Damn it y’all. I’m a grown ass woman. (Two cuss words already - can y’all tell this is a tough one for me?) I have tween-agers who I am teaching to accept themselves. And yet I - wife, mom, biz owner, and accidental face of my brand - have yet to fully accept myself! There are moments of course when I may come closer to healthy perspective...but sheesh I thought being a grown-ass boss lady would feel different!
10 Things I’ve Learned in 10 years as a Creative Entrepreneur
NUMBER FOUR: Self image and being the face of my brand. Lord help us all.
NUMBER FOUR: Self image and being the face of my brand. Lord help us all.
Damn it y’all. I’m a grown ass woman. (Two cuss words already - can y’all tell this is a tough one for me?) I have tween-agers who I am teaching to accept themselves. And yet I - wife, mom, biz owner, and accidental face of my brand - have yet to fully accept myself! There are moments of course when I may come closer to healthy perspective...but sheesh I thought being a grown-ass boss lady would feel different!
Due to my love of crossfit I got down to a unusually low (for me) body fat percentage. Me: “Hold up. I have 14% body fat? I’m confused. I STILL don’t look like a super model?!” Gosh I know that sounds ridiculous. But it’s crazy how we think - “oh if i could just do this and this and this I will look like HER.” Nope, Ans. You’re still the 5’5 athletic build you’ve been since you were 12. You still look like YOU. You still laugh like you. You still cry and snort like you. Bout time you embrace it. Ugh. Embrace?? Usually feels more like an awkward side hug.
Being a creative entrepreneur and basically the face of my own brand has forced this issue to the surface A LOT. I guess these are lessons we learn in waves and greater depths as we grow, but again...never fully arrive. I have learned to accept pictures of myself on the internet without too much critique. So that’s growth! I still often think “that’s what I look like?” Or “Does my voice always sound that irritating?!” But I’ve learned to laugh and move on more quickly.
Disclaimer: This week’s set back: someone asked me in the bathing suit store this week if I did body building competitions and I wanted to burst into tears. I THOUGHT I had put “Cindy Crawford” out into the universe but I guess the universe heard “Arnold Schwarzenegger” instead.
ANYways I do love the moments when I glance at myself in the mirror and both accept and celebrate what I see without having to linger there too long. Self-love and acceptance means this HUGE space opens up inside you that allows you to love OTHERS. You get to escape the HELL of SELF. This is what I’m trying to teach my kids. TWEENS naturally think about themselves all the time. (WHY MIDDLE SCHOOL SUCKS!) A huge roll we have as parents is helping them move beyond themselves and out of their own little worlds to love and serve others.
Nothing like owning my own business (SO much responsibility) and being the face of my brand (SO much of my face!) to catapult me into the ME trap. It’s a real struggle and takes real intention to live with a heart for others.
Jesus said this crazy thing that we don’t think about much...”Love your neighbor as yourself.” Well folks - we gotta love ourselves first to really understand what loving others means! And then this whole crazy world opens up in front of us and we are FREE to love our neighbors. We are no longer obsessed with our insecurities so space opens up to see and serve those around us. It’s one of those crazy paradoxes in life.
I’ll wrap this up. A huge THANK YOU to Creative Entrepreneurship for being such thorny yet beautiful terrain for discovering a full and abundant life. Loving this journey of learning to love myself so my life (and business) can be about loving others.
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