by Stef Woods, City Girl Blogs

When I saw a Tweet from my friend, Melanie, come into my feed, I stared at my laptop screen with an odd expression on my face. To paraphrase, the Tweet said:

Hey @citygirlblogs, I think my hair is even shorter than yours now!

I exhaled before I responded: Yes, but yours was a choice :)

See, I had cancer. I was known for my long, beautiful red hair. My hair was a huge part of my identity and my brand.

I shaved my head before six rounds of chemotherapy caused me to lose all my hair. As much as I missed my long, red locks, I wore a wig only a handful of times. I didn’t mind being bald; I actually kind of liked it! I felt confident without hair and as sexy as I could in the midst of six months of treatment and the accompanying side effects.

To most people, though, my comfort with my baldness made them uncomfortable. My baldness forced others to have to think about cancer and their own mortality. I get how scary that can be for some.

When my hair started growing in, I was able to embrace the buzz cut. I felt like a rocker chick! Now that my hair is short, though, I have to fake being confident about my appearance. Post-chemotherapy hair grows at half the speed that normal hair does, and it doesn’t grow evenly. In addition, the chemicals in chemotherapy commonly cause hair to curl. I spend more time and money now to maintain my short hair than I did when I had long hair.

Despite the fact that I’ve told my friends and written about the fact that I can’t talk about my hair, I inevitably receive several comments a day about it. People view hair as a sign of vitality and beauty. I view my short hair as a constant reminder of what cancer took from me.

"Oh, but it will grow back!” well-intentioned friends comment.
“In a minimum of three years,” I reply.
“It’s so thick now!” they say.
“It was thick before,” I respond.
“I know you don’t like short hair,” they try to reason.
“I like short hair on others. I’ve never liked short hair on me. And, this wasn’t a choice!” I remind them.

A study of breast-cancer patients revealed that 30% suffer from depression and 20% suffer from body image issues -- post-treatment. I’m thankfully not depressed, but I am honest and open about my feelings. It will take a long time to look in the mirror and like what I see. Until then, I’ll fake it until I can make it. I won’t let my displeasure at my post-treatment appearance stop me from dating, enjoying time with my friends or smiling at the cameras at an event. I don’t have a choice as to the length of my hair. I do have a choice as to how I live my life.

To some, that might be perceived as confidence or sex appeal. To me, that’s living my life to the best of my abilities.

--

Stef Woods is a university professor, sexuality educator, writer, former practicing attorney, and breast cancer survivor and advocate. She writes about relationships, sexuality, dating, health advocacy and cancer on her website, City Girl's Blog. Follow her at Twitter @citygirlblogs.

Photos by Kristina Hopper (top left) and Naiffer Romero (bottom right).

Intentionality was the goal for 2011.

First, I applied this to Sisarina. At work, I stopped worrying about where money was coming, I blogged more, I focused on networking and bringing in more business, I hired better. My staff even supported this intentionality. Our intentionality became habit and we'll be taking it into our next year. (2012 is about leadership!)

Halfway through the year, I wondered why I wasn't feeling more intentional about my personal life. My work life was fantastic and everything was moving along perfectly but there was such discord outside of that. I started looking at being more intentional with the rest of my life and was impressed to find out that when you are intentional about everything, you get so much more joy out of life.

A month ago, I set a goal to pray more, exercise more and be more diligent about my quiet time.

MY GOALS:
4-WEEK NEW HABITS CHALLENGE:
MIND:
- commit to praying every morning & every evening
- commit to 15-min of quiet time for just reflection every day
- commit to being in bed by 11pm & waking up by 6am every day
- commit to tracking thoughts on paper daily
BODY:
- commit to 30-60min of exercise every day
- commit to eating & drinking only healthy
- commit to stretching every morning
- commit to tracking exercise on DailyMile.com daily

MIND:
PRAYER: Joshua, the incredible man I'm dating, has helped me keep this one for the month. We've been praying every morning and every evening over the phone, on Skype or in person as we can. Some days we aren't able to and I send up a little prayer but most days we pray together. It's such a blessing to have a man in my life who will pray with me and help me keep this up. It's now hard to start the day or end it without prayer. With this, Teresa and I have taken more time to sit and pray about Sisarina.

QUIET TIME: I definitely have not done this. My runs tend to be my quiet time if I don't have a running buddy. Being quiet is not easy for me but I plan to continue to focus on it. Since I haven't done this, I also haven't had the quiet time to track thoughts on paper. I hope to learn how to get my thoughts out and really listen to what God is saying through writing and quiet time in the new year.

BEDTIME: This is something I've learned to be very clear about. With all the running, I've definitely been up by 6am every day and because I've worn myself out with exercise and work, I'm typically in bed between 10-11pm. It's been so incredible getting solid nights of sleep.

BODY:
EXERCISE: As you'll see from my DailyMile.com profile, I've been very intentional about my 30-min per day. In 4 weeks, I only missed 4 days whereas I was only doing about exercise about 4 days a week. Being more intentional with a goal allowed me to begin a habit that I now plan to continue into 2012. My new goal with exercise is to run 1200 miles. That translates into about 25 miles per week. Excited to make that happen!

INTAKE: The eating & drinking only healthy didn't end up as healthy as I'd like. Because of this, I've also included being careful of what I drink in 2012. My plan is to drink only water so that I can keep my body hydrated for all the running I'll be doing. Drinking rum to combat stress has become a bit of a habit I'd like to break. Joshua & I are starting off the year with the same 4-week detox (minus wheat) that I did a few months ago. 

STRETCHING: Over the course of the month, I became more intentional about my stretching. It became habit after a run to stretch but stretching every morning? Nope. I've recently had a girlfriend convince me to start doing Bikram Yoga and another tell me she'd meet me at my office to do yoga with me. I think this will be something I need a buddy to help me with.

It's been quite an incredible month of intentionality completing my year of intentionality. Huge thanks to running & exercise buddies, David Heyman, Sam Young, and Jessica Menk. Huge love to Joshua Rennie & Teresa Thomas for praying with me. Thank you to all who encouraged me this month. Excited about more growth in 2012.
 

Hebrews 12:7 - Endure hardship as discipline...

Standing at my counter while I make dinner, sweat drips off the back of my hair and onto my neck. It's Monday night and I just finished a really hard BodyCombat class. On Thursday, I ran the Turkey Chase 10K in 56min with my friend, David (@dcborn61). On Saturday, Joshua & I ran a 4+mile hill run and on Sunday, we hiked Stony Brook Park (and by hiked, I mean, climbed a LOT of precarious stairs up to the top of a mountain so we could see the falls pictured here). My muscles ache, I really need a shower and I'm starving, but man, I feel incredible.

I'm inspired to do something.

Evernote reminded me that I had notes from last Sunday (thank you for the sync from my phone!) and after reading through them, I realized that this is something that is obviously on my heart. Pastor Todd (@swirlyfoot) gave a sermon at Church in Bethesda about the saints. He talked about the tough things they went through to become saints but they were never all talk. They had action behind their talk & endured hardship. The sermon was pointed at getting off our butts & doing something instead of just talking about it. Todd told us that each of us could be a saint in our own right if we stopped just formulating ideas and went out to put them into action.

My initial thoughts for this post were about formulating a plan for the next month to get off my butt and show myself what I'm made of physically. The verse above, Hebrews 12:7, is the beginning of a few verses (seriously, go read them) that talk about how God is our Father disciplines us for our own good and and how even when our earthly fathers have done the same, we've respected them. Being able to discipline ourselves to action allows us to correct our own paths.

MIND:
Based on what the Bible is saying here, I know I must discipline my thoughts, my words and my actions to make sure I am wholly good and holy for Him. If I can do that, I'll be wholly good to everyone around me. Being a Christian is so much more than just going to church on Sunday and praying over dinner. And although some of you may not agree with me, being a Christian isn't about just telling everyone that God will save them. Being a Christian is about being an upstanding member of your community in everything you do. It's about who you are when nobody is watching AND when everyone is watching. Finding myself standing here knowing that I'm a leader in my small community, I know it's time to correct my path.

I've always struggled with prayer and downtime. I've always had a hard time just quieting my mind. Running helps  me quiet my mind (we'll get to that next) but otherwise, I'm a million miles per hour in thought. Being able to refocus my thoughts will allow me to be a better Christian AND a generally better human to my community. Ever been around yogis? They're incredibly peaceful to everyone around them. Hmm... we'll see how this goes.
 
BODY:
This goes back to me sweating and feeling amazing yet painful after a few straight days of working out. I'm disciplining my body to do what I want it to and it's respecting me for it. For the last few years, I've been pushing myself to do more but then I fall into a comfortable pattern and end up working out only 3x a week.. maybe. This year, running has become something of an addiction for me but sometimes what I put in my body (fried food, alcohol, etc) doesn't allow me to have the drive to get up and run the next morning. While in this space, I always wonder (even though I know) why I can't break the barrier that shows me what I'm really capable of. In order for me to see results from this discipline of my body, I need to get off my butt and make it a reality.

If you repeat a behavior over and over, it becomes a habit.

My plan is to make these two behaviors good habits. Thanksgiving is now over and Christmas is on its way. These aren't insane plans for having a killer body or being a Christian saint, but they are simple actions that I want to become a part of my lifestyle, not just a phase.

4-WEEK NEW HABITS CHALLENGE:
MIND:
- commit to praying every morning & every evening
- commit to 15-min of quiet time for just reflection every day
- commit to being in bed by 11pm & waking up by 6am every day
- commit to tracking thoughts on paper daily

BODY:
- commit to 30-60min of exercise every day
- commit to eating & drinking only healthy
- commit to stretching every morning
- commit to tracking exercise on DailyMile.com daily

Now that I've written it down and said I'd do it, it's on. I'm ready... are you?
 

Being in silent mode on a flight across the US with no constant email message and no one texting me, I'm required to think. My mind wandering from leading my company & inspiring my employees to organizing myself & finding more time with God in my hectic schedule to the one thing I can't stop thinking about no matter what else floats into my brain.

A man who is calling on God and being led to be with me. A man who already loves the woman I am from only two encounters over two weeks and countless conversations about the future.

Although the biggest thing on my mind has to be leading my team to success, I feel like there has to be a partner in all of this. My friends and coworkers are great. Even other colleagues and acquaintances are helpful but having that one cheerleader who always believes in you and truly cares about you is something I've truly missed.

Dave Ramsey keeps talking about spousal approval and says that a great spouse will always have your best interests at heart. I resent hearing that because my dogs are the closest thing I have to a spouse and they don't care what I do. Most relationships I've had have not been built on trust, prayer or safety and I know that all of those are needed to ensure success.

This man is showing me what a truly Godly man is and is proving that he can lead by showing me how God is working in his life AND mine. Being able to start at this place allows us to cheer for each other and not feel taken for a ride. With my craptastic relationship history, I am still skeptical and will be until I can feel God leading me also. His support while I am searching for God's voice is imperative and so clearly there.

Being able to sit back and feel his prayers going up for me when I am feeling scared, nervous or even thinking things I shouldn't, has been some of the most heartfelt love I've ever been touched by. My heart is fighting with my head and at this point, my strategic mind is winning. My heart bursts with the beginnings of love and excitement while my rational mind tells me to slow the hell down.

I keep thinking that this must just be how things are in his life but this is apparently SO different and new to him too. Balancing the last 14 years of decisions he's made without asking God first and this new life that he is basing solely on God's purpose has been so freeing for him.

My life has been free for a long time but my brain still tells me that it's trapped in the mistakes of my past. Too many questions, worry and skepticism. I find that I haven't fully placed this potential relationship on God's shoulders. I know this man is not manipulating me but my head doesn't wrap around that. He just knows that God's got a bigger life for him and is positive that it includes me.

How do you run from that?! Time to fully give it to God & let go of the past.

Walking through this I'm reminded of a song my dad and I used to sing when I was a kid:

"In His time, He makes all things beautiful, in His time. Lord, my life to you I bring and may each song be to you a lovely thing, in Your time."

Photo by: Patrick Onofre

Ever just sit back and wonder how much God loves us? Ever wish you could understand the love He has for us? I've been doing that the last two days. It almost feels like it's not even possible that anyone could ever love us that much.

Yesterday at church I sang a song called "How He Loves". I chose that song earlier in the week and felt like I absolutely had to do it. I have only heard it a few times and didn't know how to sing it very well but I led our congregation in this as a meditative song before Communion. I started realizing how terribly I was singing the verses and kept going back to the chorus... at first thinking that I should have practiced it more and wondering what people would think of how I was messing it up... 

Then I realized that I needed to focus on the chorus. It's so simple but it says:

"He loves us. Oh, how He loves us. Oh, how He loves us. Oh, how He loves." 

As soon as church was over I had the overwhelming feeling of not being able to draw in a full breath and not understanding why. I left as soon as the service was over and heard these words over and over in my head and started crying.

Today I got an email from a girlfriend who I had gone on a big trip with a few years ago. We were talking about how we'd been thinking about each other and she said she heard How He Loves Us at her church yesterday and was thinking of me since that was a song she introduced me to. I'm not sure that's just chance... God's in that. Right there in that. He knew I'd been thinking about this and made sure I knew someone else was thinking about me in this too.

I started thinking about the words of the first verse:

"He is jealous for me. Loves like a hurricane, I am the tree. Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy."

He wants more for me than I could EVER possibly want for myself... have you ever thought about how much that is?! We humans want a lot in life but wonder if we'll ever attain it. God wants WAY MORE! Is that incredible?! More than we could possibly imagine. God wants more for me than even my mother... and that's saying a lot.

He loves us. Plain and simple. He loves us. 

Think about that... then start planning on what you can do to make your life live up to how amazing His love is for you.

Written for CityGirlsWorld.com

While enjoying a weekend away in Western NY, I glanced at the paper to see that, not far away in Seneca Falls, there was a celebration of Susan B. Anthony and the women’s suffrage movement. The next day, my mother and I just happened to drive by the movie theatre and made a last minute decision to see The Help. Both of these struck a deep chord with me.

Growing up as the oldest of four children whose parents were only 20 years older than myself, I was raised in a time where girls were expected to go to college after high school. Being from the country, I found that most girls my age weren’t finishing more than a year or two before becoming wives and mothers and spending their days at home. Although my mother was one of those high school graduates turned wife and mother, she was the voice that told me it wasn’t necessary to find a man and have children. A career should be my focus, not someone else.

Looking back to the early 1900’s when women’s suffrage was at its height, we see women who turned against the grain and fought for our rights, careers, choices, and futures. These women were different from those of their time because they were single (gasp!) and didn’t do what was expected of them. Moving forward to the 1960’s era of housewives depicted in The Help, we see women who went to college to get their “Mrs.” degree. They chose men who could take care of them & hired maids to take care of their children, cooking and cleaning while they played Bridge and setup charity events. Their education became useless.

Now we see women taking on corporate executive positions and leading non-profits instead of being someone’s Gal Friday. Women are taking bigger entrepreneurial risks and leading the way for the younger generations to prove that we can do more with less. We’re getting seats at the table now, but asLeslie Bradshaw asks “is that really enough?” Studies are showing that many women leave work before they leave work. Most of the time it’s due to getting married and planning for children. They don’t ask for raises or promotions because they plan to leave the workforce to stay at home with their future little ones. And then women complain that we’re not getting paid or treated equally.

Finding myself looking at my 30’s with great excitement for what’s to come, I see a woman not unlike the main character, Skeeter, in The Help. A young woman wanting to change the world, wanting to find her space by helping others. This gumption-filled character who went outside the confines of ‘normal’ and proved herself by taking a stand for others. She is someone to look up to, to become more like, to be humbled by. She’s the woman I want my nieces and nephews to look up to and my parents to be proud of.

About 10 years ago my mom had a conversation with a friend of hers who was single, 35 and waiting. She hadn’t even bought towels because she thought you had to be married to get towels as a wedding gift. My mom told her she needed to go do things because she wanted to. So, she went to Honduras on a missions trip, bought a house, finally bought towels and became happy with her life. She’d always been waiting for someone to be happy with and realized her life was waiting for her instead.

As a woman who seems to have it all together, I wonder why this notion of ‘what’s next’ keeps me searching for a ’someone’. Why is the next step always marriage and/children? Why can’t a big career and amazing friends/family be enough? Why is there always the comment “Oh, you’re pretty. You’ll find someone.”?

 It may not be 1890 or 1960 but we still have the requirement of marriage surrounding us as women. We’re taught to be independent and to find ourselves but when will we stop being looked at like there’s something wrong with us if we choose to be alone. Our lives aren’t based on our careers, but the end game always seems to be settling down. I look at the lives of most married women and see them looking at my life with wonderment. I think I’ll just keep on keeping on and see where life takes me next instead of trying to fit a mold the women of the 20’s & 60’s tried to break for me.

"Why don't I have ____?"      

                                                                  "Why can't I get ____?"
            "I'd be so much happier if ____?"

Ever catch yourself asking these questions of yourself? I finally quit... and guess who is happier than ever before? Me.

So many people think that if they had more, they would be better off. The grass is always greener. If you are single, you wonder what it's like to be married. If you're married, you wonder why you made that decision. If you don't have kids, you yearn for them. If you do have kids, you're happy to give them up for a night off. If you're in an unhappy job, you know you'd be happier working for yourself. If you work for yourself, you wish for the days of a steady paycheck. Greener... but is it?

At the beginning of this year, I set a goal of intentionality. I didn't do a New Year's resolution. No "I'll eat less and run more". No "I'll walk the dogs more." No "I'll take more time off." Just a goal of being intentional with everything I do because no one else was going to live my life better than me. 7.5 months later, I see the fruits of my intentional intentionality... and every day it's clearer.

No more worrying. When I set this goal, it was to put full faith that God had given me the tools and the strength to be a success. I finally started leaning on Him and with that I had to stop worrying about everything. Money, relationships, work, family, everyday details... Once I stopped, I was able to focus on what He really wanted for me - my best life. A life that was in place to help others accomplish and live their own.

I love my life. My friends, my family, my job, my coworkers, my clients, my dogs, my home, my office, my body, my goals, my everything. Nothing is perfect but man, I really love where I am a month from 31. I am happy, I am healthy, I'm in the best shape of my life, I'm a successful entrepreneur, I travel, I am full of faith... it's all coming together.

Being intentional about who is in my life, what I do with my days, and how I find peaceful rest each night knowing I'm living my best life is how I am able to just be happy.

Are you happy? How are you intentional about your life?

Vast cornfields, low-hanging fog, the occasional deer, more trees than even God can count, small dirty houses on 10 acres of land, a gravel company, an Irish golf course, an Amish farm, a tractor-trailer company, more cornfields, 15 cars in 8 miles… such a relaxing long run on a Friday morning. Western New York is ingrained my bones. It'll never leave.

Growing up in Western New York, I couldn't wait to leave. Now that I have been living elsewhere for almost 10 years, Western New York calls to me, especially when I'm stressed. It calls to me quietly but with such a strong and powerful force. The trees give way to cornfields that end at more trees. My feet hit the pavement at 7:15am in a place where sidewalks don't exist. The trails in the woods are hidden so I don't bother heading out under the tree cover for fear of getting lost. Just me, the open road and the rows and rows of corn.

Last night I sat on the enclosed porch with all the windows open listening to the crickets surrounding the house. Walking outside, it was so dark that every star was easily spotted in the black sky. There were no lights impeding their twinkling. There was nothing, aside from the sound of the occasional car and barking dog.

Today, the road and I were friends. We worked together to make sure I felt like I was flying. My Bikilas were gliding over the asphalt. My music was enlightening my cadence. The fog told me the sun was trying to break through. I watched for cars to make sure they saw me. I checked my breathing and made sure my stride was in check, my feet were touching down correctly. My body was a well-oiled machine. My mind was happy.

Around mile 4, I passed an Amish house and looked over to see a little boy about the age of four standing on his porch in black pants, bright blue button-down, suspenders and his pants open watering the flowers. It made me giggle and forget about the hill I was climbing. So unassuming… just taking my time while finding some interesting scenery. No thought to how my body felt, just knew I wanted to keep going.

At the end of my run, I saw my parents' house about half a mile away and knew it was time to make things happen. I kicked it into high gear, pushed my body past its limits and sprinted like I was heading for a finish line. I felt that amazing… like I could do anything. I finally understood what it felt like when people told me they wanted to just keep running.

Tonight, as my dad and I took my 2-year-old niece on a scooters/dirt bikes, we rode over to the Genesee River and sat in chairs covered in peeling paint and rust. I looked to my right to see Amish gentlemen fishing in the river in their full beards, black hats and bright blue shirts with suspenders on their black pants. Probably finding something delicious for dinner. Where else do you see that every day?

Western New York is peaceful. People drive slower, have less stress, enjoy life. They take in the scenery and force you to do so. I learned a lot from my run today… a lot about how I need to take in everything around me instead of always worrying about where my next step will take me. 

Written: Friday, August 5, 2011

It's been a week & I'm still alive.

I've written before about my body image. I've told you all how much I hate my body… I still do and not because I'm trying to get any of you to say otherwise. It's my issue, not yours. I know I'm thin, I just hate my curves and bumps and love handles. My middle has been a source of disdain for the last 7 years and I've done everything in my power to make it go away… or so I thought.

A week ago I realized that two things were happening. 1. My middle area was not getting smaller no matter how much I worked out. 2. My intestines hated me almost every day. 

Why did I pick these?

I'd talked about doing a detox but couldn't figure out how to do it so I just kept putting it off. Knowing that I'm probably allergic to some of the foods I'm eating I decided to give up the 2 things most people have problems with: wheat & dairy. I also noticed that my sleeping patterns were all messed up and it was a crazy cycle of drinking caffeine every day then not sleeping because I'm naturally caffeinated as it is. Then because I didn't sleep, I'd need caffeine. Processed sugar & fried foods are just bad. End of that story. Alcohol became an issue when I realized that I was working way too much & felt the need to drink on my couch at home while I was working to make it not feel so stressful. I was drinking 4+ days a week and that also didn't help with my sleep habits and caused me not to want to go running. Now do you see?

First Week Report:

Aside from accidentally ordering ginger ale last night out of habit while out for a friend's birthday instead of my usual rum & ginger ale, I've stuck to the plan since last Sunday morning. 7 straight days.

• Wheat: easy-peasy. I don't eat a lot of wheat as it is. I don't plan on adding much back into my diet after this is over.
• Dairy:  isn't too bad since I'm not eating cereal or drinking coffee. I believe I'll be eating the giant container of Greek yogurt in my fridge this week though since it's too expensive to waste. 
• Sugar: The hardest of all of the list. I want a cookie or something sweet after lunch/dinner and have SUCH a hard time breaking this habit. I didn't realize how bad it was until I gave it up and didn't give in. I'm a sugar-lush! Fruits have helped replace this but nothing is as delicious as a fresh baked chocolate chip cookie… !! 
• Fried food: I do crave a big bowl of french fries but I have sweet potatoes that I may bake instead. I'm removing this from my diet wholly. No more fried foods ever.
• Caffeine: The first few days were really tough. I went to work exhausted. Later in the week I realized I was sleeping better, feeling more alert longer and ended the week wide awake. This is something I'll be giving up for good.
• Alcohol: This has been tough. I spent the entire first 6 days with just water. Nothing else. Yesterday I made a mocktail of 100% blueberry & pomegranate juice with seltzer water to help me through the craving.

Having friends support me and go through this with has been an amazing experience. It's been really rough but my whole being feels better and it's prompted me to hit my workout regimen much harder than normal. I'm heading into my 30's (31 shortly!) and want to make sure I hit them with a rock solid, hardcore body. Inside AND out.

Keep track of all of us & what we're eating at melaniespring.com/4-week-detox or #4weekdetox

Happy & healthy eating! 
Melanie

As a Christian, I've heard the words 'garbage in, garbage out' most of my life. Usually it was a pastor or a mother telling us as youth that the music we listened to or books we read or people we hung out with are going to cause destruction in our lives. Since most of us as kids don't listen to the people who tell us 'no,' I felt I could do what I wanted without worry of consequences. I was my own person and knew who I could hang out with, what I could listen to, what I could read and how I was going to act without their influences. Sometimes our elders are right... 

music
Music has always been one of my top passions. I love going to concerts, I have to have music playing all day, I wake up to music, I sing at church every week as the Music Director, I just love music. All styles, all types, all kinds, doesn't matter. I love dance music, heavy beats, stuff that makes me want to jump around. Mainstream music has been becoming more overtly sexual with every new song that comes out. I catch myself singing the words and realize it says nothing about who I am or what I believe in. It actually says the opposite and many times it's repulsive.

I've been listening to Christian radio over the years but found Air1 and XM's The Message along with the local station 91.9FM to be the contemporary Christian rock stations that had a great message AND a great beat. I never got into gospel or traditional church music (hymns and things) but with the upbeat, positive message of these stations I was able to get my music fix while not worrying about the words coming out of my mouth. 

Don't get me wrong... I still listen to mainstream music and there's a lot of great stuff but sometimes I don't 'feel like a plastic bag floating through the wind.' I feel like I'm being lifted up and I'd rather have those words stuck in my head.

food
Recently I've been noticing that all the working out I've been doing hasn't been helping me as much as I expected. My legs and arms are getting toned but my middle isn't. There are muscles under there but a nice layer of fat has formed causing them not to show. This theory applies even to my body. When I eat a box of Girl Scout cookies and go for a run, it's not going to help with what I really want it to. The garbage I put into my body causes me to see where it's going while the positive things I'm doing for myself can't seem to balance it out. Everyone says that it's 80% how you eat and 20% how you work out.

I'm putting myself on a strict low carb, low sugar diet to help myself curb my cravings for sugar. At 30 without children, I should be able to keep myself lean and healthy but if I keep stuffing confections and pizza down my throat, I'll just keep finding that my muffin-top is getting bigger.

words
I may be a Christian but I've always had the mouth of a sailor. I'm not sure if it was because I was being rebellious due to the fact that we weren't even aloud to say 'awesome' growing up (because only God is awesome) but I definitely felt like I fit into who I hung out with by dropping the f* bomb without even thinking about it. 

For Lent this year, I gave up swearing. Teresa told me a story about a kid in college she knew who touted that his father was a Christian but that he swore because nothing in the Bible said he couldn't. Teresa's response was: You're right but it's terribly disrespectful to the people around you. No more nasty, foul words.  

people
I am a very social person and a connector of people. I love meeting people and making them part of my social circle. Not long ago I realized that I was being overly friendly and just letting anyone who wanted to be a part of my life... not just as an acquaintance but as a friend. Some of those people pushed my bad habits to the max and I found myself doing things I wasn't proud of. No one made me do anything I didn't want to do but they reinforced the things I shouldn't be doing. Slowly I noticed they started weeding themselves out of my life and now my close friends are people who help me grow, not keep me heading down a destructive path.

At work I noticed that when I allowed certain people to be my clients I was angry more often than if I worked with the people who gave me a positive feeling. Those frustrating clients caused me to say and do things I normally wouldn't do and brought my entire attitude down. Thankfully I've been learning how to spot them recently and clear them out before they become my nightmare. 

Overall, my mother and my youth pastor were right. If you hang out with people who are rude to others, you'll find that you're being rude to others too. If you listen to music that doesn't send the message you want your life to show, you'll find it's the soundtrack of your life. If you eat unhealthy, you'll find that you can't fit into your jeans. If you say disrespectful things, your mother will end up hanging up on you.

Time to clear it out and clean it up. I'm on a mission. Now it's your turn. 

As of 5pm today I will be going social media free for the weekend (until 8am Monday morning).

To many of you this statement doesn't seem like a big deal... but to me, it's going to be hard. ! I will be forgoing Twitter, Facebook and Instant Messaging so I can accomplish the productivity levels I have set for myself along with catching up on sleep and relaxation.

Thinking in Tweets Must Stop

I have taken bits of time off from my phone, my computer, the internet, etc but have realized that even though my business profits from my social media usage, my weekends are suffering due to my 'thinking in tweets.' Whenever something pops into my mind, I feel the need to write it. I think in 140 characters, I obsess about how to say something... my marketing mind is always twisting and turning.

I have been obsequious (yes, I just used that word... totally came to mind randomly & COMPLETELY fits) to social media and IM instead of focusing on my life around me lately. I've been bringing my laptop into my kitchen while I cook so that I can IM with friends or keep up with tweets. It's almost sickening... even to me.

At 4:35pm today, I finish this post and get ready to shut down Tweetdeck, Facebook and my GoogleTalk for a quiet weekend of happiness and productivity. I appreciate all that is information-sharing but need a break for a bit. This may be something I do more frequently depending on how it goes. Check back for updates.

Happy Weekend!

UPDATE: Sun, Jan 30 at 10:52pm

I have just completed a social media & IM-free weekend. I was able to accomplish quite a bit between running with friends, getting to church earlier for practice, cooking without distraction, chatting with my parents on the phone without distraction, crossing off to-do list items, cleaning, laundry, brunch with girlfriends and so much more.

I was amazed at how often I would think of a tweet or FB post and realize a moment later that it wasn't riveting or helpful to anyone so there would be no point to posting it. Having the inability to post the information was restraining and a great exercise for censorship. Removing the 'thinking in tweets' mentality, not sharing every thought and allowing myself to really focus on the tasks at hand were quite favorable. I wanted the ease of IM'ing with friends but I realized that the information I wanted to share wasn't necessarily worth sending if I had to spend the time to call them about it.

Overall, this was a great exercise and allowed me to have quite a bit more clarity. I can see myself doing a lot more implementing of this in the future on the weekends and evenings. My work is done on social media, not all of my goings-on need to be shared with the world. Time to focus on what helps create connections, inspires ideas and allows for engaging conversation. 

When I was born, the first child in my family, my dad had only recently become a born again Christian. He was gung-ho for God and his faith is the reason I am still growing daily as a Christian. He has never let his faith waver in that God will take care of him and his family. Dad made such an impact on my faith. And I want to share more with you on my family's faith journey and also an incredible tithing story from the book "Crazy Love."

Growing up in WNY in one of the poorest counties in the whole state, we didn't have money. 6 people, 1 income, no more than $20,000/year for all of us to survive on and somehow we managed. My parents gave us each an allowance. 50cents a week. 35 to keep, 10 to save and 5 to tithe. I still appreciate my parents for how they taught us to spend, save and tithe.

I vividly remember Sundays when the offering plate was passed. No matter how much we didn't have, my dad always had a wad of bills to drop in that plate. I noticed that other families didn't put anything in the plate and wondered why my dad was different. When I was in my teens, I asked him why he gave so much to the church. He told me that God had asked him to and that because he was faithful, God would take care of us.

No one in my family had health insurance growing up until NY State passed a law that low income kids under 19 could have free health insurance. That happened when I was 17. With 4 kids to raise, my parents had complete faith that God would take care of them. Not once did something happen to any of us that caused my parents to worry about money. Oh sure, they worried, but they knew God would be there to listen. 

God listened and told our church that we didn't have money for groceries when my mother was too proud to even whisper that truth - grocery bags filled our porch without a note the morning my mother walked out our front door to go apply for welfare. The day the rent was due and we didn't have the money for it, God told someone to put cash in an envelope and leave it in our mailbox. No one knew we didn't have the money but God made sure to take care of us.

When I got older and established myself in a church, I would give halfheartedly and not because I wanted to, only because 'God told me to.' I didn't give because I felt called to or that there was something to give for... I wasn't even sure if the church would spend 'my money' the way I thought was best. I heard a song on the Christian station the other day that reminded me of myself back then. The lyrics say: I try to stay awake during Sunday morning church, I throw a twenty in the plate, but I never give ’til it hurts.

As most of you know, last April I lost my job and decided to restart my business instead of finding another job. Shortly after that happened, a friend gave me the book "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan. It's a book about God's crazy, relentless, all powerful love for us. There was a part of that book that talked about tithing and told a story of a man who lost his job and although he really wanted to keep giving the church what he had been, he didn't know if he could since he didn't have that income. He did a lot of praying and decided that instead of giving what he had been giving, he would give double and put his faith fully in God. 

Obviously that struck home with me. I had just lost my job, knew that I wasn't going to be able to pay myself any sort of salary from May to December due to taxes and the fact that growing a business doesn't happen overnight - I had no idea what I was going to do. I loved my church, this church... and knew I needed to keep giving, not just of my time but of all the resources God gave me. I decided to take a huge leap of faith and be like the man in Crazy Love... and like my dad. I started tithing double what I had been tithing before I lost my income. 

Yes, it might seem crazy to you for anyone to do that… and you're right, but I had to eat, keep a roof over my head and forge ahead with this new business while still paying all the bills. It takes full faith to do something like that and I wanted to know what that faith felt like.

When I did an assessment of last year's finances, I found that I had given 60% of my overall income to the church or other charities throughout the year... without anything more than my business just paying my living expenses from May to December. I never once went hungry, I didn't lose my apartment, my dog didn't die because I couldn't feed him, I had everything I could have needed and more. How? God took care of me. Little miracles. Teresa even had a chance to observe God’s gifts as they emerged.

Teresa saw the IRS put unexpected money into my checking account JUST when I wasn't able to buy groceries and gas. She saw my friends taking care of me. She saw the forgotten $3,000 from my retirement fund come through and pay employees when they needed it. She saw people remove themselves from my life and my business without the burden of unemployment.

God takes care of us... if we let Him. I am living proof. If you want that faith, the faith that you know God will take care of you, you have to trust Him and know that whatever you do ends up giving to His work and will go to exactly what is needed most. So I invite us to take a few minutes now and envision all that we are thankful for… and all our needs that have been met. With these gifts in clear view, how can we ‘throw a $20 in the plate but never give til it hurts?’

I love this church, you love this church; we’ve made it our home. Tithing isn’t about obligation, it’s about supporting the community we’ve built here. Don’t give because you feel like you have to, give because you know God is faithful to you and the rest of us.

--

Originally given as a talk at Church in Bethesda to the faith community during worship service. Huge thanks to Jill Foster for reviewing & providing me with incredible feedback. 

“It’s always eye-opening to see how others view themselves.”

“So glad I read this before heading out to the gym,
because now I can focus on how strong I am instead of thinking about all the flaws I have to fix.”

“I too have struggled with loving my body.”

“I can totally relate and feel relieved knowing that I’m not alone.”

“I share your pain.”

“I think we all struggle with being perfect.”

“The fact that you’ve started to overcome your problem is comforting
 and has made me a little more hopeful.”

These are just a snapshot of the comments left on posts throughout the Body Image series. The lives touched, the hearts that were softened, the tears shed writing and reading these posts, the honesty poured out, the love that went into them – I am so humbled by all of it.

Over the last few months, I had been formulating my post in my head while working out, running or slacking. Realizing that many of us have this same issue, I decided to write about my internal disgust for my body so I could work through it openly. While talking to Jennifer about it, I found that she had the same issue and wanted to write about it also. Thus, a series was born.

Just by talking about my battles, I stirred up a whole spectrum of people that felt the need to share their own. Every post I read brought tears to my eyes and I hope at least one of them touched your life. From a capable body to losing 100 lbs to battling with acne to battling anorexia, the Body Image series encapsulated so many.

Here’s a recap of each:
1. Learning to Love it (Melanie) – a race against time, striving for unneeded perfection
2. My Body is Capable (Jennifer) – motherhood, running & surviving
3. My Body, I Hate Thee (Courtney) – loving her body, an accident, hoping to love it again
4. The Ugly Duckling? (Annie) – overcoming the outer duckling to find her inner swan
5. I’m Up Here! (Nicole) – breast reduction, learning to love her body
6. I Love My Body (Amanda) – childhood anorexia shows her how to love what she has
7. My Less Than Perfect Body (DeChelle) – a battle with perfection & the scale
8. The Bald Way is the Only Way (Joe) – college hairloss leads to adult baldness & acceptance
9. Appreciate What You Have (Abbey) – learning about body love as an aunt
10. Confessions of a Guitarist (Neil) – childhood baldness slowly allows a rocker to find balance
11. Discovering Hope (Amy) – learning to cope with nervousness instead of taking it out on her hands
12. Finding Balance (Joe) – battling against the gay standards
13. Coming into Focus (Anonymous) – a lifelong battle with anorexia
14. It’s My Windows, Dammit! (Christopher) – childhood eyesight issues lead to other heightened senses
15. Things That Stay With You (Nicole) – a story of tattoos & being an emotional woman
16. My Face & I (Shannon) – a struggle with acne & putting her best face forward
17. A Change Will Do You Good? (Chris) – losing 100 lbs & trying to find peace inside his body
18. Courtney Gives Insight (Courtney) – a counselor explains the originals and formula for body image

Thank you so much for being a part of the series, even just as a reader. Now go love yourself. You are beautiful.

Next series: Passions – tell me what you’re passionate about, why you are, what you do about it and how it makes your life better or worse. Contact me if you're interested in posting. Series starts in September.

by Chris

The thing about having a huge gut is that you can feel it.

Sure, it’s bad enough to have to see it. Nobody wants to look like Fat Marlon Brando. What you can’t know unless you’ve been truly fat, though, is the unpleasantness-bordering-on-horror of the way your midsection feels – every day, every hour. Your belly precedes you into a room, dangling from your body like a surgical attachment, tugging your entire torso toward the ground.

The word that comes to mind is “visceral.” You feel your gut, tuberous and loose, in your bones. No surprise, really, that life at 300 pounds poses challenges. What’s much more interesting is how things change – and don’t change – when you get down to 200.

I reached the weight of an offensive lineman, more or less, about 18 months ago. I had been protruding outward, though, since my freshman year of college. The culprits, more or less in order: A type-B tendency toward inertia; a sometimes-nasty anxiety; an unhealthy diet stemming from habits I learned growing up in a pasta-pushing Italian family; work weeks that occasionally pushed 80 hours.

Factors like these feed off one another. It ain’t rocket science: Anxiety fuels inertia. Inertia makes you keep your crummy diet the way it is. A crummy diet means you have precious little energy – and when you’re working 10- to 16-hour days, that energy goes to your employer and not to a workout routine.

Then, abruptly, I changed.
Now I feel better.
Sometimes.

What led me to drop 100 pounds in a year and a half after tolerating so much extra weight for so long?

It’s weird to say, but nothing special. There were some come-to-Jesus pictures of myself I disliked even more than usual. I grew weary of the watermelon growing in my abdominal area. I found myself unemployed and, thus, with time on my hands to work out, to learn how to cook and how to eat. I was embarrassed and frustrated by not being able to make it through more than a few plays at a time in pick-up basketball, long my preferred method of relaxation.

So I put myself on a better diet, started exercising, and lo, the weight came off. A boring story, but the results are nice. I look better; I feel better; I no longer face the humiliation of paying an extra $2 for a XXL button-down. Forget the 5-Hour Energy guy – if you want to be awake in the afternoon, be healthy.
And yet.

“One can't build little white picket fences to keep the nightmares out,” the poet Anne Sexton once said. She was discussing mental illness – Sexton eventually committed suicide – but it’s a wise analysis of life in general.

So it is with weight loss. Indubitably, it has been good for me, so maybe I’m underselling it when I compare it to something as cosmetic as a white picket fence. But it can’t keep the nightmares out:

• At a shade under 6’ and still 200-ish pounds, I still look, and jiggle, not unlike peach Jell-O. I doubt I’ll feel fully satisfied until I kill another 30 pounds or gain some muscle mass.
• The specter of screwing up and gaining everything back looms. Like plenty of mercurial 20-somethings, I’m prone to sloth, gluttony, hedonism. As I write this, I haven’t been to the gym in two weeks. I haven’t eaten dinner two nights this week. I’m finishing this blog post at 4:30 in the morning because I can’t sleep.
• I have plenty of thoughts about why I even need to lose weight to feel better about myself. Isn’t that perversion, feeding into a fat-success complex that leads to trash like this?

Perhaps the greatest benefit I’ve accrued though this process, though, is a more personal understanding of a truism: Body image is merely a subset of self-image.

That’s so obvious that it hardly seems worth mentioning, but we forget. The mind is too ready to commit fraud, to allow its user to rationalize and romanticize with impunity. It’s easy to think: Hey, if I just lose this weight/get a raise/move to a new city/get a girlfriend/travel the world/buy this stuff, things will be so much better.

Usually, they won’t be. Scientists have studied the psychology of happiness, and it turns out that we’re pretty lousy at figuring out what will make us happy.

I’m no different. I like to think of myself as rational, annoyingly so even, but we’re all prone to our own bouts with irrationally. A belief in the transformative, quasi-mystical strength of weight loss was mine.
Improved health and a better body are tangible benefits of losing weight. I’m grateful for them.
But – for a whole host of reasons – my overall self-image kind of sucks.

So my body image, though better, still sucks. I shouldn’t still feel embarrassed by walking down the street and meeting people’s eyes, but I do. I shouldn’t fret too much about the clothes I’m wearing or the haircut I really need, but I do. I shouldn’t look at my girlfriend and wonder (in weaker moments) whether her enthusiastic endorsement of how I look isn’t in some way tempered by private doubts, but I do.

By all means, we need a little bit of romance and self-denial in our lives. I wonder how many of us too easily trap ourselves, though, into thinking we’ve done something meaningful for ourselves – when in actuality, we haven’t had the guts, the necessary self-awareness, or the time to stare down whatever affliction dominates our days.

Clarity like that can be hard to come by. Courage to do something about it can be harder still. Resolve to follow through might be hardest of all.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from losing weight, it’s that I have the tools and the fortitude to get started.
 

by Shannon

Unlike many women, I am fairly content with my body from the neck down. Sure, I get annoyed at the bits of cellulite on my thighs or with my stomach sticking out, but we have a healthy enough relationship. No, my issue with the mirror – and my body – is more immediate, more unavoidable. It's my face.

Up until junior high, I was somewhat oblivious about my looks. In fact, I was a pretty cute kid. I knew I wasn't popular, but it didn't have anything to do with my appearance.

When I hit adolescence, puberty made me painfully aware of that connection. I started getting acne – ugly red and white pustules began arising from my fair skin. Splotches of red emerged on my cheeks. I'd look in the mirror and wince, not recognizing myself.

I might have been able to write it off as paranoia, except that my classmates reinforced this idea every chance they could. I was regularly told to “get a facial” and that I was ugly by both the popular girls and bullying boys. In seventh grade, I had a crush on a very popular boy. Convincing myself that my life could be a movie, I believed that he would see the beauty in me if I only took a chance. But instead, one of the coolest girls responded to me when I wrote a note to him. She said, “He said he would cut off his dick before going out with you.” I stood in shocked silence as she flounced down the hall.

Although I developed an “I don't care what they think” mentality, I can't shed the scars they left on me. Every time I have a new pimple, those words ring in my ears. When people mistake me for eight years younger than I am, I think of the fact my face looks like a teenager's. And of course, every commercial for acne medication reminds me of how hideous it is.

On the rare occasions my face is clear, I still examine it for any visible flaw. I look in the mirror and am vaguely disappointed, thinking I am “prettier” than the reflection I see. I avoid blush because it highlights the redness in my face; I'm still annoyed I let the makeup artist for my wedding put it on me. I focus on my small eyes, my strong chin, my bushy eyebrows - anything and everything. They're the sort of things no one else notices but affect you deep inside - what Tori Amos calls “my funny lip shape” in “Silent All These Years.”

The worst part is that my face is both something I can't change yet is obvious to everyone. I've tried every medication on the market, none of which have worked for more than a few months. Makeup doesn't work either; in some circumstances, it even makes it look worse. And I know it's something people notice, even if it's not as much as I do. Unlike large hips or out-of-shape arms, your face is the first thing to register in people's minds. Psychology studies have shown that people process the image of your face in milliseconds, using it to judge you on everything from trustworthiness to attractiveness.

Knowing I can't control something so physically and emotionally significant deeply frustrates me. Every time I look in the mirror, I feel like I'm in a war with my skin. As if something about my body itself hates me. Either way, it's a losing battle. Even when my face is clear, that mentality is neither healthy or productive.

So if my current attitude isn't working, what can I do? Honestly, I can't say I know. Right now, I'm making a pledge to myself to keep my skin as clear as possible while trying to be positive. I want to avoid breakouts, but just accept them as part of my body when they do occur. Like anyone who struggles with having a positive body image, it's easy to fall back on those destructive ways of thinking. But for my own sake, I need to work every day to look at myself a little closer and say with conviction, “I am beautiful.” If I don't believe it myself, how will anyone else?
 

by Christopher

I work as a chiropractor in both Alexandria and Bethesda, so every day I see many people who come in with bodies to be fixed and wounds to be healed (both physical and emotional). In my 23 years of practice I have met people in all shapes and sizes. Nearly everyone I have met has something that he or she would like to change about their body or a health challenge that limits them. My brain is filled with so many stories and secrets that I sometimes feel like the local parish priest.

In searching for a topic for this series, I thought about my increasingly graying yet vanishing hairline, my “why-do-some-women-insist-on-pinching" butt, my large head, or my orthopedically-modified joints but I settled for the one that really has the strongest emotional charge for me.

I have inherited from both of my parents, a pair of rather penetrating big blue eyes. Yes, I have been told that I seem to be able to see through people, making some feel uncomfortable, but, honestly, I don't consciously do that. With respect to body image, it's what you can't see that bothers me the most - what the world looks like through my eyes. If it is true that the eyes are the windows of the soul, then in my case God or the Universe clearly "doesn't do windows."

I have either been blessed or cursed with severe myopia and a whole series of “weird eye problems.” This has resulted in my 'behind the scenes" body image issue. At the age of 3 years, back when there was no such thing as a car seat, I was perched up in the middle of the front seat of my parents' car, when my father saw me excitedly point outside exclaiming, "Doggie! Doggie!" When he looked over at the side of the road, it was clear to him that I was pointing to a rock. His conclusion was either that I had bad eyesight or a vivid imagination. It turns out that he was right on both counts.

Although I managed to squeak by in kindergarten without perfect sight, it became clear that I needed glasses for first grade. It was both traumatic and dramatic. As I recall, nobody else in Mrs. Schreiber's first grade class needed spectacles except for one - me. (Interestingly enough, I recently moved and found those original glasses, felt a shudder, and promptly thew them away - not suitable for the Lions Club). My father, a chiropractor and natural health fan, set to work to have me do eye exercises. There were the side-to-sides, the convergence, and the eye rolls. Eventually, it became our routine to do these every night. The funny thing is that, for a time, they worked! Much to the surprise of my optometrist, Dr. Roach (yup, his real name), my astigmatism disappeared even though he continually used the term "impossible." Nevertheless, despite my father's valiant efforts to save his son's eyes, my vision continued to decline resulting in stronger and stronger prescription eyeglasses.

School situations were difficult. I would leave my glasses in a gym locker so as not to break them outside. It wasn't all that unusual for me to be playing in left field when a baseball would whiz by my head and all I had to go on was my newly developed sense of "sports sonar." Multiple episodes of poor athletic performance resulted in me usually being picked last for team sports. This despite the fact that I could run the 100 yard dash faster than almost anybody in my school. Thick "coke bottle bottom" glasses didn't do much for my social life either. There was no "geek chic" back in the early 1970s. I avoided school dances like the plague.

When I went to Harvard, the image of my eyes was somewhat rescued by my college sweetheart, a cute blonde who decided that yours truly needed a bit of a makeover. She encouraged me to get hard contact lenses and my image instantly changed. I could finally have a conversation with someone without worrying that people were staring at the thickness of my lenses or watching my glasses slide down my nose. Contacts seemed to be my saving grace yet still my prescriptions kept getting stronger and stronger.

Fast forward to the past two years. I began to notice that there was a certain fuzziness in my right eye, a giant blind spot that appeared to be getting bigger and bigger. After ignoring this fact (Yes. Doctors DO make the worst patients), I found out from my new opthamologist that not only was my retina pulling away from the back of my right eye but that there was atrophy and my retina was LEAKING! Yikes! I was informed that this would require a series of eye injections using special substances designed to cease the leaking of blood into my eye as well as stop the growth of bad blood vessels gone wild. Dr. Murphy, my retina expert, and his staff were great with their care but there is something incredibly disconcerting about seeing a giant needle coming at your when you can't blink. Fortunately, 5 injections later I appear to be stable and now I am maintaining relatively good vision.

My vision has been so poor that I have often joked that I could easily be a watchmaker. In truth, in order to read without contacts or glasses, I have to be about 4 inches from a piece of paper - so close that I can see the grain of the paper. My ex wife used to recoil when she saw this, saying, "Poor little blind Chrisetchka... You make me want to cry." That just made me angry. I didn't want pity. I just wanted to be accepted as my current optometrist states, "a nice guy with a lot of really weird eye problems."

There is a bright side to poor vision. The good part of being severely myopic is that I now have highly-developed senses of both hearing and touch. Hence, I can listen really well and have a great pair of hands. As a chiropractor, I've been told that I "give good neck." Not such a bad reputation to have.

by Joe

I was pretty much doomed to be small from the get-go. My mom never surpassed 4'11". I barely reach 5'5" in my best shoes, though I'm still on the taller end at family get-togethers. Picture the wimpy kid in any coming of age movie -- the one born to be bullied -- and you have a good grasp of me growing up. Top that off with the slow discovery of my sexuality, and you can imagine the horror of middle school gym class.

Everyone knows body size spawns assumptions. If you're small, people assume you're frail or incapable; that you're not into sports or most 'masculine' interests; that you're a passive person; or that you couldn't possibly date anyone over six feet tall (proved that one wrong numerous times).

What I didn't expect was the amount of scrutiny I'd receive for why I was so small – from teachers, friends and even my own family. For several years, mom and I lived with a woman who was bulimic. To say it made my mother paranoid would be an understatement. Often times she would check my teeth if she thought I was looking too skinny that week. I didn't have an eating disorder, but I did feel pressure to keep my weight up. I remember being terrified of not finishing lunches at school, and how I'd have to hide any leftovers so my family wouldn't worry.

Fast forward to adulthood and now most of my friends are gay men or straight women. While we all lived through the backlash against Kate Moss framed models, our ability to rationalize that these remnants of the beauty myth are harmful doesn't always match the ability to quit internalizing hatred of our own bodies.

In truth, the percentage of gay men with eating disorders is astronomical. And if it's not anorexia or bulimia, there is gym and steroid obsession or drugs use and smoking as appetite suppressants. The need to exhibit a great body is in many ways a gay man's way of coping and finding self validation after years of feeling outside the desired norm.

And of course, the pressure creeps in when you're at your lowest. I remember a drawn out break up with a guy whom I'd given far too many chances. In the closing arguments, he chastised me for never attaining a six pack I "promised [I] was working toward". Mind you, the most I weighed during that relationship was 120 lbs. Dumping him was the right decision.

Unfortunately it set off several years of calorie counting and navel gazing. Suddenly single, I became not only career but fitness driven – sometimes obsessed – chastising myself if I didn't run 20 miles in a week. Like women, gays feel the pressure to look forever young, to not just be a size small or XS, but to attain XXS; to not have a 30 or 28 inch waist, but to look emaciated. Cursing ourselves for carbs, at least until the week at the beach. At least for the weekend. We survive on a "this body could be gone by midnight" mentality.

A girlfriend of mine is getting married this month. Like many brides to be, she is trimming down, but to the point of taking five boot camp classes per week. I wonder what it will feel like looking back at her wedding photos years from now. Will she be proud she looked so good for a few short days, or will she regret that she may never sustain that body again?

I'm finding a balance. I work out to a level that keeps me feeling healthy but comfortable, and more importantly proud. I find routines that have mental benefits like yoga, kickboxing or rock climbing. I'm health conscious but not critical. I eat, but I know when to stop. I'm keeping my body for the long term. I can't always control the insecure moments, but I know these too shall pass.

by Amy

We all struggle with our image of our body in certain ways. For some, its the inches around your waist. For other women, it is the lack of inches around your chest. I would be lying if I said that I don't wrestle with those frustrations from time to time, but my main challenge doesn't have anything to do with the common body image trouble spots.

My struggle is with my hands.

I can hear you now saying "Your hands? That's ridiculous!" But, it is incredibly true. For the past 15 years, I've picked at my hands until they were bleeding and raw. It started during my part-time job in high school as a florist. I would come home with cuts on my hands from making flower arrangements. Soon, I would pick at those imperfections without consciously being aware that I was doing it. Next thing I know, my thumb was red and my cuticles were raw. I've even started to pick at my right earlobe and

It is such a habit that I don't know that I'm picking. I pick during meetings, whether stressful or not. I pick my fingers as I'm out in public and having conversations with incredible people. Heck, I'm picking my fingers now that I'm typing this blog post and spilling my guts to all of you.

I have had many people who have tried to keep me accountable over the years. They verbally point out when I'm destroying my hands or, in some cases, will hit me if they see me hurting myself. I encourage this behavior because I wouldn't know that I'm picking if people didn't point it out. And I've tried everything to stop: Band-Aids, that gross-tasting stuff, expensive hand lotion, fake nails and lots and lots of prayer.

The physical injuries are not necessarily the bad part - it is the emotional toll that it has taken on me. The attention to my hands can make me seize up in public and withdraw from conversation. (And if you know me at all, you know this is very uncharacteristic). Because I can't control how or if I pick my hands, I feel like I can't control many aspects of my life. I feel like a failure at one thing that everyone can see and will ask about all the time. This issue has spurred countless tense conversations among those I'm closest to and has caused so many tears. I often feel completely defeated and almost gave up on trying to fix the problem earlier this year.

I'm told that the technical term is Dermatillomania, a slight form of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). While I wouldn't say I'm totally OCD, I am a perfectionist and am prone to worry a lot in stressful situations. But, who doesn't worry, right? Right, but sometimes that stress manifests itself in weird ways. Instead of the "normal" nervous habits like twirling hair or tapping your feet, I pick my hands and everyone can see the effects. It has such a stigma at times. No one wants to broadcast that his or her nervous habit may be a bigger issue.

The fix: identifying the major stressors and not allowing them to reign in my life. I've been through a huge life change in the last four months. I've had to prioritize how I want to proceed with my career and take risks I never imagined. By stepping away from one thing I knew as secure and "safe," I've actually alleviated a source of stress in my life. This renewed vision and other realizations have actually improved my hands. The next step is to continue the healing by being diligent about watching my actions and identifying my stress for what it truly is.

For the first time in a very long time, there is hope. Hope that I don't have to wrestle with this issue as much as I have in the past. Hope in overcoming huge obstacles. And hope that others who have dealt with this will not be as reluctant to continue this conversation.

I'm discovering that hope in healing is a process and I'm learning to love it.

by Neil

Any music critic will tell you that music and image go hand in hand. Let’s face it, what would Michael be without his white glove, Cobain without his flannel shirts, or Lady Gaga without her RIDICULOUSLY goofy self-made outfits!

But image is not always about a certain piece of clothing you wear, it’s about your body as a whole. Body image is one aspect of you that derives confidence, and the level of confidence one has affects performance.

As the lead guitarist for the Alternative/Rock band, Redline Addiction, performing is my job and the difference between a good or bad performance determines the whole outcome of my success. So to say that body image plays an important role in my life is a VAST understatement. Body image is something I’ve had to struggle with my whole life and continue to do so today. My story begins early on.

The beginning of the end:
I had just finished the sixth grade where I conquered elementary school with flying colors and was getting ready to start the next chapter of my life in seventh where I would take the middle school world by storm! But a funny thing happened. Little did I know that an itty bitty hormone deficiency would rock my world and would forever alter my course in life. You see, at the ripe age of 11, my hair started thinning causing me to have issues with male pattern baldness as a child. To this day, I haven’t met one other person who had to deal with hair loss at that age. Now add puberty to this equation. I was completely SOL! A little bit of background. I’m an Indian American (that’s dot, not feather). Genetics alone tends to give my people dark features including dark hair and lots of it! Picture this, an 11 year old Indian boy with glasses who is the first to have a mustache and chest hair in his grade and looks like he’s bald. Was this a cruel joke from God?!? Being Hindu and believing in reincarnation, I was sure I was a serial killer in my past life. God: “As punishment, I’m going to take Neil and make him the hairiest bastard possible and just to mess with him; I’m not going to put any on top of his head. HA!”

At first I tried ignoring it hoping no one would notice, but as we all know, kids can be cruel. It started off with class mates sitting behind me noticing my bald spot and announcing it to the rest of the class. From there, it spiraled into a frenzy of old man jokes and constant teasing. Who could blame them…I was a walking bull’s eye. Always being an extrovert, I still had lots of good friends but I started noticing that even they would stare up when they were talking to me like my head and thinning hair was the center of the next great battle between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. I tried ignoring my impairment but the damage was already done. And my complex had already been built.

This filtered on to high school all the way through college where it never got any easier. I became more introverted and less active in social activities because of my hair. My passion for music and learning the guitar was my only outlet and I spent countless hours practicing in my room away from the public eye and scrutiny. My parents tried taking me to several doctors as a child to help explain why this had happened to me at such a young age but to no avail. It wasn’t until later in life that I discovered that a hormone deficiency causes my hair follicles to be spread further apart than the average human causing my hair to look thin.

The ability to wear hats was my only savior but this self image complex I had built constantly haunted me… to the point where it controlled my actions. I wouldn’t leave the house without a hat and if I misplaced or lost it, I wouldn’t go out at all. My hats were my safety blanket and I felt lost without one. Dates and formal occasions were awkward for me as I constantly worried about what a girl would think…even getting intimate was tough as I was so embarrassed on what they would say if they saw what was underneath my hat.

The change:
A decade and a half later, I had been three years out of college and had a new found look in life. I was exercising regularly and eating healthy. For the first time in my life, I had felt healthier than I had ever been. My girlfriend at the time, who was a hair stylist ironically, urged me to start shaving my head. I was reluctant at first but decided to give it a chance. With the likes of Vin Diesel on the rise, it had become a socially accepted look and people thought it was a natural cut for me. It took me a while to adjust but after a short period of time, I never gave it a second thought and became more and more confident with my looks inside and out.

But life is ever changing and battles just keep on coming.

Enter Adulthood:
It’s a funny thing getting older…it’s like a switch goes off and your body just says “no” to anything you want it to do. For me, that switch went off three weeks ago on my 30th birthday. Simple tasks like lifting up a small box or walking the dogs puts you out of breath. Your stomach starts to hurt in the middle of the night from the diner you stopped by on your way home from the bar. And that drinking tolerance us guys worked so hard building since puberty?!? Forget about it! You’re ready to pass out after a few beers.

The older you get, the more responsibilities you have.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m the self proclaimed “busiest man on the planet.” I have a tendency to take on more than I can handle and am constantly moving from one project to another. Between a full time job, touring in a band, graduate school and personal commitments to family and friends, it’s hard for me to find a balance between commitments to others and find time for my personal well being. I tend to lose focus on other important aspects of my life such as dieting and exercise. In fact, it barely allows for it at all.

This in return has caused another battle with body image in which it’s hard to maintain my ideal weight and health. Being as busy as I am, my options are limited when it comes to cooking healthy meals or providing my body with the proper exercise and dieting it needs. As a result, I have gained weight in the past years and feel excess fatigue when it comes to work and playing shows.

Finding balance:
What I’ve learned in my lifetime is being confident and successful at what you’re working towards takes great discipline and balance. Maintaining that balance is always difficult to do but there is always a way to do so if you work hard enough towards it. I now make it a priority to include exercise and dieting with my other commitments and value it as important as anything else in my life. I have always gone through struggles with body image that affected my confidence and I guarantee there will be more to come. Part of being confident which affects your overall performance is to understand your limitations. It took me a long time to come to terms with my limitations being it not having hair or not being my ideal weight, but I understand them and accept it for what it is. Knowing these limitations, I always strive to the best I can at what I can do instead of worrying about how to change what I can’t. In time, I have come to be comfortable with my body image and now let my confidence be dictated by my performance rather than the other way around.
 

by Abbey

My name is Abbey and I will be a good auntie.

I spent some time with my two nieces who are 11 and 6-and-a-half a few weeks ago. The elder was discussing how she is going to be the shortest of her siblings. She was not terribly upset about it but I looked on as a concerned auntie. Unlike her two siblings, the 11-year-old takes after my family and tends to be on the shorter side while the other two seem to have acquired tall genes. But, really, isn’t 11 too young to be acutely aware of one’s body? Shouldn’t childhood be preserved for all good thoughts about oneself?

CONS: I don’t remember a time when I didn’t realize that I was the shortest of all of my peers and surely this has always had pros and cons. It’s the cons that have stood out more often, however. Being short makes it very difficult to be “curvy”. The only thing worse than trying to find pants for short legs is having to find pants that also fit my curves. Further, shirts just never seem to hit my body in just the right places, making me look even curvier than I already am. My short waist and curvy bust-line make shopping for clothing this woman’s worst nightmare. In my mind, it looks dreadfully funny when the waist of your pants or skirt come close to the bottom of your bust. This accentuation of my least favorite part of my body leaves me self-conscious much of the time.

How is it that the part of my body that makes me the most insecure is the part that society tells me I should be happiest about? Magazines everywhere suggest that it’s not just blondes that have all the fun but women with big boobs do too. Women pay big bucks to have breasts the size of mine and I can’t figure that out. The first time my chest embarrassed me was in middle school when I overheard the boys talking about them. These same boys, who were friends of mine, proceeded to poke them with a stick. Today this would be called sexual harassment and those boys probably would have been suspended from school. In my mind, they were simply normal adolescent boys who had heard what society tells them: “Big boobs are fun to play with.” I’m here to say that society can just shove it and we need to start appreciating girls and women for their more important assets.

As an auntie, I hope to be able to encourage my nieces to love their bodies no matter what. Our bodies are our gifts from God and we need to appreciate how He made each of us unique. Both of my nieces are exceptionally smart, athletic, funny, sweet, caring, outgoing, and artistic. I pray that they will always love themselves the way that they are and know that they are loved. My job as auntie will also extend to my nephew. I promise to always teach him that girls and women are way more than how they look and guide him to see beyond the superficial. It may be too late though. I visited with him too and he was already enamored with a beautiful young actress that attended the same wedding that we did that weekend. Ah... life as a 9-year-old boy!

PROS: In order to set a good example for my nieces and nephew, I am going to have to start appreciating my own body. Being short helps me look younger, I always have leg room on planes and in the back seat of cars, and I can always hide behind taller people when I don’t want to show in pictures. I guess the curves aren’t so bad either, especially the breasts. Someday I may have the blessing of nursing my own newborn- a bonding experience that no father can ever have. More importantly, I am grateful that mine continue to be healthy while many women have lost theirs to breast cancer. It is so freeing to develop a positive body image.

My journey has just begun.

by Joe

My hair started falling out during my first year of college. I thought about killing myself.

No, I'm not kidding.

My hair was poker-straight when I was a kid; pics abound of me sporting the traditional bowl haircut (with the requisite turtleneck and plaid pants, of course). But something happened in 7th grade, which seemed to coincide with me playing football. My hair began this metamorphosis from straight and malleable to some kind of wavy, bushy mass that seemed to grow out sideways instead of down toward my shoulders -- no matter how hard I wished it would.

And this being the age you start to notice the opposite sex (and begin hoping they notice you), I tried every damn hair care product in the free world attempting to make my hair look longer and cooler, to get the sea of waves to relax enough to resemble something approaching the long locks of the metal musicians I worshipped. Alas, it was not to be. The longer I let it grow, it never grew down…just OUT.

At the same time I never had (as far as I knew) what most girls my age considered to be the ideal "look." My Italian heritage gave me a short, squat stature. Although I wasn't fat, I wasn't skinny either. Soft in all the wrong places, you could say. I was always actually pretty muscular as well, but never in any defined way, not like the guys I played football with who seemed to be blessed with thin skin that wrapped tightly around very defined muscles beneath. If I worked out, I got stronger, and I got bigger; but in size only, never in definition.

When I played football my stomach was rock-hard (the coaches would walk on it when we did leg lifts), but it still looked like a one-pack. And for whatever reason I always had visible love handles, always a little extra poking over the sides of the tight, faded Levi's that were required apparel in those days. I felt surrounded by good-looking, well-adjusted people whose clothes fit them perfectly, who didn't wear the "husky" size, whose mothers didn't have to hem every pair of pants they owned because they were made for kids who had legs longer than a basset hound's. And the hemming bit itself was enough to kill my desired look; jeans in the 80s were tapered toward the bottom. So when you cut off 3 inches or so, instead of the cool streamlined look your friends had, you wound up with something that looked like the cardboard tubes left on an empty roll of toilet paper. Stovepipes were NOT cool at that time, I assure you.

Add to all this that I had never felt able to "fit in" in high school; I was all over the place – punk, metalhead, jock, sensitive artist, nerd – and as such no one group really wanted anything to do with me. My outward persona was never defined enough to meet the criteria of any clique, and at the same time I was struggling with my parents with regard to who I was and what I was into. The way i wanted to look and what I wanted to listen to and what I wanted to do with my life (art or music) did not sit well with the folks…war all the time.

So on the outside I remained, and my self esteem and body image were predictably low.

So then I got to college, which was cool because it felt like a chance to start over. Be myself. Redefine, reinvent. Walk, talk and act like I wanted to. Join that rock band and practice and gig because there were no parents around to forbid it. Discovered graphic design, fell in love with it instantly. Met incredibly cool, like-minded people who seemed to 'get' me. Grew my damn hair out…and out…and out…until I had a big unruly bush of hair that finally, mercifully, went down past my shoulders. All very good for our boy Joe.

And then my hair started falling out.

And receding at the temples at the same time.

In a matter of months my hair began to resemble some kind of strange mohawk-mullet, with a growing bald spot at the back corner of my scalp. We were playing a gig where the seating area had a balcony, and a friend was up there snapping shots of us. When I saw the top of my head my heart sank through the soles of my feet. At the top of my head, starting at each temple, was a U-shape where there was clearly very little hair. at the bottom of the U where the lines met was a big bald spot about 3 inches wide. I had been teasing and pushing and prodding my hair for so long to get it to look a certain way that when looking straight on, it wasn't visible.

I wanted to die, there's no other way to put it. I felt crushed. i felt like the person I was becoming -- more ME, less external influence -- was suddenly arrested in his development, thrown out, locked away. Not to be. Not now, not ever.

So fast forward past a lot of nights alone in my room feeling very, very sorry for myself, wearing bandannas and backwards baseball caps and other assorted headgear to ease the pain and hide my malady from the world. Eventually I came to some kind of uneasy truce with my follicles and decided to get it all cut off.

Somewhere I get the idea that a flattop might work, because I still had a little on top. Short sides would de-emphasize the receding areas, or so I hoped. So I set out to the local shop to get it done.

The girl completely mangles the cut, shaving all the way down to my SCALP in one area. When I look in the mirror from the chair I see that instead of a straight, flat line across the top, it looks more like grass that was cut with three or four different lawnmowers by blind men of various height. So I stare for awhile and I think OK, maybe it's one of those things where when you go home and wash it it'll bounce back to normal. Yeah, that must be it.

Except it isn't.

It looks equally as bad, if not worse, after I come out of the shower. This is almost worse then the balding problem. Remarkably I bounce back quick with an idea: screw it. I'll go back and tell her to shave it all one length to match the shortest-buzzed areas of my scalp. it'll grow back, and I can start over. Bandannas and baseball caps here I come.

Here's what happens the first time you shave all your hair off: your head looks HUGE. I mean musk-melon-on-steroids HUGE. Like it doesn't belong on your body, like you have a giant punching balloon where your head is supposed to be, and it has your face.

But then a curious thing happened after a week or so: I stopped paying any attention to my head whatsoever. Didn't think about it. No combing and brushing and gelling and pulling and being frustrated that it wouldn't lay the right way or wouldn't cover the bald spots. No constant self-torture about rocking what is now known as the "skullet." And hey, it was different. It was unique. It was….ME. This was about 10 years before it became cool to rock a shaved pate, and so I was really beginning to dig the uniqueness. And somewhere along the way, the more time went by, I realized that I no longer felt the least bit self-conscious about my hair. Did. Not. Care. And that felt like a victory: a long-fought, hard-won victory.

I was 20 then. I'm bearing down on 42 now, and I have never gone back. For me, the bald way is the ONLY way and I can't imagine anything else. It's me, it's mine, it's purely and essentially who and what I am.

I'd love to say that I'm less self-conscious about other areas of my body, but I'd be lying. I'm in good shape and the woman I love thinks I'm dead sexy and tells me so -- but I still obsess about those areas at the sides of my waist, about the hair that grows in more places than I'd like it to.

But be that as it may, the feature I lead with is one that I'm proud of and totally at home with. I LOVE my bald head and am proud of it – because for me it symbolizes a concrete victory over shame, fear and self-loathing. So yeah, I went bald - but I lived to tell about it.
 

by DeChelle

I have a secret…

A really big secret that only a few people who know me really, really well know. I am a perfectionist and it infiltrates and pervades every area of my life. This “secret” desire, to make me and everything around me perfect, makes me tend to obsess a bit. Okay, whom am I fooling? It makes me obsess a lot. Over everything. But mostly over my weight. 

In the past, obsessed over my weight so much, I actually forbade myself from owning a scale because when I did, I would weigh myself no less than 8 times a day. I’d weigh myself as soon as I woke up in the morning, then after showering, before a potty break, after a potty break, when I came home, before eating, after eating, before exercising, after exercising, and then before bed. It was awful. If I saw a scale, I had to weigh myself and if there was any weight loss or gain, well let’s just say I was on a constant emotional roller coaster of highs (weight loss) and lows (weight gain).

But even without a scale, I still obsessed. I badgered my family and friends relentlessly…”Do I look fat? Does this outfit make me look fat? I shouldn’t be eating this.” Any ripple or tug in my clothing and I’d be back on that emotional roller coaster speeding towards the low, low pit that can only be used to describe where one exists who wears an extra-small but still worries, “do I look fat?”.

And while I knew this was all absurd, try as I might, I could not help it. Even to this day, I run miles and still don’t consider myself a runner. If my intention is to run 10 miles and I only run 9, I’m upset that I didn’t run the 10 miles. Many a time, I’ve told someone in a very matter of fact tone, “Oh, I didn’t run far today, I only ran 3 miles...” to which I receive a quizzical look and a comment about how 3 miles, by most, is considered far.

This desire to be perfect, to want everything around me to be perfect, has it’s benefits. I’m an extremely hard worker, always going the extra mile, in everything I do. It makes me push myself harder than anyone I know, to never be complacent, to never accept failure, and to always do my best. It gives me the appearance of always having my act together and having it all. But trying to be perfect is exhausting. It’s like working towards a goal that you know will never happen but you continue to work towards it anyway. It’s a constant battle that requires me to step outside my head daily and pull the plug on the line of thought that causes me to beat myself up or to not celebrate all the things that make me really great.

Every day I remind myself that nothing is or ever will be perfect, including me, and that as long as I do my best, that, in itself is as perfect as perfect can be.
 

by Amanda

I’ve always been obsessed with food. And in turn, equally fixated on my body, and not in a particularly positive way. If the women in my life are any indication, from friends to coworkers, most of our relationships with food and with our bodies are intertwined, thanks to years of dieting, binging, yearning, and often sacrificing dessert in the name of fitting into a smaller dress. And more often than not, leaving the table wanting something more and still scrutinizing every ripple in the mirror.

Hi, my name is Amanda and I love my body.

Let me explain how my obsession with food and my relatively new-found love of my body are wrapped up together like spinach and phyllo in spanakopita. My obsession with food has not always been a healthy one. In my childhood, I loved to eat, and eat I did. I grew quickly (more sideways than up, judging by some of the photos) and loved fried things, desserts, and all of the yummy-fattening-sugary things that are just what kids shouldn’t eat in excess. I remember volunteering for a piano recital just because I wanted to go out to KFC with everyone after. My parents were great at serving us a balanced diet and ensuring there were always fresh fruits and vegetables around the house, but sneaking fun sized Snickers in my room was much more appealing than a salad sometimes. I was a pudgy Girl Scout who liked to read, and lived in leggings and oversized sweatshirts until I was in sixth grade. And somewhere along the line, I started to believe I wasn’t pretty because I wasn’t rail thin: exactly what all of the more “popular” girls had in common. And that’s when I started to hate my body.

Middle school. I have yet to find anyone who thought adolescence was easy. I was a smart, quick-thinking perfectionist, who realized I had some control over what size my body was, and attempt to control it I did. I started depriving myself of the delicious things I had loved in the past. I ate less and less, and more compliments came flowing my way. People, especially my peers, seemed to like me more because of how I looked. Packaging those two things (acceptance and body size) within my mind was a dangerous combination, and by the time I started eighth grade I was a skeleton of my former self. And what did people say on the first day of eighth grade? “You look great!” And I still didn’t love my body.

High school. Despite having starved myself to a point of emaciation, achieving the impossible (for me) of squeezing into size 0 (and sometimes double zero) pants, I still didn’t love my new shape. I wanted to be smaller, because I equated smaller with better. Therapy and nutritional counseling until I finished high school helped me get back on track with my eating, but I still wasn’t comfortable in my own skin. I just learned that it wasn’t okay to starve myself, and I reluctantly accepted the fact that my body didn’t like being rail thin and I would need to just get used to that. And I still didn’t love my body.

University. Perhaps it wasn’t the healthiest choice to select a university with a remarkably high eating disorder rate, filled with women who looked like they belonged in a swimsuit catalogue rather than in an 8 am lecture hall, but that’s precisely what I chose. Over four years, I coped with and sometimes resented the fact that I didn’t look like a Barbie doll, and between going out and eating out and some less-than-regular exercise habits, I seemed to gain weight more often than I would lose it. I loved my time there, had amazing friends, joined a sorority, served in leadership roles in Greek life, and graduated cum laude with university honors , and without an anorexic-relapse. And I still didn’t love my body.

Grad school. Working on my Masters, I had two wonderful experiences that changed the way I thought about my body. The first was having someone in my life who loved and appreciated my body exactly how it was, and told me so often. Not that I like to admit that I needed that outside reassurance (I’m a big fan of doing things for myself), but somehow, in this arena of life, it was helpful. Everyone likes to be told they’re beautiful. I will forever be thankful for him for giving me that gift, though we’ve gone separate ways. The second was spending a summer living in rural Kenya, where standards of female beauty seem to be entirely different than what they are in the States. Curves are embraced, an ample bosom and hips and a sizable derriere are acceptable, and standing 5’10” and being thin and muscular is equally fine: there seemed to be women in so many different sizes and shapes, so many of them carrying on with an air of confidence I relished, that I couldn’t help but be amazed. Many pieces of who I am and what I want to do were shaped by that summer, and it most certainly impacted the way I thought about my body. I began to think more of what it could do than what it looked like. I was amazed. And I started to love my body.

Hi, my name is Amanda, and I love my body. And the love I have with it is the kind of love you have in a long-term relationship, or with parent, or with a sibling: I don’t always like my body, but I always love it. I can nitpick with the best of them, and envy the muscled arms of women far more disciplined in their gym regimens than I, or the lean, long legs of a runner. Over time, though, that envy has evolved into an appreciation for what others have done with their bodies, and what they are able to do with them. I have no fear of walking around a pool in a bikini, even if my tummy doesn’t even resemble a six pack. My body does amazing things for me, and I want to shower it with the love and affection it deserves, embracing every curve and every little imperfection. I love to cook, and enjoy crunchy strips of bacon and rich sauces as much as the next foodie, but in moderation. Being healthy, eating healthily, and enjoying the nourishment and satisfaction food brings to my body became more important than my dress size sometime in the past year, and for that, I am grateful.

by Nicole

Summer in the city means cleavage, cleavage, cleavage. Or, so Regina Spektor says.

I remember when I used to be ashamed to show my cleavage - it really wasn't that long ago. I first became ashamed of my breasts when their rapid growth (I was a D cup by the age of 13) caused me to quit figure skating. Despite my talent and grace on the ice, large breasts made it impossible to keep my arms in tight to spin in the air or hold my back straight when doing a spiral.

Also, ninth-grade boys are brutal. Around the same time I quit figure skating, I began getting harassed by boys in my 4th period class. In the winter time, they would open all the windows so that I'd get cold and then you know what happens. I turned one boy in for sexual harassment and, instead of taking it seriously, my principal brought us in for counseling together. He wasn't reprimanded or moved to another class. Instead, the torment increased and became more devastating.

I held a lot of resentment toward boys in high school and never had a serious boyfriend because all the attention (positive and negative) I received from them was focused on my breasts, so I completely avoided boys all together. When I got to college, I began improving myself internally; I got a job, an internship, and took classes that interested me for the first time. I also met friends of all shapes and sizes, both sexes, from all across the world. My horizons were rapidly expanding, but I still had issues with my breasts.

I started dating my first real boyfriend when I was 19, but I was incredibly self-conscious. He would constantly tell me how beautiful I was, but I never "felt" it. I would always bow my head in shame and say, "You're crazy." Or, "No, I'm not." None of the attention he gave me was focused on my breasts, but I still carried that resentment from junior high school with me and took it out on him.

At one point in our relationship, I mentioned how I'd talked to my parents when I was younger about getting a breast reduction. He told me that I was beautiful no matter what my breasts looked like, but that I should research the surgical options if I thought it would change my negative self-image (in addition to the physical pain: indents in my shoulders from my bra straps and intense back pain).

A few months of research, begging my parents for money, and talking to others who'd had reductions, I made plans to get a breast reduction two days after Christmas and two weeks before my 22nd birthday.

It wan't an easy decision at all. I had a lot of questions:

- Would I be able to breast feed if I wanted to? Actually, the size of my breasts before surgery greatly reduced my chances to breast feed if I had a child. After surgery, it's much more likely that I could breast feed if and when the time comes.

- Would they really be that much smaller? What if I went through with this surgery and they weren't able to make my breasts small enough? Or, what if they were too small?

- Would the scarring be so bad that I was embarrassed to take off my clothes or that I was ashamed of my breasts in a whole new way? Unlike implants, breast reductions require a two large incisions on each breast (doesn't seem fair, right?). Imagine the shape of an anvil cut on your skin - that's what it looks like. Thankfully, I'm very pale and my skin is soft, so my scars aren't red or puffy.

The day after surgery, I went back to the surgery center for a check up and was happy, standing tall, and not wearing sweatpants. Apparently when you have plastic surgery, it means you have an excuse to wear sweats for the entire time you're healing. That wasn't me! I was excited - I wore a shirt I bought in high school that I'd waited six years to be able to button (I tried it on about 5 hours after surgery and almost jumped up and down in excitement, but that would've hurt).

I took the standard post-surgery photos and was smiling. The nurse taking the photos said she'd never seen such a transformation and that I looked like I'd lost 30 pounds. The doctor told me he removed about a pound of tissue and skin from each breast. Yes, A POUND. Can you imagine that? They're still pretty large, too! (They were a size DDD before surgery and are now a D)

So, how has my life changed?

1. My clothes fit better. A lot better. I basically had to go out and buy an entirely new wardrobe. The extra larges I'd been buying for 6 years no longer fit. I could now buy mediums from most stores (and even smalls from some more generously-sized stores) and I could button shirts for the first time in as long as I could remember. I don't hate shopping anymore and I feel like a "normal" girl who can go into a store and pick something off the rack and buy it.

2. A lot of attention I receive from men is still focused on the size of my breasts. That hasn't changed, but now I know how to deal with it. Also, I'm more comfortable with them - I'm not afraid of what I look like naked or how a potentially romantic situation might end if a guy sees that I have scars on my breasts. (In fact, I now think I look better naked than with clothes on!) Now that I'm comfortable in my own skin, guys generally don't say the negative things they used to. I began presenting myself in a new way that encouraged guys to treat me differently.

3. Also, I'm open about my insecurities, but in a positive way. I talk about my surgery openly and people ask a lot of questions about it. Nine times out of ten, someone will respond, "I had a friend in high school who had it done. Best decision she ever made." People also say, "Wow, they were bigger?!" Also, when a guy tells me I'm pretty or beautiful (or even sexy, sometimes), I say "thank you" and smile.

Two years later, I can safely say the breast reduction was the best decision I've ever made. I never would've thought that slicing my body open, taking out some tissue, and having life-long scars would make me feel better about myself, but it has.

Now, whenever I hear "Summer in the city means cleavage, cleavage, cleavage," I think "Yes, Regina, it does." And I'm okay with it.

Fireflies hovering
over the grass green
sparkling fluorescent,
oh, so serene.

Little white dog
so curiously sneaking
to find out where from
tiny lights have come peeking.

Casual strolling
over lawns, through trees
softly caressed
by the air's soft breeze.

Waiting, listening
trying to hear from the sky
when I realize He's there
in the light of fireflies.

A local radio announcer had a 'positive tip of the day' a few weeks ago:  "Your private life says more about you than your public life." It really got me thinking about the things in my life that are private, things I would hate for others to find out about.

One of my dear friends, Rashmee, passed away suddenly recently. She was here, then she wasn't. Gone without warning. Her little light left this world and a mark on all of us left behind. She was such a darling young woman who gave so much to the people around her. Her life was marked by having so many people who loved her. When she died, I started thinking about everything she left behind unfinished or hidden. Did she have things she hoped no one would find? It wasn't her time to go. Did she have relationships, emails, pictures, things that she didn't expect anyone to ever see? I doubt it. She lived in a clean life with clean friends and a loving family. She had nothing to complete, just a lot of living to do.

My life has come under serious scrutiny by myself. Looking at every aspect of who I am, what I am, where I am, what I have, everything - has really made me stop and think about where I am going. If I died today, would people find things they didn't know about me? What would they think of me? Would their perception of me change?

God asks us as Christians to live our lives in accordance to His gospel - to walk as Christians in all aspects of our lives. Rules for Practical Christian Living is found in Ephesians 5.

Be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. - Ephesians 5:15-21

Being a Christian and walking in His light, without losing our inhibitions or who we are as true Christians, is all He asks. 'Do not get drunk with wine' is not just warning against drunkenness, it's telling us that when we get drunk we lose our discernment and act in ways we wouldn't if we weren't drunk. Excessive anything is not living the way He has asked us.

Walking on a straight and narrow path allows us to face the right direction, continuing along in the way we are supposed to and in every aspect of our lives. It doesn't just ask us to be public figures as Christians, but also in our private lives. Recently I've been hearing a Christian artist say that it's easy for us to confess our sins to God but it's not easy to tell others of our indiscretions. We should tell those around us about what we've done so we can have more desire to change our sinful ways.

Think about the skeletons in your closet, the things you want to get off your chest, the things you have hidden in drawers or boxes so no one finds them... all the things someone might find out if you died suddenly. Are you prepared to leave behind the memories of who you are and what you have? Think about it and start cleaning out your life. I'm cleaning mine out. As much as I am a Christian that doesn't mean I have nothing to hide. Why would I want people to know about the sinful person I am?

Thank you, my dear little Rashmee, for making things more clear in my life. Thank you, my heavenly Father, for listening to my sins and forgiving me for them. Thank you, my friends, for listening and supporting me through all of life's changes and decisions. Now it's time to make it happen.

• Removing all soul-ties to past relationships that need not be in my future was a tough but rewarding thing I accomplished recently and continue to accomplish every day.
  
• Putting God first in my life and making sure I spend some time with His word and in prayer each day has been very focusing.
  
• Growing a business that will help businesses grow, help my employees build a knowledge-base for future use and give me the satisfaction that I am making a difference has been a challenge that I've jumped into with both feet.
• Reading my devotions and other books that will allow me to see things from a different perspective.
  
• Being more active in the community around me and in my church family.