Imagination issues

A Mormon, a Roman Catholic and  a Protestant sit down in a  conference room together.....

No, this isn't the start of a joke - this was the situation I was in this past week writing a grant with a few other engineers. We have all different backgrounds and political views and different faith perspectives, but we quickly found a lunch topic we all agreed on - the premature sexualization of our young daughters.

Funny to imagine a bunch of engineers talking about this, but our brains were fried with evaluation metrics and we were just content to talk about our home lives. We discovered we all had multiple kids between grade school and middle school and our single biggest concerns were our daughters and the skewed body image and sexually charged culture. We had all seen the same My Little Pony episodes and were trying to keep Monster High girls out of the TV rotation and toys being purchased. We had shopped for back to school clothes and looked for non-slutty swimwear this past summer. We knew the boys were starting to realize women were something that they would stare at and we all agreed that we were in trouble.

This topic is really hard for me, as I still currently battle my own issues with body image. How do I raise my daughter correctly in the very area I wrestle with? How many conversations can we have about inner beauty before she sees the fraud that resides inside as I wish I were thinner, cuter, trendier, with perfect Nuterogena commercial skin.

This actually came to a head for me as I came very close to quitting CrossFit this summer. While I love our CrossFit community, I had been less consistent than I wanted to be and wasn't seeing a lot of progress on the scale. I realized that I was about to walk away from one of the most positive atmospheres in my life over my own imagination issues - what I imagine other people see when they look at me....

You see, I have been forced when training for a race to run on treadmills in hotel rooms that directly face into a wall of mirrors - seeing my thighs rub up against each other and my waist jiggle as I painfully jog each step. I've looked in the mirror after putting on my bathing suit and seen the back-fat where the straps come across. I've seen myself in a group picture at CrossFit, seeing my muffin top over the top of my shorts (even though I carefully hide it underneath long large t-shirts).

But something else happened this summer. My husband and I started hiking together. We had these amazing mountain-top experiences that feed the soul and have brought us so close together. I knew that I needed to be in shape to experience life - not to fit into a certain jean size. No matter what lie I have said out-loud, deep down I have known that every training regimen of my adult life has actually been about the weight on a scale and the size of the dress. When I failed to see the progress I desired in the first two weeks, motivation became nearly impossible and I begin searching for an excuse to give up. When the event was a race with others - I would keep going until the race was over. And if it was exercise with other people - I would go to please them. But internally, I was discouraged to see my lack of progress in the area that meant something to me - how I thought people saw me.

So back to my original question - how do I raise a daughter in the world of media pressures that I have not yet escaped?

Thanks to some clarity in the thin air on these mountain tops - I found that I enjoyed doing stuff even more than I cared about the potential judging of my appearance. I just had a great day playing in the pool with the kids in my swimsuit. I'm thrilled to be training for a race with my dad. I've got another 5k with friends coming up. And CrossFit remains to be a super-encouraging place. Doing things is more enjoyable that worrying about how other people think I look while I do things.

I can't pretend to be immune to the superficial, sexual nature of our media and culture. But hopefully my daughter will see an example of having fun and living life to the fullest instead of my own insecurities.

I know I usually have some sort of spiritual insight to apply - well the one here is so simple I'm embarrassed to bring it up. If my identity was truly in Christ I wouldn't be caught up in all my image drama. That too is a work in progress - but I'm thankful for the blessing I have to move and run and swim and laugh with family and friends. And the focus on thanksgiving is helping me see life a little more through His eyes than the eyes of the media.