Hello, Sunshine.

Journal Entry July 2006

The question: what will it take for me to love myself completely?

In the past I have faced life with primarily my outward appearance, making me self-conscious and uncomfortable, either too-attractive or not attractive enough.

Recently I’ve been in a phase deconstructing the old me — reaching a “lowest” — my heaviest weight, feeling sick, feeling insecure and inept in dressing myself, many insecurities — and suddenly it was like - I QUIT. I’m done. This is ME, if I am ugly who cares, I’m more than that. I am beautiful me, with or without the outside package. It is uncomfortable and yet such a relief to reach this place. I see this as the next level of loving myself — completely surrendering to who I am in the present moment.

So the question… What would it take to love myself completely… I feel at a loss for words, nothing brilliant is coming to me. What I am getting when I close my mind is ultimate self-love will come when I relax, when I stop thinking, analyzing, worrying, and instead can just breathe and smile. When I have released this remaining fear, anger, doubt, etc. about myself, as i confront my “demons”, greater love will be present.

Ultimately though I think complete self love is there, and has been there all along. All I need to do is relax, embrace, and live it. As obstacles arise to challenge this, I can deal with it then.

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I was reading one of my old journals last night, and I am feeling drawn to sharing an excerpt from an entry from November of 2006. I was at a point of struggling very deeply with negative body thoughts. I had a revelation during this journaling, and there are three full pages of “pouring upset” on the pages before. I will share the positivity that resulted.

November 28, 2006

…Exploring the cost/benefit of my conversation with “feeling fat” was somewhat useful. Though I don’t want it to be because right now I just want to feel right. (haha, how telling.) I am not clear even what the real issue is. Maybe it is just as simple as deciding I am beautiful no matter what, and using affirmations to re-create my reality.

I feel like more so the issue comes with the significance of beauty, and why if I don’t feel beautiful, I don’t feel worthy of anything. Why does beauty = worth. and success. and love.

How do I even define myself outside of “being beautiful”? Do I even have to? What am I really committed to in my life? Why is being beautiful the thing I have focused on becoming most, when I am so many wonderful important things.

This entry clarified something very important for me — why does beauty = worth in my mind? I don’t have one answer to that (though perhaps more on that later), though I feel that just by acknowledging my feelings that night my reality has shifted. Even typing up what I wrote felt a bit foreign, because while I remember feeling those things, I have shifted to a different space. I no longer aspire to be merely “beautiful.” Beauty is of course part of the package, as every woman has available to them, but there is much much more I aspire to be.

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Journal Excerpt February 6, 2007

Since I have been in middle school I have been fixated on various body parts of mine, convinced that one part of me is hideous, awful, etc etc, and after a while I move on to something different. There was my forehead, the hair on my arms, the slight jiggle on my thighs, sweating, my breasts, my butt, my eyebrows, body hair (?), my feet, the way my skin looked when I would smile in pictures, the “circles” under my eyes, my teeth, my waist, my nose, etc. With each of these things I feel like I wake up suddenly one morning to discover that I have “insert insecurity of the moment”, and then I feel self-conscious about it everywhere I go. And I wonder, has it always been this way, or is my mental focus on it creating it? By thinking about it, am I only going to make it worse? It’s hilarious when I really let it all out.

I had a revelation a few months ago when I was dwelling on the flaws in my nose, feeling oddly depressed and powerless. It also happened that a few days before I had completely bombed a math exam, making me feel incredibly stressed and unsure about my college future. Yet in my mind, the only thing wrong in my whole world was my nose. Even in my state of mild depression I could see that something didn’t click with this scenario. I sat there contemplating and finally the light bulb went off where I thought,

“Hey, maybe it isn’t my BODY that’s the problem at all. Maybe it’s my FEAR about the future I’m stressing about here.”

And with that, I could recognize this previously unconscious pattern that I had of projecting worries onto my body. My experience made me wonder if perhaps so much of the pressure women feel to be attractive is mixed in with projecting our pressure to be “perfect” in other areas of our life, in those areas that we feel like we don’t measure up, we instead focus on improving or worrying about our physical appearance.

For me, I just had to get real and start feeling my actual emotions as opposed to the yapping negative voice chattering away in my mind. When I got in touch with ME I could see that my nose was not the issue, and in fact I just felt fear. That’s normal, we all have it. Once I could recognize the fear, I could be with it, comfort it, live with it, allow it to go. I could get back to peace and caring for myself, as opposed to raging war on some “flaw.”

Though it happens much less now, I’m quite weary when I wake up one morning and my mind goes, “Oh my GOSH Laura, has your hairline always been like that?” I can kind of chuckle to it and be like, “My hairline is fine, but let’s see what’s really going on here…”

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Journal Excerpt: June 28th 2006 — I just got off the phone with Ryan and we were talking about how we start our days. I realized that I have been completely unconscious with how I am conducting my time, and of course I feel bored and inefficient because I am not structuring myself one bit. So I decided to do what he does and make a few goals for the day. Maybe even the night before. But it struck me—what the hell do I want to do with my day? What do I actually want to accomplish? Here I am just sitting around in my underwear reading message boards, daydreaming, and eating mangoes. No wonder my wildest dreams aren’t being fulfilled.

I wrote that entry over a year ago at a point where I had literally nothing to do, and I had the freedom to really do whatever. (Trust me, this can be unbelievably uncomfortable) I am now in at a place where I have quite a few things to do, in fact multiple cross-referenced lists encompassing short-term, long-term, side projects, life goals, and immediate things that I need to do. Yet somehow, it’s very easy to forget about these lists and to become distracted with myspace, facebook, e-mail, phone calls, family, on and on. Or a video of a self-taught choreographer teaching Britney routines on Youtube, and to attempt them standing over your laptop in your kitchen at one in the morning. Whatever the reason, it is easy for the day to slip away.

It is so easy to splatter our attention, to get bombarded with “things” that devour our attention and time, and how do we become truly efficient effective human beings in spite of the distractions that will always exist. If I had the solution to that, I would absolutely fill you in (or write a book and make millions, because I know many who would like to know this). For now it’s an area I am consciously striving to become better than ever in (and I have a long way to go). I often have thoughts that it seems “hard” to be productive, but I believe practice makes perfect, action breeds positive reactions, and I just need to figure out what works for me.

What I have learned that works, as I was inspired to try after the noted conversation above with my friend Ryan, is to write down my goals for the day the night before or first thing in the morning. If we go into the day, a situation, or even an activity with a set intention of how it’s going to go, I guarantee there will be a far more structured outcome than if entered blindly. Writing it down can be simple. It might be just one thing you must absolutely have happen. Or perhaps there are 75. I include many categories, including exercise, making juice, and journaling — all on my to-do list for the next day and just as important as remembering appointments and completing assignments. I also include goals and intentions for how I will feel, how certain situations will turn out, and what I will achieve. It’s effective, and very empowering as it puts you back in the drivers seat for your day.

So if you feel inclined, start small…

• Write down your goals and intentions for tomorrow.

More thoughts on productivity to follow.

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