Indulge me, I’m feeling a bit contemplative today. First watch this and then come back to me (many thanks to Comrade GoGo for the video).
Playing What If
How do you separate your self worth from your self image? Ever since Gym Buddy Candice asked me this question, it’s been rolling around in my mind. The thing is, I have no good answer for her. Because I’m not very good at it. There are lots of things I’m not very good at (volleyball, pingpong, and fiery baton juggling, to name just a few) but this one actually bothers me. I want to be able to say that my body doesn’t define who I am. That I am more than the sum of my skin and muscle and bone. But what if I am not beautiful?
The next step up is to define yourself by what your body can do. A lot of health and fitness bloggers like to take this tack: it’s not about achieving a certain look but rather about completing a triathlon or being able to lift a heavier weight or some other measurable goal. But what if I could do nothing?
What if I were ugly and unable to do even the simplest things? Would my life still be of value? I think everyone would immediately answer “of course!” Human life is valuable in all of its many forms. So there is the distinction: I was born with intrinsic worth (as were all of you) and yet I continue to allow the media, our culture, and worst of all, myself, to obscure that with messages about looks and achievement being the most important aspects of a person.
But Then What?
It’s easy to see how this happens. You can’t see a person’s soul. You can immediately see their body however, and quite often their achievements. But there is a core inside every person, a divine spark if you will, that is the essence of who they are and is wholly unrelated to what we first notice about them.
Beauty is our cultural currency. Achievement is power. A life is measured in these terms. How else to quantify success?
Surely there is a different way. I know for myself that the times I feel most like “Charlotte” are the times I’m thinking the least about myself. Like when I took a group of teenage girls to volunteer at the local food bank. Watching them helping others who had so much less made me feel so much more of myself than an entire day of navel gazing could have done. Or when I help a student figure out the simple symmetry in nature that completely demystifies the periodic table. Watching their face light up with understanding, I am more myself than before I taught them (or they taught me?).
A drop in bodyfat percentage feels great – but not nearly as good as the time I helped an elderly woman suffering from dementia who was lost and wandering around in the rain with no jacket. Despite having all my children with me, I stayed with her for over an hour until we could locate a family member. And then I drove her back to her home. When my second son asked “Why are we still heeeeerrrrreeee?” my first son answered, “It’s what we do. We help people.” As I delivered my fragile cargo, I asked her son what her name was. His answer? “Charlotte.”
So help me answer Candice – how do you separate your self image from your self worth?
“What are we here for, if not to make life easier for each other?”
Having moved away from Los Angeles (and the acting profession) a year and a half ago, I am only now coming to terms with the harm that was done to my self-image and my psyche. I moved to L.A. when I was 26. I am 5/9″ and, at the time, weighed 140 pounds. I was constantly told that I was too fat and too old. And, as hard as I tried not too, I bought into it.
I started acting at age 9, because I loved it. I always had a complex about my body, but it really hit its height in L.A. Every woman I know who has moved there from somewhere else has developed a body image issue, even if they’d never had them before.
Now I’m a mom, with 2 kids with Autism, and there are more important things to think about than whether other people find me “hot.” I have a wonderful husband and a great life. I have been blessed, and I’m FINALLY starting to see that.
Great post! It’s hard for me to put together a coherent thought in this direction, but I’ll try.
I like to think of myself as a practical person, and I’m not sold on the idea that there’s a “real me” that’s completely separate or separable entity from my physical being. Therefore, I am defined by the actions I take in this body of mine. If I want to be a nice person, I don’t do that by thinking nice thoughts. I do that by helping people (like your example with the old lady). So, to me, working out expands the possibilities of what I can be as a person by expanding my physical capacity to interact with the people & things around me.
Many people don’t view their bodies like I view mine. For many people, working out is an effort to achieve a socially constructed physical ideal. That video you linked to speaks very well to that physical and aspirational aspect of our culture. I guess I’m just lucky that I’m wired to not care as much about how I look as I do about what I do and how I act towards others.
I’m 99% sure that I screwed up what I was trying to say there. But hopefully you get the gist.
As an aside, I credit my parents with programming me to view my self-worth through the lens of what I do instead of physical or social appearances, and it sounds like you’re doing a great job of doing the same with your own kids.
Char…beautiful post! Being a person who has struggled with weight my entire life, I, too have wrestled with the idea of beauty vs. self worth. Can’t say that I have all the answers either.
I also don’t know how I’ve come by it, but I can honestly say that I’m happy with who I am (there are always improvements to be made) but that I’m not happy with what I look like. Mostly because I know I can do better than I am.
Keep writing. You’re fabulous!
Azusmom – I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: I need to hear your whole life story!! Write a book. Write two. Anything!
Lucas – Thank you for your kind response. I think you made perfect sense. It really is about how we are raised as we tend to keep to the priorities instilled in us by our parents. You’re an inspiration!
Lisa – Awwww! *group hug*
This was a great post. I was online searching about body vs soul and this came up. I had a question in my mind: does the body reflect the soul? I mean in it's physical appearance? Then I went further and said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder (they say) and perhaps the soul can reflect the outer appearance…it just takes the right person to see that beauty. What I'm getting at here is that it's sort of un unfair deal to have to be attracted to the outer and then find out the inner is not compatible. Wouldn't it be cool if we could all wear our souls?