visions. I have BIG dreams for my future. BIG dreams for my kids future. Not a single one of them involve being a size zero. So why do we let the way we look stop us for living our lives? Stop us from playing in the pool with the kids because we are ashamed of our bodies. From taking a family photo because we don’t like the way we look. From starting to exercise because we aren’t “there” yet.

Why in the world do we let numbers on the scale stop us from living? I’m pretty sure we will never look back on our lives and think, ” I wish I would’ve been thinner”. Healthier? Probably. Thinner? No.

Why, if our dreams DON’T involve a having the “perfect body”… why do our lives revolve around that shame?

And furthermore, what the heck is there to be ashamed of? I have a little belly. I have made three humans. Two at one time! I have stretch marks. My boobs don’t sit nearly where they used to. But what about any of this is unnatural or shameful??!! To take it a step further, none of these things has ever bothered my husband a bit ❤️.

My best qualities & the things I take the most pride in are my family. My friends. My community. Not my pants.

I want to be an example of balance for my kids. I don’t want to be the women who never eats birthday cake because she is afraid she will get fat from the carbs and I don’t want to be the woman who eats an entire sleeve of Oreos because she is stressed out and on the verge of giving up on health all together! And y’all, I have been both.  I want to be emotionally and physically healthy enough to live a long time for my three precious kids. I want to see them get married. I want to be a grandma. Heck, I want to be Worlds Best Grandma!

I was recently listening to a podcast of  an interview with a billionaire female entrepreneur. She said she was recently in a boardroom full of female executives & CEO’s & when the issue of body image came up EVERY WOMEN there got very quiet. Then, every single women there started to share. This room full of amazing & very powerful women, some bread winners for their homes and at the height of their careers were plagued with insecurity. And when asked what was the ONE thing they would change about their lives…. they ALL said their bodies! Not more time for themselves. Not more money. Not more vacation. Their bodies.

What I am getting at here, is this is not only an issue of physical health. This is a heart issue. This goes so much deeper than that stupid scale.

Let me ask you this. What if I stopped? Stopped obsessing. What if I just focused on doing what I enjoy to stay active and fed myself foods that nurture my body? What if I stopped trying to go down another size. Or fit into that old pair of jeans and instead shifted my focus to my heart. To my family. To my friends. To loving where I am TODAY. Loving my super smooshy tummy that made 3 kids and my stretch marked thighs.

Loving the things I hate about myself. Loving the imperfect parts of me. The parts my own husband doesn’t even know I hate. Because he has never noticed anything was wrong to begin with.

The Biblical definition of our bodies is that of a “temple”. Wanna take it up a notch? Webster dictionary defines a temple as “a building devoted to  worship, or regarded as the dwelling place, of a god or gods or other objects of religious reverence.”

What if we all stopped buying the lie that we are all meant to be exactly alike. And in it’s place we started treating our bodies like the temples that they are.  The housing place of our very souls!

Then maybe we could all stop believing that our ” temples”, our vehicles for loving, nurturing & creating life aren’t enough. That our temples are just meant to house a six pack and perky boobs.

What if we took that lie, that horrible idea we have been recirculating forEVER &  threw it out the window and NEVER taught it to our children at all.

And in it’s place, taught our sons and daughters that our bodies are holy. And we are to take care of them in that way. Listen to and honor them in that way.

They are vehicles to bring light into this dark world. Vehicles for sharing our gifts and talents to make this world a better & more whole place for our kids to live in.

What could happen if we taught that to our children? Can you imagine how powerful that would be?

XO

Brandon

1 Corinthians 6:19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.