Beauty

For a long time, I have felt that being overweight made me less worthy of nearly everything in life.  I have also really struggled with feeling pretty or beautiful.  I'm not sure what I can do about it, but I know I want to try to do something, anything. 

My first thought:  What does the Lord say about beauty?

I turned to my scriptures and looked up every verse I could find that had reference to beauty or used the word beautiful.  This is what I found from the Lord:

• Being dressed in the garments of the Holy Priesthood makes you beautiful. (Ex. 28:2)
• Having a ruddy completion is part of a beautiful countenance. (1 Sam. 16:12)
• Beauty comes from being holy, sacred, consecrated, belonging to a divine being.  (1 Chr. 16:29)
• We should sacrifice and take pride in our appearance.  If our body is a temple, it deserves to be taken care of like a temple.  (2 Chr. 3:6)
• The beauty of the Lord referred to many times in the scriptures has to do with the protection and safety the Lord provides, the salvation of the Lord. (Psalms 27:4)
• Zion is referred to as "the perfection of beauty", yet Zion is defined as the pure in heart. Therefore, the perfection of beauty come only from the pure in heart.  (Psalms 50:2)
• The Lord will beautify the meek with salvation.  (Psalms 149:4)
• Aging is part of life.  There is beauty in it.  (Proverbs 20:29)
• Obsession over beauty or worshipping beauty over the Lord is not what the Lord wants from us.  (Proverbs 31:30)
• God will make everything beautiful in His time. To everything there is a season.  (Ecc. 3:11)
• In the last days, the Lord promises burning (defined as branding or slavery) instead of beauty, and says it is a punishment for the worldliness of the daughters of God. Worldly attributes of the daughters of God are described as wanton eyes (carnal mind), earrings, rings, nose jewels, multiple changeable suits of apparel, and He says he will strip the bravery of their tinkling ornaments. (Isaiah 3:24)
• Sharing the gospel and bearing testimony make you beautiful.  (Isaiah 52:7)
• It is not for His appearance that we should desire the Savior.  He has no comeliness and is not pleasing in appearance.  He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.  It is what He was, who He was, what He offered that made men desire Him.  (Isaiah 53:2)
• My home should be a place of beauty since that is where I worship God. (Isaiah 60:13)
• Beware of the hypocrisy of beauty.  We can appear outwardly beautiful but inwardly be full of uncleanness.  Sometimes just the pursuit of beauty does that to us. (Matt. 23:27)
• The beauty of the fruit of eternal life is far more beautiful than anything earthly. (1 Ne. 11:8)
• Beauty is not found in costly, elaborate clothes, but in plain garments and in industry. (D&C 40:42)

Just reading this list makes me feel more beautiful.  Is that weird? There is nothing on this list that says you have to be a certain height or weight.  Nothing refers to the color of your hair or features of your face.  To the Lord, I am beautiful.  I honor my covenants and have dedicated my life to Him.  I bear my testimony and try to do His will.  Do I have things to work on?  For sure.  But don't we all.

I allow many things in life to separate me from God.  I am always feeling there is a certain level of behavior or success I have to attain BEFORE I can be worthy of His acknowledgement, acceptance and love.  That is just not true.  Not now, not ever true. 

Lately, and really throughout most of my life, my negative obsession with my appearance demonstrates an almost borderline worshipping of beauty.  That is not what I want for my life, nor is it what the Lord wants for my life.  When I allow myself to feel shameful and unworthy because I don't feel beautiful, I am worshipping beauty.  Not only that, I find the more critical I am of myself, the more critical I am of others. 

For years I have said to myself.  People only want me for what I am, for what I offer to them, for the help I can provide.  I hated that about my relationships.  I wanted to be desired, lusted after for physical reasons.  I've read those scriptures in Isaiah 53 countless times.  The ones that say "there is no beauty that we should desire him".  Yet - people flocked to Him, never wanted Him to leave.  If not for His beauty - then what?  Because of who he was and what he offered to them.  "To whom should we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life."  I don't offer salvation, nor am I the Savior - but I can relate to those feelings.

I see how the major mistakes I've made in my thinking over the years.  I'm ready to change that.

Co-signing

The last week has been brutal.  During therapy last week, in the last 5 or 6 minutes, we started discussing the negative dialog that goes on in my head.  We started by discussing the anxiety I have about engaging socially.  Casually, my therapist said:  "Why don't you just start paying attention to the negative things you say to yourself and next week we'll discuss ways to combat it."  

And so I did.  And by day four I had three solid pages.
 
You are not pretty.
Your hair is ugly and no amount of product can do anything for it.
I should wear more makeup -- maybe that will help -- but I hate wearing a lot of make up.
Jewelry -- everyone says I should wear jewelry -- but I hate jewelry. That's probably your problem.
Maybe, someday, a man will be able to look past how fat you are and want to be with you.
Being fat makes me unworthy of a relationship.
Why do you even try to lose weight - it never works.
Why do I exercise -- it's painful because I'm overweight.
Don't leave the house, people will look at you and think or say hurtful things.
You should be able to handle this... it's not like you've been raped or anything?
Maybe if you were just nicer, people would like you?
Wait for people to talk to you first, then you know they aren't just pretending to be nice.
Why can't you keep your house clean?
Why don't you use your talents more and serve other people more?
You should be a better daughter and sister.
That was stupid.  Why do you do such stupid things?
Don't eat that.
Why can't I eat the right thing all the time?
Why can't I figure this weight loss thing out?  I'm smart. I should be able to do this.

That was only page one.  As I started noticing these negative thoughts and became aware of them, it got worse.  I don't know that I ever realized the horrific things I say to myself.  The demeaning, demoralizing, downright mean things I say.  The only conclusion I could come to by the end of the week, is that I intensely hate myself.  The pressure I put on myself to be perfect, to say and do the perfect thing all the time to make up for being fat is ridiculous.  And the beratement that comes when I can't live up to being perfect is even more unbelievable. 

The overwhelming fact for me this week, is that I believe these things. I can logically tell myself that they are not true. I can talk myself down from the edge. But yet, reading that list, I feel that they are true.  No matter how much I tell myself they aren't, I feel that they are.

I became so overwhelmed and nearly paralyzed about the whole thing, I scheduled an extra therapy session this week JUST to talk about the list.  As I started reading it to my therapist, I was half crying, half laughing.  I've talked about some pretty graphic, personal, detailed things about my sex addiction with my therapist -- yet, I had a really difficult time reading this list to him.  I was embarrassed (hence the laughing), yet mortified (crying) at the same time.  It was much harder for me to read this list, than to tell him about my sordid sexual history.

He asked how constant it is -- I had to admit that as we were talking, I was belittling myself internally for scheduling this extra session because I couldn't handle a little negative self-talk.  I even criticize myself about my negative self-talk. 

I walked away with four assignments:
1.  Talk to someone about it (preferably at a meeting). 
2.  Continue to write it all down to get it out of your head.
3.  Come up with a general purpose affirmation you can say to yourself to stop it.
4.  Return and report next week.

I went to an extra SA meeting tonight.  Trying, unsuccessfully, to hold in my emotions, I finally talked about it the last few minutes of the meeting.  I was approached by three men after the meeting, all thanking me for being so honest and willing to talk about their own issues with the same thing.  One of them shared what he says to himself:  "I'm not willing to co-sign on that bullshit." 

How perfect is that?  When I allow myself to talk to myself that way, I'm co-signing the bullshit.  Because, all of those things that I believe are shit.  They aren't real or right or true!  Somehow, sometime, I'm going to believe that.  Until then though.... I'm just going to keep saying it.  I will not co-sign on those thoughts. 

My secret

The problem with acting out in secret for so many years is that you also have to do recovery in secret.  And so recovery sometimes feels just as isolating as addiction did.  Though in very different ways.

Sitting at recovery meetings I listen to people talk about the support they get from their families or partners for their recovery.  I'm jealous sometimes.  Ok, I'm jealous most of the time.  Why can't my family be loving, accepting, and supportive?  I fantasize about telling them sometimes.  But ultimately, I know I won't.  It's not safe.  But I hate lying to my family.  I hate making up excuses for going to meetings.  I hate lying about how I know certain people and how important it is for me to talk to them. 

Yet -- I also know many people in recovery that have had bad experiences with family knowing about their addiction.  I'm sure neither situation is perfect.

As I write this, I realize I'm lonely.  What I'm craving is companionship and partnership.  I'm craving a relationship.  I talked with my two closest friends from Washington last night and miss them desperately.  Part of me really wants to start over and find friends.  But part of me is still in Washington.  I can't wait until November when I get to spend a whole week with M.  I'll hate him by the end of the week, I'm sure of it, but the time will be awesome.  I want to sit in my therapists office and not Skype with him. 

I went from this wonderfully, supportive, honest environment in Washington to one here where I still have a secret.  In WA, the secret was easy to hold and easy to deal with.  Here, it stares me in the face everyday and I have to lie about it.  I don't like it.  I don't like it at all. 

Sobriety

In SA, we talk about it being a "one day at a time" program, but we do celebrate certain milestones.  Today is one of my milestones -- 9 months of sobriety. 

Last date I had phone sex:  December 14, 2010

Last date I acted out with a man:  April 13, 2011

Stated the SA program and therapy:  July 15, 2011

Last date I masturbated:  December 1, 2012

Sobriety date:  December 2, 2012

Today:  9 months sober

I have to say I'm pretty damn proud of myself.  Seriously.  I can't think of the last time in my life I went 9 months without masturbating, probably close to 20 years. 

Early on in sobriety, I had to divide my day up in time periods.  I would say to myself, I'm going to stay sober for the next 12 hours.  I would pray and tell Heavenly Father my plan for the next 12 hours and ask, no beg for His help.  Help always came.

Today, I recognize the fragility of my sobriety.  I can be acting out in less than 5 minutes.  I know exactly where to go and how to make it happen.  A few weeks ago, I had a really difficult few days.  Before sobriety, I would have said things to myself like: "I want to act out", "I want to numb my feelings", "I want to escape".  Yet, this time, I found myself saying -- "Just take a little bit of time to cry and feel what is going on, it will pass eventually".  And it did.  And I stayed sober.  I didn't want to act out, I didn't want to escape it.  I didn't want it to pass without partaking.  I wanted to be present in my life and feel what was going on.  It was glorious.

Being present has been one of the biggest gifts of sobriety.  I'm living my life. I'm not watching it happen, or avoiding it, or criticizing it as it goes along.  I'm living it.  I feel more authentic and present than I have ever been.  The other major gift of sobriety has been the ability to express and receive love.  I'm learning to truly accept love into my life and allow myself to feel loved and wanted.  It's amazing! 

One of my major goals for 2013 is to live the entire year sober.  Four more months and I will have accomplished that goal.  I am confident in my ability to make that a reality, with the continued help of my Heavenly Father and Savior.