Shrinking the Cesspool

Hi Everyone,

Ask and you shall receive. I recently sent out a request to the With Jess network and asked if anyone was interested in Guest Blogging for me and the responses have been overwhelming!! I am excited to introduce to you our next Guest Blogger, Karly Randolph Pitman. She is a perfect fit for the With Jess audience and I think you will really be inspired by her words.

Karly Randolph Pitman is the founder of First Ourselves, helping women love their bodies, feel beautiful, and make self care a top priority. She lives with her husband and four children in the mountains of Montana, although she told her husband they're moving to the beach next year. Karly feeds her spirit by running, inhaling books, watching movies, and dancing in the living room with her family. Learn more at www.firstourselves.com.

How many of you have woken up this way: You spend twenty minutes in front of a full length mirror, trying on several outfits to find the one that makes you feel “skinny.” Then you carefully apply your makeup to hide any wrinkles, age spots, and pimples. You skip breakfast, because eating makes you feel “too full” (read: fat) so low blood sugar leaves you edgy and irritable. You try reassuring yourself that you look okay (making sure to double check the mirror one last time before exiting the house), only to see your neighbor/co-worker/anyone on the street looking oh-so fabulous. Your confidence sinks, as thoughts of feeling fat, frumpy, ugly and old peck at your peace of mind.

Ladies, let’s laugh at ourselves, because we’ve all been there.

We live in a society fixated on appearance and the physical body. Weight obsession now affects young girls as young as eight or six; not just women and teenagers. Statistics show our models for beauty -- fashion models, actresses, and other entertainment personalities -- are getting thinner, and thinner. Eating disorders are more and more common, beginning at earlier ages, among 7 and 10 year old girls.

In her book “Like Mother, Like Daughter,” nutritionist Debra Waterhouse writes about how a mother’s negative body image can be passed down to her daughters. A culture, too, can bequeath a negative body image: 51% of 9 and 10 year old girls feel better about themselves if they are on a diet; 42% of 1st through 3rd grade girls want to be thinner; young girls would prefer to have cancer, lose both their parents, or live through a nuclear holocaust than to be fat.

How can a woman, or a little girl, love her body in such a toxic environment? How do we change this mess we’ve created?

When I first got the idea for helping women conquer body hatred, I thought the best way to change the status quo would be to attack the instigators----the beauty companies, the media, the fashion industry, Hollywood, the music industry---that feed our obsession with physical vanity.

But I came to see my approach was wrong, and doomed to fail. Why? You cannot create positive change from negativity. Attacking others won’t help women love their bodies. How can hatred create love?

At the least, I figure if Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr. could topple segregation with non-violent means, certainly I could help women love their bodies without resorting to violence.

On this site you will not find missives leading you to campaign against those who you believe perpetrate body hatred in women. I will not ask you to channel your anger in protest. I am not telling you to rant and rave against the powers that be. Instead, I am asking you to face your body issues. Simply focus on yourself: heal your body neuroses. That, I believe is enough.

I like to think of body hatred as a cesspool of negative thought. Imagine a deep, dark well of disgust, shame and despair. Each time you berate your body, or judge it, or judge or berate another’s, you tap into that cesspool, increasing its power. This, I believe, is the true cause of body hatred today: we are all feeding off one another’s disgust. We have created this toxic environment; our thoughts grow its power. We have created the cesspool. The universe is just complying in kind, by giving us a physical manifestation of our inner reality.

You can think, as I did, that body bashing is an individual problem; it doesn’t affect others. As long as I keep my anguish to myself, why does it matter? It matters because I am feeding the cesspool. I am helping to create the toxic environment. I am creating pain in the world: every seven year old girl on a diet is simply following in my footsteps.

Let’s imagine a different reality. What if we were able to love, accept and cherish our bodies? What if we were able to diminish the cesspool? What if we were able to create a counterbalance, a positive force? Imagine a well of love, nurturance, and joy. Each time we celebrate a woman’s beauty, cherish our bodies, and praise our physical selves, we would grow that pool of light. And what would happen to the cesspool? It would wither, shrink, and desist. Love would take its place.

So just think: every time you accept your body, or another woman’s, you diminish the cesspool. You help create an alternative universe. And then, gradually, our new inner reality will replace our outer reality. We will no longer have an outer manifestation of body hatred. Imagine such a place: for you, your sister, your daughter, your granddaughter.

I am calling for a body hatred fast. I want to try an experiment: for 60 days, let’s refrain from having negative comments or thoughts about our body or anyone else’s. When negative thoughts appear, transform them into a compliment or a positive statement. When other women bring up their body image garbage, change the subject. Refrain from gossiping about people’s appearance---positive or negative.

Let’s see if we can shrink the cesspool. Let’s see what other thoughts occupy our minds. When I think about the vast amounts of energy women have stored up in thoughts about weight or bodies, I can’t help but wonder: what could we achieve if our thoughts and minds were directed elsewhere?

If you think the world would be a better place if more women ran it, think about how we could run it if we weren’t so preoccupied on things that ultimately don’t matter. Try it from this perspective: if you had to think of a way to suppress the women of the world, what better way to do so than by feeding an obsessive distraction with appearance, so that women can’t focus their energy on what truly needs their help and devotion.

Let’s create a world where our daughters aren’t dieting in kindergarten. Let’s create a world where emaciated women are not the ideal. Let’s create a world where we celebrate our bodies by using them to make the world a better place.

Let’s create our alternate universe.

First, ourselves: then, the world.