Letting Go

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge fan of Oprah Winfrey. I love watching her show and I have our TiVo set to record it so that I am able to choose exactly which episodes I want to see.

I relate to her shows because I believe that Oprah is in the process of finding her balance in life too. She has been through a lot personally and has achieved great things professionally and financially. It only makes sense that a woman in her position would need to find a way to maintain a sustainable balance in life and a lot of her shows focus on helping other women do the same.

I was especially touched by yesterday's show. It was about young children who are obsessed with their looks. Little girls as young as 3 and 4 years old were shown throwing tantrums over feeling ugly and refusing to eat anything but fruits and vegetables for fear of getting fat. The three year old reads Victoria's Secret catalogs, insists that her mother let her wear makeup and cries in despair if her hair isn't perfect. When she feels pretty, she is happy but if she for any reason feels ugly (which seems to be often), she is miserable and has difficulty functioning. The four year old matter-of-factly will point out people who are fat and people who are skinny and refuses to eat anything that she thinks will make her fat because she believes that fat people are ugly. She exercises every day and will literally only eat fruits and vegetables.

Both of these stories are heartbreaking. The children's concerned mothers were on the show explaining to Oprah that they felt that this behavior began after their girls started going to school - that other little girls at school were influencing their self-esteem. However, after talking to each mother and examining her own lifestyle habits, it was clear that they were the ones primarily influencing their children. The 3 year old's mother is personally obsessed with her own looks and said herself that she thinks she is unattractive and the 4 year old's mother has battled eating disorders throughout her life and presently exercises once or twice a day and measures out all of her food portions. Is it really any wonder why their daughters obsess over the same things as they do?

It is said that we develop and establish our personality by the age of 6 years old. Therefore, the years prior to that are extremely impressionable and critical to the formation of healthy self-esteem. Dr. Robin, Oprah's resident psychiatrist, explains that mothers unconsciously hand down their insecurities to their children and that the process actually begins as the child leaves the womb. These little girls are truly in danger of permanently scarring their level of self-esteem unless their mothers are able to heal their own wounds. It is one thing to read or hear about such theories but seeing living examples affecting the lives of mere babes was quite a wake-up call.

We all have our issues - the emotional baggage we carry around with us - but never before have I been so motivated to do what it takes to check my baggage at the door. It is interesting to consider how the specific esteem issues we have could be passed along to us from our parents, how our behaviors could mirror or reflect the issues they have had with their own self-esteem. What I do know for sure is that I don't want my children to struggle with my esteem issues and that is reason enough for me to face up to them now.

For anyone, this is a daunting task. As I considered it, it scared me! I felt like if I didn't have my baggage to carry around with me anymore, I didn't know what else I would think about! Suddenly, I saw myself as an empty slate - that everything that had defined me would be gone. And that was precisely my fear of letting go of my baggage - that I wouldn't know who I was without it.

It was a startling yet amazing revelation, what Oprah likes to call an "Ah-ha" moment. I realized why creating change in your life can be so difficult - why people have trouble losing weight, advancing in their career, finding the relationship they want, or essentially getting what they want out of life. It's because we all have trouble processing, healing and then LETTING GO of our wounds so instead, we let them define who we are and determine the shape of our lives.

What is necessary to heal is making a conscious decision to permanently put our hurt, disappointed, and insecure feelings to rest and replace them with what is true about who we are, what we have, and what we want today. Not an easy task by any means but the most critical part is figuring out what will REPLACE the parts you decide to lose.

The key is to start thinking of yourself in a different way. For a long time, my self-esteem has revolved around how I look and that has influenced a lot of decisions I have made in terms of how I spend my time both physically and mentally. I've been feeling for a while that mentally, I have outgrown this concern but it has permeated so much of my life that I was afraid to let go of it. I've been afraid of letting go of that which I felt defined me for fear of exposing what may (or may not!) lie underneath.

It is time for me to step out of these old shoes and into something new. Redefining yourself is difficult but not impossible. I've decided to embrace the natural changes I am seeing in my life. I see that these days, I love reading and writing and am finding satisfying ways to fill my time with those activities. I'm appreciating a "quieter" time in my life and am enjoying the peace of introspection. A lot of this is in contrast to previous time spent in a faster lane but it is what best suits me now, today, in this moment.

I am grateful for having seen this particular episode of Oprah's show. I believe that if we really want to see change in the world, we need to realize that it starts with us and our behavior. I want to give my kids the best chance I can to start life fresh and march to the beat of their own drum. My baggage doesn't need to travel any further.