My First Gray Hair...(Dun Dun Dun)

The other day I went in to get my haircut.  I won’t lie it was way overdue and I was so excited for my hair to feel clean again (not clean like I don’t wash it, but clean like I don’t have any more split ends).  I go to Remedez at the Orem University Mall and a man named Jared does my hair.  I have never had a male cut and color my hair before him, but it only took one chance with him to fall in love with his work! He really cares, is detail oriented, he knows what he is doing and what looks good.  And to be honest I tend to get along better with the single and forty year old male (who may or may not be gay-I know you are all thinking it anyway, I might as well just say it) than with the 20 something  girls in there.

So this lovely day he is cutting my hair, and I am just sitting there in pure bliss… I was so happy to be getting it cut. Then all of a sudden Jared blurts out, “You have your first gray hair!” Yes that is an exclamation point, and yes it was said with excitement as if he were happy he was the one to find it. But truth be told I had actually found it a few days earlier…

Have you ever wondered how you would react to something or feel when a certain event takes place?  I am sure you have.  I have.  I do it all the time.  Some of my most favorite ones are how will I feel when I get proposed to? or what would it really feel like to know that I have a little person growing inside my tummy (I even thought about this one today, so congrats to Lindsay and Pete!)?  But another one that I have vainly wondered about was what I would feel when I found my first gray hair.  Well now I know…

I always told myself it wouldn’t bother me.  It’s just hair, and if I can afford it my hair will be colored anyway (not because of the gray but because I am not a huge fan of my natural color or lack of color).  There was also a part of me that worried it would bother me, and I knew that just wasn’t appropriate since I seem to always be telling women that they are more than what they look like and they can be loved even if they don’t ‘look’ perfect.  So if I did freak out about a gray hair I am pretty sure that would qualify me for the hypocrite card.  So I would just tell myself, it would be no big deal, not to worry about it, and equally cliché phrases to keep myself upbeat about the thought of finding gray.  But I couldn’t help but think that maybe it really would bother me.

And when the day finally arrived, when I finally found that lone strand of gray I found myself actually feeling excited like I had just found a buried treasure.  I mean there is only one gray hair on my whole head of hair, which is kind of like a treasure, right?  Instead of telling myself I was old and single which definitely puts me in the old maid category, I told myself I was wise and distinguished.  This little gray strand symbolizes that I have lived and learned and now I have something that shows it! My little gray strand tells the world that I have experienced a thing or two, and while I have hardly any answers I do have my own experiences and they are worth something!

My Compliments Journal

For some reason negativity seems to have more 'power' (I am not sure if that is really the word that I want to use, but I am going to use it) than positivity (is that a word?). According to a pretty big therapist and researcher, John Gottman, in our marital relationships we need to have 20 positive interactions for every one negative interaction on a day to day basis, and during conflict we still need 5 positives for every 1 negative. That tells me we need a lot of positives! And even though his research is reflective of marital interactions, I would daresay that it would also transfer over to our relationship or interactions with our self.

Now to be honest it isn't always hard to think or tell myself the negative things... and when I am in that mindset it is extremely hard to remember the good things about myself. Truth be known, I do want to remember those good things about myself... and how am I suppose to remember those things unless I write them down (I feel like this could be a whole other post about journal writing and remembering and stuff, but I am not headed that way). And instead of writing them down in my private journal I have decided to write them here. For one, I think they will be easier to find when I really need to remind myself what I do have going for me, and two I think it can be powerful when we can stand up and say good things about our self and do so in a humble way (I hope I do this). I hope that as you read this you think of those positive things about your self... and if you so desire tell me what they are! I would love to hear it! Seriously! I love when people have good things to say, about others yes, but especially about themselves. So here is my first post about compliments I have received.

Just a few days ago my incredible amazing wish I could be like her in so many ways roommate took me to the spa to get a facial for my birthday. I said she was amazing, didn't I? And it was all a surprise... I love surprises! Anyway, back to the story at hand. I won't lie, I was a little anxious... even though I try to be comfortable not wearing make up, I still get nervous not wearing makeup when I have breakouts (and boy do I have them... lame! I thought they went away after adolescents not started after : p). So there I was super self conscious, totally focusing on the negative, when she proceeds to tell me:

'You have the softest skin.' huh, yeah I guess, I do. I never really thought about it (I also heard this one a few days later from a random guy squished next to me on a car ride, and I really am starting to believe it).
'Your pores are so small, you can barely see them.' Oh, yeah. I forget to even think about them because I can't see them.
'You virtually have no black heads. Nice.' Oh I don't? huh, who knew. Wow that is nice.

I walked out of that facial feeling great about myself. I hope I can remember these small things that I normally don't even notice. As we left me and my roommate shared experiences and it was interesting that she was also able to share some of your strengths about her skin... the neat part was that her strengths were unique to her and mine unique to me. We are not the same, but each have something different to offer.

Well, there you go. I say bring on the positive. So tell me please, what are your strengths about your skin?

Worth More than a Number!

Growing up we never had a scale in our house… at least not that I can remember. And if we did it was only around when I was super young. Even without a scale in the home I knew how much I weighed. And I knew I got a lot of attention for being skinny. Sometimes that attention was negative… being called chicken legs as a kid never quite felt like a compliment. There was a part of me that secretly craved these comments, whether they were positive or negative, they all meant the same thing: I was thin and I was beautiful. And oh did I crave to be beautiful. Beauty meant the perfect life, it meant someone, anyone, or everyone would love me, care for me, and accept me. There was another part of me that felt guilty or bad for being skinny, as if I was doing something wrong because I was skinny and others weren’t. Whether I listened to the part of me that craved the attention or the part of me that felt like my skinniness was wrong one part remained true: being skinny was a part, if not all, of who I was. I can’t remember exactly when the good and the bad comments about how skinny I was started to diminish. But when they did I literally had an identity crisis. If I wasn’t skinny… what was I? Being skinny was who I was, it defined me, and if people didn’t look at me and see skinny what would they see? That question frightened me right to the core. What if they didn’t see anything worthwhile?

Looking back I realize this was a huge turning point in my life. It would have been so easy to resort to unhealthy habits to try and ‘stay’ skinny. I could have started a diet, or exercising excessively, or behaviors that are even more destructive. In truth all signs pointed me in that direction. And to this day I do not understand why I didn’t go that way and why other girls did. I can tell you that there is no real difference between them and me. I found other ways to cope, equally as destructive (which we won’t be diving into today, we’ll save that for another day).

There is a part of me that wonders how a scale in the home could have changed my coping behaviors. Would that increasing number of a growing girl been too much? Would it have tipped me over the edge to dieting and excessive exercise? Would my worth have been defined every day by the number on the scale? Honestly, I don’t know. And I never will know how the scale could have changed my life. It scares me to think that something could have that much control over me, and I am so grateful that it never has.

Maybe your own story is somewhat similar to mine; maybe it is exactly the opposite. No matter what your story is we all have one. To this day I still do not own a scale. And I will never own one. I refuse to play into the notion that the number on the scale attributes any significance to my self-worth.

Do you have a scale? Where is it? What does that number mean to you? What does that number give you? What does it take away from you? How does that number make you feel? How does it control you?

Throw it out! Throw the scale out! I may be skinny or I may not be skinny. But I am not defined by my body or my weight! You and I are worth more than the number on the scale!

Still not convinced? Check out these other blog posts put on by our friends at Beauty redefined!

“Weigh Less. Smile More.” How Fitness Magazines Define Healthy in Very Unhealthy Ways.

Thin Ideals and the Way We Feel.

The Lies We Buy: defining Health at Women’s Expense.