Follow up on Dr. Coyne's Gender and the Media Lecture

I apologize in advance- this is not the most eloquent piece of writing. I just had a lot of thoughts. So here they are:


Dr. Coyne's lecture on Gender and the Media was life changing for me. I don't know if it was for anyone else, but it really stuck with me (probably because everything she talked about literally described how I felt when looking at media). I have always longed for the "perfect body" that every woman has on TV and in magazines. Doing this and constantly comparing myself to others really started hurting me. I felt really bad about myself and felt pretty worthless because of my outward appearance. This is CRAZY, but I think it's a common effect of media on lots of people.

After Dr. Coyne's lecture, I decided to change. I was so motivated from what she was lecturing, I knew I had the power to feel better about myself and not be as effected by what I see around me. Right after class, I deleted every person  didn't personally know that I was following on Instagram. I used to look to these strangers that I felt had "perfect lives" to inspire me to be better. However, they always had the opposite effect and made me feel less as a woman because I didn't look like them or didn't have as cute or as clean of a house as they did.

I also decided to stop comparing myself to others (or I started trying my hardest not to compare myself to others- trust me, I still mess up time to time). Every time I have a negative thought about myself, I basically call myself out for doing it. It has extremely helped me to try and look at everyone (including myself) as a child of our Heavenly Father. This makes it much harder to criticize yourself FYI. I used to look at other girls and long for their beautiful hair or their small waist and make myself feel awful. But now if I catch myself noticing things that I admire about other people- I focus on doing that- ADMIRING. Not envying. Now when I notice something I used to be jealous of on another person, I think "Wow, she has such beautiful hair. I am so happy for her. I bet she's so nice too". (or something to that effect- that sounded cheesy) It really helps me to think about another aspect of that person that does not involve their appearance. For instance, thinking "I bet she's so nice" to myself, helps me see her as a real person and helps me think less about only her appearance. We all deserve to be thought of for more than our appearance. Appearance really doesn't matter in the end. We are all PEOPLE. Not OBJECTS. And then I think to myself "My hair is not that bad. And that is not my defining feature. I have a husband who loves me, I'm at a great school, my family loves me the way I am. They think I'm alright so I should too". I know that sounds extremely dumb but it has changed the way I live! Now, I think more about my worth than my appearance. And I focus on other people's worth too! We all have it! And that is my favorite feature about everyone! We are all doing the best we can with what we have- so let's help each other and ourselves by not comparing.

And compliment someone if you notice something you admire about them! In my experience, when I notice something about someone else that I admire and I compliment them on it, the receiver of the compliment perks up and I perk up because I have made someone's day better. Spread joy!

xo
PM

P.S. Since doing this, my husband tells me how much happier I seem- and it's TRUE. Comparison is the thief of joy.