Skinny shaming

You know what I'm getting tired of seeing?

This:

This:

And this:

Seems "skinny shaming" is a thing. For some reason I'm really noticing it at the moment. I see stuff like this in my Facebook news feed and quite frankly it's annoying...and hurtful. In my mind,  skinny shaming is just as hurtful as teasing someone for being overweight.

I guess you could say that I'm skinny. I find it hard having an objective viewpoint on this due to the fact that achondroplasia makes it look as though I have "junk in my trunk" no matter what I do, but I do know that I am lean because I work out regularly and eat well. I work hard at maintaining this level of fitness. I'm not going to deny that. It takes commitment and work. I get up at the crack of dawn two mornings a week to go swimming, I lace up my running shoes a minimum of twice a week to go running. I push my body to test it's limits, but I do it because I enjoy being healthy. My drug of choice is that naturally high feeling after I've completed a good run, a decent number of laps in the pool or a session of yoga. I love the feeling of vitality and energy coursing through my body. It's worth it! 

The only down side to being lean is that I've lost curves and I'm flat chested - but I'm OK with that. I've learned to be happy in my own skin. 

Looking back, I've never had a problem with my weight and, apart from pregnancy, I've always been on the leaner side. Good genes maybe? I remember my mother saying when I was a young teen that if I was average sized I would possibly have the same body type as one of my slender sisters. At the time I heard that with the ears of someone who was struggling with an eating disorder and my mind turned it around to mean, "You're fat". She didn't mean it that way at all, but my illogical mind took it that way.

Silly goose.

Good metabolism? Possibly. I've always been interested in and committed to being as physically healthy as I can possibly be, maybe that's it? I'm committed to being active. I walk a lot. I choose the stairs at train stations and in shopping centres rather than escalators. I like to move. I don't like eating junk or drinking soft drinks (soda). It's both a preference and a choice. Maybe my metabolism has adjusted itself according to these choices. 

I have been called a bitch because I am lean. That was kind of hurtful. I didn't really know what to do with that comment when it happened. Being a bitch for being lean and healthy? I didn't get it at the time...I still don't get it. Why?  If you're not happy with your own body and wish it were different, then the choice is yours. DO something about it, but don't call me (or anyone else) a bitch in the interim. Please. 

I wouldn't dream of insulting someone because of the body shape they inhabit - whatever shape it is. I feel concern for people who are unhealthy but to make personal remarks or insults is just not on! That WOULD make me a bitch. 

For this year

I know, I know....2016 started weeks ago and I haven't blogged yet. Normally I would have written about my theme of the year by now....but I've been thinking about a lot of things, and when I think about a lot of things I normally retreat into my cave and just, well, think. Don't worry...my cave is a nice little cave, filled with wool and crochet hooks, books, fabrics, music and movies, but it's the place I retreat to when I've got a lot on my mind and I don't come out until I have to....or feel like it.

Over the past few years I have had a theme word for the year. As I was meditating on a word for 2016 this verse kept coming to me. It wouldn't leave me alone....so in the end I decided that this entire verse would be my theme for the year.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. 

(Philippians 4:8)

I've been intentionally keeping away from  watching, reading and listening to the news for quite a while now. I can't handle the doom and gloom, the violence and hatred filling my screens. It brings me down, makes me depressed and affects my outlook on life. I start wondering if the world really is a horrible place. I start making generalized statements, such as "People are horrible," and therefore it starts affecting the way I relate to the world around me.

I think it was Mister Rogers who said that when he was a child and saw terrible things happen on the screens, his mother would exhort him to "look for the helpers". Helpers were always there, making bad times better. It helped him form a better outlook on life.

With all the therapy I have had over the past twelve months where I have unlocked some of the past and realised the root causes of why I do what I do, why I believe what I believe and why I think the way I think, I realised it could have been very easy to just dig a hole and spend a lot of time blaming and wallowing and being angry. But with this verse going over and over in my head like a soothing mantra I have been able to turn a whole pile of things around and learn valuable and insightful lessons from everything. The greatest of these is that people did the best they could with the tools they had and with the very best of intentions.

Sometimes people react out of their own stuff. Sometimes someone says or does something that touches sensitive trigger points in my heart and mind. It's up to me how I look at that and respond. Do I go the "easy" way and simply react, blowing up and causing more damage - both to myself and the person who touched a trigger point? Or do I stop, breathe, think and search within to work out what is really the issue? Did that person really mean it the way I took it or have I just reacted out of some unresolved issue?

All of us, each and every one, are fighting unseen battles. I think the kindest thing we can do for ourselves and our fellow human being is to remember that and grant each other some grace.