Sorry you have to look at this head. I’m having a bad hair day. A bad hair month! Does my butt look big in these jeans?
This is how we adults sometimes blather on, subjecting our teens to our self-deprecating monologues. Isn’t it just exhausting? The fact is, it’s worse.
We leave no room to notice and welcome others when we ramble on and on about our particular disappointments with our appearances. Not only that, but as we do, we reveal to others what we value. We may not mean to, but we do. When we bring it up, we confirm that we agree with the world’s valuing of us; ultimately, we agree with the world’s valuing of them.
Youth workers want to give kids helpful tools to deal with their bodies. Unfortunately, many of us are modeling the worst possible behaviors. We may say one thing, but we do the opposite.
No magic words you choose to share with teens struggling with body image issues (read: “all teens”) will impact them as much as who you are. Neither your heartfelt, “It’s what’s on the inside that counts!” nor an inspired “You are fearfully and wonderfully made” will ring true if teens don’t see you accepting who God made you to be.
They’ve already noticed how much time, energy and resources you pour into clothes, shoes, hair, etc. Yet as you begin to accept the skin, hair, abs and face you’ve been given—with gratitude!—the self-acceptance you communicate liberates others to accept themselves. This is big. This is really big. In the face of the culture’s overwhelming pressure to look casually fantastic, the simple act of your own self-acceptance will impact teens more than anything you have to say.
Comfortable in Skin
In case it wasn’t obvious, I suspect the converse is also true. When we don’t highlight our imperfections, we subvert the world’s twisty values. I’m not saying this simply because my grandmother instructed me never to draw attention to features I didn’t like about myself. My theory is based on actual research.
I’ve conducted a few informal studies to learn more about the kind of individuals about whom people say, “She’s comfortable in her own skin.” You know the ones. I suspect you like to be around them very much. What I’ve found is that this isn’t said about a lot about supermodels or Hollywood celebrities or famous rock stars. More often, I hear it spoken about those who aren’t glamorously beautiful. For instance, I’ve heard it said about an elderly person who is full of life and zest; another woman who is actively involved in community service and is overweight; an someone else who takes a keen interest in others and doesn’t fit the world’s concept of attractiveness.
Specifically, it’s said about those who don’t do this tiring thing of going on and on about their imperfections. They don’t deny their imperfections; they just don’t expend a whole lot of energy drawing attention to them. That’s it. That’s the whole strategy. By not wasting any energy on noticing their imperfections, these people confirm they are good enough.
I pray that good enough is just as contagious as not good enough.
Sending Signals
Each and every one of us continually sends messages to our kids (and anyone else who is watching) about whether we really believe our bodies are acceptable just as they are. Those around us are naturally clever enough to do the math to deduce whether or not we find them acceptable.
A friend who teaches at a local university decided the way God had made her was good. This vibrant black woman wears her kinky black hair natural, choosing not to straighten it or wear extensions. She confides that a number of her students have approached her privately to learn more about her decision. Though also inclined to go natural, these young women who are entering the ranks of professionals in the academy, business world and church fear that such a decision will affect their career options negatively.
The message my professor friend sends with her quiet choices is that what God has made is good. Really, you don’t need a Ph.D. to model this stuff. Each one of us has the power to influence others. As we reject the world’s hiss that we’re not good enough, we proclaim a message of freedom for others caught in the world’s sticky fashion-conscious web.
As you decide to accept your body as good, you give others permission to do the same. I don’t mean that in some idealized dimension others might possibly notice and then maybe try being OK with their bodies. I mean this is exactly the point at which a gospel of unconditional acceptance is being realized on campuses, in boardrooms and in the marketplace.
Good Leaders
All leaders are role models for the people we serve. This morning, I was delighted when I found an online photo of a woman who happens to be a popular Christian speaker. In the picture, she was looking particularly…real.
“Hooray!” I hollered, to no one other than myself. I felt so happy that she looked like people really look—hair, face, outfit and body. The fact that I know other women are already looking up to her made me imagine her as sort of a superhero who liberates those enslaved to dyes, diet pills and overpriced shampoos.
If I ever see her in person, I want to hug her and tell her how thrilled I am that she looks normal. In fact, what I really want to do is give her a trophy. I’d like to establish the annual “Keeping It Real” awards for daring people who bravely break out of the world’s mold.
The first year, I imagine, these awards might not carry a lot of prestige. But what if it caught on? What if men and women started competing for the awards? Eventually, women would skip the lipstick; and the men would cease the flex-routine in the mirror. The next month they might miss an appointment to touch up their roots or skip the extra session pumping iron. Before you know it, women might switch to wearing sensible shoes. Can you imagine People magazine featuring a pair of women dressed in the same comfortable outfit, and instead of a caption demanding “Who wore it better?” it would read, “Who kept it real?” Before long, we might have an army of people walking around looking like we really look.
The first person I’d nominate would be my friend Constance. As part of the True Beauty campaign, she went a month without makeup, posting a new plain beautiful photo every day on Facebook. I have to believe that her experiment did more to help women than all the unbelievable reassurances in the world that God doesn’t care how you look.
I’m of the mind that this sort of thing needs to happen more often than it does. Kids need role models who walk the talk. We need to lay eyes on teachers, bus drivers, doctors, accountants, pastors, parents, custodians and clerks who set us free by keeping it real.
Real Life or Photoshop?
If you’ve lived on this planet for any length of time, you’re most likely aware that the media bombard teens daily with images of flawless, digitally altered bodies that don’t exist in real life.
Perhaps you’ve attempted to pull the curtain on this madness by giving a talk that exposes the myth of digital perfection for what it is. When you were done, chances are your teens still wanted to look like Taylor Swift and Zac Efron. Neither your inspiring insights nor the fact that your teens’ sincere grandmothers have told them they’re “beautiful on the inside” has transformed them yet.
Though our words might not seem to be changing lives, our actions are. As we take our eyes off ourselves and our own appearances and turn them toward teens, we practice what Tim Keller calls “blessed self-forgetfulness.” As we draw teens into this kind of other-centered living, they’re sprung free from the suffocating bind of self-preoccupation.
Gospel Self-Esteem
My friend Travis gets this. He’s on staff at Remuda Ranch, a center specializing in the treatment of those living with eating disorders. Travis is also a cofounder of the True Campaign, which sponsors a program called “true:shift.” The program gives women the opportunity to partner with Food for the Hungry, through which they get to participate in this liberating shift toward helping others in need. In the process, they become free from a crippling preoccupation with themselves.
Travis recently blogged about a new study claiming that college girls suffering from eating disorders who became involved in compassionate, “other-centered” activities saw a decrease in the symptoms. Pretty cool, huh? Travis continues, “I’m not suggesting a degrading of oneself or promoting passivity. In fact, what I like to call ‘gospel self-esteem’ is far more powerful than simply trying to convince yourself that you are valuable through positive self-talk and affirmations. Based on an understanding that we have incredible value as creations of God and that He is committed to our good without ignoring our failure, gospel self-esteem means trusting that what God says about me is true. That is the basis for incredible boldness and liberating humility.”
Travis continues on to share what Tim Keller calls “blessed self-forgetfulness”: a healthy self-image where you are not thinking more of yourself or thinking less of yourself in false humility, but thinking of yourself less.
Adapted from Unsqueezed: Springing Free from Skinny Jeans, Nose Jobs, Highlights and Stilettos by Margot Starbuck. Copyright(c) 2010. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400 Downers Grove, IL 60515. IVPress.com. Check out Margot’s blog, Thoughts on Hair, Shoes Other Stuff, at MargotStarbuck.blogspot.com. If you e-mail her a picture of a youth worker who keeps it real (i.e., doesn’t try to fit into the pop culture mold) she’ll post it on her site!
