Not feeling good enough

I recently got hooked on Transformers so I was looking into Megan Fox and Shia LaBeouf when I came across something that's really really disheartening.

These are before and after pictures of Megan Fox, international super star, mega sex symbol. And even though there are at least 5 years difference between these pictures, there are significant changes only possible by plastic surgery (see lips and nose for proof).

This is disheartening for several reasons. The first is that the media portrays these women to be the ideal beauty (Fox was voted 2009 sexiest women alive by FHM). They pound these images in young girls' heads that this is what they need to look like. They need to be this perfect looking. And on top of that, you find out that the celebrity that your daughter is idolizing and trying to look like has actually had thousands of dollars pour into plastic surgery. This isn't even how the celebrity really looks--this is how they have created themselves to look. Yet sometimes people kill themselves to look like this idea because only then will they feel beautiful and precious and wonderful and worthy of being loved.

And on top of this, it's disheartening because the celebrities have to put themselves through all this surgery to look like that. Even the prettiest people in the world have days where they don't feel pretty. Even the prettiest people in the world have aspects about their bodies that they don't like. Even the prettiest people in the world sometimes don't feel good enough, worthy of love. People are hurting on both ends, on both sides.

The world is a terrible, cold place. With expectations and pressures and stress and desires and darkness. It tells young women we need to look a certain way and if we don't, we must kill ourselves to look that way. We must not eat, we must take diet pills, we must do plastic surgery, we must do whatever we can to be the ideal beauty so that we can be loved, we can be worshipped, we can be adored.

It's sad. It's heartbreakingly, devastatingly sad. The world is not a perfect place so then why are we trying to be?

Taking care of me

I haven't really been taking care of myself for the last couple of months. I like to put others before myself. I think it's a biblical trait we all must learn. I use to be really self-involved growing up. I can't really tell you much about other people, only about myself if you ask me about high school. However, I am getting to the point where I do so much for other people that I am just burnt out and exhausted by the end of the day, week and sometime even month.

So in order to fully take care of "me," I've devised some activities that I enjoy and are strictly "me-time" and don't involve watching too much TV or too many movies: 1.) the gym. I love working out and being active 2.) reading. I am really starting to enjoy the refresh and the peace of reading.

I'm trying to teach myself about boundaries. Boundaries in saying no and in saying yes. Boundaries in what I do with my time. What I do for who. Emotional boundaries. Who I invest it. Who I spend the most time with.

When I was going to counseling I had to go through and do the onion exercise with my shrink.

See the onion. It has rings and each ring is suppose to represent a lever of closeness to you, the center. And depending on what ring a person is on, then you spend time with that person. I have such a hard time figuring out where to invest my time. I like people. A lot. I like to hang out with people. A lot. And most of the time it doesn't really matter who they. I like to use my phone. A lot. I like to text and email. A lot. I'm learning what to do and how to keep your close friends close and not expend myself over everyone.

I'm also learning a lot about Christ-centered community and about how much it is worth it.