How others see you and how you see yourself

This is a subject that gets brought up in the media every year – are we putting too much emphasis on how we look or not enough? What are these ideals doing to our children? There are other questions that get brought up but these 2 questions are the main questions that get brought up each and every year. When they do appear on the news and other programs, I believe it gets brought up because it MUST be a slow news day.

Yes, some people have more self-esteem problems than others do. We all like or dislike something about our bodies. However, people intend to forget our bodies are a living human being and they can be change or molded into whatever we want them to be. It can be hard or easy depending on what we want to have changed on our bodies, but it can be done. 

Are we putting too much emphasis on how we look?

  

When I was growing up, this is what everyone talked about - was someone too thin, too fat, too tall, too short – and that’s how we were judged. As someone that went into the too fat column, at first it saddened me that this was the only thing people could see of me. As time went on, I got angry and upset because there was and is more to me than this. Finally, I had acceptance of myself. Screw what everyone else thought, this is my body and if they didn’t like it then there’s the door and don’t let it hit you on the way out. Just to let you know, that is the PG rating of what I’ve told some of my doctors.  

I think I must have heard all of the types of ideas for weight loss over my years – don’t eat so much, what ARE you eating, you have to eat only salads, to you need to have your stomach stapled so you can lose weight and don’t come back in here until you do.  If this wasn’t enough, I have been on many diets over the years – Slim fast (until I started getting sick each time I had to eat), only vegetables (until I was so hungry that my stomach kept grumbling and I wasn’t losing any weight), to salads with chicken breasts only (again I was so hungry that I couldn’t stop eating and again I wasn’t losing any weight), and then someone suggested a dietitian because I told them where they could stick the dieting. The doctor that suggested that was stunned when I told her where should could stick the idea of another diet as each time I tried to lose the weight, I always stacked on more. This doctor told me to please go and see the dietitian because she knows what I’m going through with losing weight.  I finally relented and went to see her. I made it clear to her that I wasn’t going to bed hungry, but I would listen to her and see what we could come up with. Over the next 2 months, I saw her a few times and I started to lose weight AND stayed hungry. I now know it is possible to do this. 

I’m not saying that everyone is willing to do this. I know of people that have done the drastic weight loss ideas such as stomach stapling, gastric sleeve, bypass and lap band surgery. Each person has had different results from the great to the not so great. Does it work you might be asking and I can tell you again it depends on how much one person is willing to do or not. This willingness is where the weight is either gained, maintained or lost. 

The bigger question, and one of the questions of this blog, is but why do we do this to ourselves? Is it because of our perceptions of how we look or is it how people think we look? 

How others perceive on how we look

I honestly think we do these types of weight loss that I’ve described above, generally, because of either how we were told we look growing up or how people have stated to us since we were teenagers. I think depending upon the type of person you are, is how you’ve acted upon it. 

This video above, is what I felt like during my weight struggles – I didn’t want my picture taken.

There were many times growing up, I was called lazy, fat, and, yes, a cow. I’ve even had the nickname Moo Cow. This was all due to my weight issues. It pushed me to going on diet after diet and my self-esteem went down because of what others were telling me. By the time I graduated from high school, I was in the angry stage and told others where they could shove their opinions. Within 5 or so years of graduating, I was going between the angry stage and the who cares stage. By the time I got married, I was at the who cares stage and this is me and if you don’t like it tough – there’s the door.  

The who cares stage is me becoming comfortable with what I am and what I look like. This is what I’ve had handed to me, and it’s a continuous work in progress but it’s my work in progress.

Since then there have been times when I’ve gone back and forth between these stages, and usually it’s around fertility and the doctors there trying to get me to lose the weight.  That being said, I have also mellowed in my growing older. I can concede that I need to lose weight because of diseases like diabetes but doctors have to understand my medical history and that it’s not easy as that. They can understand and usually we come to an agreement. 

How I perceive how I look

Once I reached this stage, life was happier and lighter. I felt I could once again enjoy myself and life. It wasn’t until I talked to the dietitian and thought about the subjects and topics we discussed that I came to these conclusions.

We all have to come to the conclusions to what we will accept and what we won’t in life. Our bodies are like that. If we don’t like what we see, then we should go to change it and get on with and enjoy life.

If you take a look at this year’s Dove commercial where people were asked to describe themselves as to what they see and you can see the amazing differences between the two perceptions. 

Cost is usually a really big factor when people decide to change their bodies. It doesn’t have to be. You need to tone up your arms? Then use a canned good as a weight. You need to tone up your legs? Then you can use books to simulate stairs or walk in place for a set time. You don’t like either of these options? Then how about put on your favourite songs and dance around the house? Or dance while doing house cleaning? These will all burn calories and tone you up and will cost you basically nothing. These are all nice to do, but realize that if you ARE doing them, the reason why – because you love yourself and want to change something about you.

Some of us come to these revelations earlier in life than others. In 2012, Dustin Hoffman actually brought this topic up in an interview where he realized that if someone wasn’t attractive, he would never think of talking to them – he wouldn’t talk to them just because he didn’t find them attractive. You could tell, he was very ashamed of this, but I hate to tell him this but he’s not the only one who does this. It’s in everyone’s everyday life – from employers, to acquaintances, to customers.  I still get this in today’s world. 

My husband and I April 2013

Two personal examples are of my husband and I which are both youthful looking. You cannot believe, unless you’ve had it done to you, what it feels like to go in to purchase a mattress set and was told that once you can afford it to come back because they know it would take you awhile to save for it (we were in our late 30’s) or not to be even talked by a house building representative until you approached them, and were told that this was too expensive for us and to come back once we had a job for an amount of time and had savings (we were in our late 20’s and had been married for a few years).

As uncomfortable as this makes some of us, it is a fact of life that some people are this narrow minded. Some of them will change upon growing older and some people won’t. It’s all in how people act and how we intend to act when this is thrust upon us. In the incident with the house building representative did that to us, my temper gauge went zero to 60 in about .05 of a second. However, I just stated that he better get his head out of his butt because to say that to people almost 30 years old with stable employment would cost him income and its age discrimination and walked out. I could have screamed, rant and raved which would have gotten the angry factor out of me, but I then wouldn’t have had the pleasure to see the colour drain from the guy’s face after I told him about us and walked out.  

Looking at the topic, it’s a bit of how others see us but it’s also how we see and act ourselves. You must be comfortable in your own body and life and that will come out in how you look. Depending on someone’s worthiness either as an acquaintance, employer or friend, will depend upon if they really see the real you or just the outside. As many of my real friends know, a real friend will accept you both inside and out no matter what life throws at either of you.

My friends and I in 2012. Most of them I had been friends with for over 30 years!

Independence – What would you do if you didn’t have it?

As its July 4^th, Independence Day, this week in the United States, I sit back and think of how many people don’t even think about having independence. People today just think it’s a given that it’s there and don’t think – what would their life be like if they didn’t have it? 

Governments - Independence versus Communist Rule

As the United States has celebrates its 237^th birthday, did you know that this special day wasn’t a federal holiday until 1870? Yes, that’s correct! Congress didn’t make it a holiday until 1870, but wasn’t a paid holiday until 1941. Unbelievable but true. Then there are some other people that say that America wasn’t anactually independent until August 2, 1776. Why is this? This is because the Declaration of Independence wasn’t fully signed until August 2^nd.  Then why does America celebrate it on that day? It’s because Congress, in a closed session, actually passed the wording of the document, The Declaration of Independence, on that day and only 3 people (Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin), to my knowledge, signed it.

On the other hand, those who live in Communist Rule countries know little about the Independence that the US forefathers wrote about.  Some people, who live there, don’t think about what they could be gaining (freedom of speech to name just one freedom) by not living in their country, and that’s because they are used to living this way and that’s fine by them. Much of what they say and do in these regions of the world is controlled by the government. Some people can and do like living this way and others who are tired of living this way move to countries which they do have their independence.

History IS important

In fact, back in the late 1800’s many people immigrated from one of these countries to places like the US. My ancestors were many of them that took this time to leave the countries of their birth and moved to a country, as young as it was, showed what they considered safer, secure and more of a promise than the one they knew. One of the common says “Stay with the evil you know or the devil you don’t know” comes to mind. For some, this was a huge change for them as they left everything they knew and loved behind – including loved ones.

 

I know from speaking to my grandmother, who immigrated to the US when she was a young girl, that she didn’t know what to expect but knew it had to be better than what they were living in. Then she saw the Statue of Liberty and said that it was huge and beautiful she knew that she was finally safe. I didn’t entirely understand what she was saying, until this year when I started to research the conditions when she left Poland with her mother and meet up with her father after they cleared Ellis Island. Recently, I spoke to my father about them coming to the US, and it opened my eyes to exactly what the family went through before they arrived at Ellis Island and my respect went up another notch.  If only I could have been a bit older to completely understand when my grandmother was alive, I could have sat there talking to her for days.

As for which government is better, is a bit of a mix feeling and thoughts when I sat thinking about it. In a way both are pretty good with the government being a large mother and father to the people rather than the mother and fathers of the independent state being the ones to regulate what happens. That being said, I don’t feel I could probably live with a government dictating to me what I could and could not do.

That being said, with the recent privacy issues being released by Edward Snowden, regarding the government’s surveillance, people are concerned about this issue. I’ve heard and read about people saying it goes against laws and liberties and what makes the US the US. This I can understand, however, this has happened before – remember back in World War 2? – and it goes along those lines, I believe, the government is taking this stand.

In the past nearly 10 years, we have had 3 major buildings terrorized, countless near attacks and recently the Boston Marathon bombing. If you think back to what you felt each time these things

2013 Boston Bombing

happened, is the reasoning behind why the government is trying to do the surveillance that they are. Do I like it? No, however, I understand that when I was calling into the US from Australia, I knew there were people listening in as you can hear the clicks and hesitations that tell me someone else is on the line but I know if that’s what they have to do to keep my friends and family safe, then that’s what they do. My life is not that exciting for them to listen into, but if they want to be extremely bored by my life then leave them to it. Because compared to what my grandmother and great grandparents went through, a few listening in clicks are a lot better than having someone I love killed by someone that they could have stopped.

My grandmother, Jean, in the 1980's.

So this week when you think of the US and their free liberties, also think of those who don’t have those liberties. Some of them want those liberties but don’t have the means or will power to get them unlike my ancestors. Each year when this holiday comes around, I think of what my grandmother’s face would have looked like as she sailed past the Statue of Liberty and how she felt so safe and NEVER give that up – NEVER give up my US citizenship. I did make that promise and I WILL keep it because it means even more now, today, then it did when she asked me to give that promise. 

secure that she asked me, her granddaughter, before her death to promise and swear that whatever I did in life, to

So what will you think about on this day of Independence?

Remembrance – what’s in a word?

When someone says remembrance, what do you think of? Some think of soldiers who have fought, so we can be free. Others think of their loved ones who have passed and whom they miss and others just say, “So what? It’s just a word?” or is it just a word?  When you take a look at the word remembrance, I find that it is such a small word for the feelings and emotion that it brings to some of us.  In which group do you find yourself falling into? 

When I was growing up, I was in the “So what? It’s just a word” group. However, once I started thinking, learning and feeling I started a journey that has brought me across all of these groups one by one. Where am I now in this journey? I’m across them all I have to say. Why you may ask? This is what this blog post is about. 

Remembrance of those who have fought for us to be free

When I was in my teens and 20’s, I started to understand little by little just what these soldiers in all shapes and forms have done for us and some have paid the ultimate sacrifice of their lives. This was a difficult understanding for me, as I was a US Navy brat growing up. I felt we were all given the short end of the stick when it came to the people who served.  It seemed to me that all we (as military brats) received was a parent (or in today’s world – parents) gone most of the time, when they were around we were either ignored or told to be quiet or put to work. Even when there was a public holiday or after a day when they were away from work, we “lost” them to parades or committees. 

J. Sherman (Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army Air Force)

my mother's cousin who died in World War 2

On the flip side, once I learned about my mother’s cousin, who paid the ultimate sacrifice in World War 2, I understand why soldiers do what they do. Now every time there is a time of silence, I think about why they went into the service and what the ones, who never returned to us, must have been feeling in those last moments.

So, yes, we may be military brats, but we are also the ones that are there to support and remember the ones who are never to return to us for making that ultimate sacrifice. We must think not only of the soldier that have made that sacrifice but those of us who are there to support and grasp what little time we do get with them even as hard as it may be.  Think about it - if we didn’t have those soldiers to make those sacrifices, where would we be today as the country you may live in and as you as a person?

Loved ones who have passed and whom we may miss

We all have lost someone that we love. Whether it’s a close family member or someone that we might not have known we all still do remember or think of what they could have been like.  There are people who are gone, and we sit there and ask over and over again, why him and not someone else. Then there are others that are gone that you wish you could have back just for the tiniest moments to get a hug, some advice, or find out what their life was like. Unfortunately, the time for all these things is in the past, but that doesn’t make remembering them any different.

The headstone of my grandfather, Louis, 

and his sister, Florence, near New Windsor, NY.

Now as I’m getting older, I’m finding myself ask questions about the ones who have passed whom I may and may not have known. By researching my family history, on all sides, I’m finding I keep asking myself, what would that person have been like? Would they have been someone everyone liked or were they an abusive person (either mentally or physically) in which their own children couldn’t even stand?  Couple that with history of the different countries and governments, and after a while, you could really start to understand why people could have been like they were but keeping in mind things may not have been as they have seemed. Remember it’s only been in the last 20 or so years, that people don’t keep up appearances as they once did. Further, things that were socially acceptable over 20 years ago are not so acceptable now – and vice versa.

In my thoughts at this point in the year, my remembrance meaning is about what we, as a couple, have lost personally. If I had been able to carry to term, we would have a 10 year old child this week. It does seem hard to believe, but it would have been a fact. It came down to the simple fact that either both of us would not have survived or only one of us. The fact is I was the one that ended up

surviving because the baby was in the wrong spot. As with the other loved ones who have passed, I sit here thinking about what would the baby been like – it’s personally, looks, and character. This is something we will never know, because that baby, child, tween has never been born unfortunately. This is where my thoughts are this week in regards to remembrance. Does that make any less meaningful than the other loved ones that have passed? No, but to me, it is something we’ll never have, my husband and I, with this baby.

In closing, recently I asked people on my Facebook account what the word remembrance means to people on there, I had the responses of:

• Someone's life, memories
• Funerals and lives lived
• After someone has died, thinking back appreciatively about all the good things they have done in their lifetime
• Slouch hats, the last post, medals

All of which I have covered here in this blog entry. Remembrance is what you bring of it and that’s a lot like life – we can sit there and remember but we also have to get out and live life – both those who have lived and who now live would want us to do that, but there come times when we just have to stop and take a break and to remember them. If we don’t, some of life’s lessons may get overlooked. I know when the end credits roll for me (as the George Strait song goes) I want people to think of me more along the lines of hero rather than villain.