Tell Me I Am Beautiful

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Do you believe you’re beautiful?

Right now, at this moment, regardless of what you’re wearing, or how your hair looks, or what the number on the scale says, or if your make-up is applied. Regardless of your baby bump, pore size, leg length, stretch marks - are you beautiful?

I know I struggled with the elusive illusion of defining beauty and applying that slippery definition to myself… especially during my pregnancies and postpartum.

Pregnancy glow… yeah, I never got it. (Not going to lie, I am still convinced it is a pregnancy unicorn.) Mine was more like a pregnancy explosion. 

Detonated by several positive pregnancy tests and a few months of growing a human, my pregnancy explosion left me rocking acne, greasy, limp, sparse hair, and an alarmingly large pair of elastic-waisted pants. My bladder went fully rogue, and decided it was perfectly acceptable to urinate when laughing, coughing, or jumping. I had hip pain. I waddled. I had uncontrollable, sewage toxicity-level gas. 

 Good-bye body, good-bye beautiful…  

Pinching my expanding belly as I stared helplessly into the eyes of my reflection, I was transported 15 years into my past. Looking in the mirror, I saw my insecure, 11-year-old self, desperately trying Weight Watchers in an attempt to remove the pubescent chub and expedite the transition to “beautiful.”

Many years and countless dollars were spent trying to craft the perfect image - the ideal body. I tried every trend diet. Obsessed with being “skinny,” looking “beautiful,” I was determined to grow my 4’11 self into an illusion of slender height, length, and elegance. I was convinced that I could grow my thin, fine hair into luscious thick locks if I could just find the right product and take the right supplement. I would achieve the elusive 6-pack if I did enough crunches, ate enough lettuce, skipped enough meals. If I could just get a nose job, I could transform my sharp, angular, Roman nose into a delicate, attractive feature. After all, I wanted to be beautiful.

And after years of struggling through self-acceptance, a strict workout regime of daily 2-hour gym sessions, and countless bowls of salads, I found myself uncontrollably gaining weight as my body began to accommodate for growing a new life. 

I was told like many of us are, all of the beautiful body-positive messages…

“Be strong! Be beautiful! Be YOU!”

“Beauty is the illumination of your soul.” ~ John O’Donohue 

I was told even more positive messages while pregnant.

“Babies are bits of stardust blown from the hand of God. Lucky the woman who knows the pangs of birth for she has held a star.” – Larry Barretto

“You are pregnant and you are powerful!! Embrace your body’s beautiful changes!”

And yes, it was true, and incredible and unbelievable, yet somehow these messages were mixed with messages proclaiming, 

“Have Your Body Back in 1 Week: Here’s How”

“How to Stay in the Best Shape of Your Life During Pregnancy”

Accompanied with countless images of fit moms, toned tummies, Brazilian booties, contoured faces, glowing skin, and luscious hair. Somehow society wanted me to accept my bulging body and yet immediately transform it into beach-body-beautiful.

Do you know women experience steep declines in self-esteem during (what we are told) is an incredibly magical and joyous time of our lives? One longitudinal study found that “Women experienced declines in self-esteem during their pregnancies, and then increases in the six months afterward. But then their self-esteem declined once again, and continued falling.” Yet another study highlights that postpartum depression and self-esteem are heavily impacted by weight gain during pregnancy.

Several other studies (cited within this article) reveal women’s perception of what they should look like postpartum is intricately linked to societal standards and expectations. For example, many women identify their postpartum bodies “... as a project to be actively worked on and controlled to get back to normal, … perceiving this to be a bigger goal postpartum than before pregnancy.” An additional study finds that we have unrealistic standards for our postpartum bodies.

The crippling pressure and anxiety I felt to get my body back postpartum drove me to attempt to do squats, planks, lunges, and Kegels less than 48 hours after giving birth. Additionally, I regularly skipped meals and constantly opted to snack solely on carrot sticks in another attempt to shed the extra pounds. I was determined to get back down to my pre-pregnancy weight within 2 months, be perfectly toned within 3, and run half marathons within 4 (despite the fact I hate running and have never run more than 2 miles at a time in my life).

This stress, added to the stress of being a parent to a newborn, made the weeks following the birth of my son focused on earning that elusive definition of “beautiful” during a time that had never felt uglier. Thoughts of frustration, depression, and anger over my changed body preoccupied my mind and competed with weeks that were crazy, beautiful, challenging, and intimate.

It wasn’t until I learned to adapt my definition of beautiful that I was able to fully embrace a body forever changed. I can tell you that you’re beautiful. Your partner can tell you. Your friends can tell you. However, it won’t matter how many people tell you until you start telling yourself. And that is a tricky thing. While I don’t have a magic formula to transform your perception of your changing body, I want to encourage you with 3 perception changes that can transform your definition of beautiful.

Change #1:  Your Body Hears Everything Your Mind Tells It

That negative self-talk, the condemnation, would you say that to someone you love? Would you want someone you love to say that about themselves?

Your body is working hard to grow something magical, and then working hard to heal. Why feed it a constant stream of negativity while it is desperately trying to build an intricate human being from nothing?

Change #2:  Listen to Your Body

It’s okay not to be the rockstar pregnant or postpartum mama. You might not be able to finish that spin session or do the last five reps on your YouTube exercise video. That doesn’t mean you’re weak. Or failing. Or lazy. It means your body is saying it’s given you its best, and now it needs a minute. I decided it was okay to listen to it.

Change #3:  Exercise Because You Love Your Body…Not Because You Hate It

I used to exercise like a machine. Workouts were chosen to maximize results, not because I enjoyed what I was doing. I worked out because I wanted to change my body, not because I loved my body. Changing my perception changed everything. Workouts are now done as an act of kindness towards myself. They are executed from a place of love and acceptance over what my body is capable of doing now, and hope over what it will do once again. 

In the quiet darkness of my street lamp illuminated living room, after my husband is asleep and my baby stops stirring, and the new life kicking inside me rests, I take a minute to admire my expanding stomach, my far-cry from toned but still workout sore thighs, my soft stretch mark lines, my beautiful imperfections. My body’s unstoppable changes.

Taking a silent minute to prompt myself not to pinch the fat, or lament the cellulite, or scrub at the stretch marks, but instead remember, we all define our own “beautiful.”

“Tell me I’m beautiful?”

Well, society, I don’t need you to, I already tell myself. And I hope you start telling yourself too!