Every so often I’ll see someone doing something cool and I wonder why they aren’t taking bigger steps to put their craft out into the world. You know, like when you discover a band on deep dive through recommended artists on YouTube or Spotify. You’re listening to their songs and asking yourself, “Why don’t more people know about this?”
For many of us, I think it’s easier to see the potential in someone else than ourselves.
In fact, bring to mind someone you admire right now. This can be a celebrity, an athlete, a musician, anyone!
Got it?
Okay. The same way we admire this other person, their actions, or their creations, we also have that same greatness in us.
Wild, right?
If you read that and are like, “I’m not rich and famous like them, I don’t have a house in Martha’s Vineyard, and I don’t have 1.2M followers on Instagram, so how the heck am I as great as them?!”
That’s valid and I’m not at all going to say those things don’t matter. They do! Just…not in the way you might think. Behind the surface layers of rich and famous, what is being represented? What does a large home in an esteemed part of Europe mean to you? What does a huge following on Instagram mean to you? Whittle that down. Or, you know, whatever aspect of greatness you see in the person you admire.
The thing we see as being so great in them is a quality we have equal potential to meet.
We’ve probably all heard that phrase about comparing yourself to someone else’s “highlights reel” not being a valuable use of your time. Totally true. Yet, what I’m proposing here is to nail down what you see in the person that you want. It’s hardly something as surface level as lots of money. That isn’t what would make you happy. Maybe it’s something you believe money could buy. Financial security for you and your family, perhaps?
So, we have our person. We have our aspect. Now, there’s just that roadblock of: how do we embody that aspect ourselves?
I started off this post by asking where it is you stay small. The tricky part is that we often don’t realize how small we are until we get a taste of feeling bigger. That’s what these people we admire are showing us! You might now be reading what I’m saying and be like: I hear ya but NOPE! Then, proceed to throw a blanket over yourself to stay hidden, figuratively speaking (or literally…who knows?).
Anyway, staying small is safe but it’s not fulfilling. Taking risks is scary but if we’re willing to re-frame the way we view ourselves, we could see that we, too, have a lot to offer. Think of your skills, the presence you have, the way you can get a group talking with one another, or the perspective you bring to the table. How can you bring more of that into your daily life? How can you share more of your authentic self with your community?
I know it’s scary to put yourself out there and try something new. We owe ourselves to stop playing small and give ourselves more credit for our unique abilities. Anyone can draw a picture of a bird but the way you draw it is going to be completely different than the way someone else draws it. Put your bird drawing out there because the simple fact is that there is nothing else like it. Maybe that’s a bit of an odd example to end on but hopefully you’ve caught the point. The things we have to offer the world are unique to us and not sharing them isn’t doing anyone any favors.
Before we dive in, I want to mention that May is not only Mental Health Awareness Month but also National Arthritis Awareness Month. While mental health is something I am really passionate about now and need to creatively stay on top of it, arthritis is not as big a part of my current story. I am so fortunate to say that because I know that it is a painful, daily reality for many people. I don’t often talk about my own experience with arthritis because, according to my doctor, I outgrew it.
However, I’d be silly if I said that having arthritis did not impact my adolescence and the way I view health. Arthritis is thought of as a physical disease but I don’t see how you can have a physical illness and not also have that affect your overall well-being.
This is my experience with being diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis* and how I no longer have it.
Spoiler alert: this isn’t a miracle story, nor do I have any special hacks or medications that I used for overcoming JRA.
Early years
I’ve always been a girl with a lot of energy just seeking ways to let it out. So, like many kids, my favorite outlet was playing outside. Whether that was freeze tag during recess at school, riding my bike, or running through my neighbors’ orchards. Anything and everything was fun to me!
Despite being a fun-loving kid, for as far back as I can remember, my childhood was plagued by knee pain. I’d employ my parents to rub Aspercreme on my knees and wrap them in a fabric gauze to keep them warm. My dad often spent weeknights massaging my knees to help soothe the pain I felt. I wasn’t falling off my bike or doing anything to obviously hurt my knees. So, my parents said it was likely growing pains. Growing pains that lasted for years and years….
The symptoms set in
Around age 11, my sister and I joined gymnastics together. I had been looking forward to this so much but a few months in my knees began to hurt. I had knee pain pretty often but it was always for short periods and a massage or some Aspercreme would alleviate it. Yet, this knee pain felt different and it wouldn’t go away. I considered that maybe I hurt myself in gymnastics and took several weeks off, but my knee pain only worsened.
To put this into perspective, I was wrapping up my final weeks in 6th grade when the pain started to kick up. As the hot days crawled, so did the pain in other parts of my body, too. My skin developed little red blotches, like an allergic reaction. Red, hot (but not itchy) spots covered my legs and thighs, my belly and back, my arms and neck, and face. With every joint inflamed, I felt miserable. I had no energy to see friends, pursue hobbies I used to love like drawing (my hands and wrists hurt), and walking up the stairs in my house felt like a mission. It’s so weird to think of that now but I pretty much spent the majority of that summer between 6th and 7th grade laying on the couch in pain.
I had to ask my mom about this next part because I couldn’t remember when I actually saw the doctor who would change everything. Basically, I had to go through a big run-around with the pediatrician, get bloodwork, then get his referral to other specialists who had their own blood panel to request. Finally, I got referred to the Rady’s Children’s Hospital and met with a few different doctors in white coats. Each were specialists in different fields; each had unique sets of questions for me. My parents were in the room, too, and filled in the blanks for anything I couldn’t piece together.
The specialists asked me questions about my health, habits, behaviors, symptoms, and more. From that discussion alone, it was still a mystery if I had leukemia, lupus, or cat scratch disease. It wasn’t until another specially-requested blood panel that I came out positive for JRA.
The rheumatologist took over from there and the action plan was treatment with medication to get the inflammation and pain under control fast. At this time, I should also mention it was the start of my 7th grade school year. Prior to me even seeing the specialists, I had to endure walking the halls of a new school feeling decrepit, barely able to carry my own weight. My mom had made arrangements with the school to give me a little extra time to get to class in case I had a hard time walking. My backpack was heavier than I could handle so I also had some classroom accommodations made. That way, I didn’t need to carry the giant textbooks to class. I honestly felt so embarrassed even though I had a condition.
I didn’t want to think of myself as sick even though my body was unfamiliar to me and in so much pain.
Treatment hurdles and victories
Despite all this, it didn’t take long for the medication to work it’s magic. If I remember correctly, I was on prescription prednisone (steroids) and high-dose naproxen (pain killer) for several months. After my body stopped feeling like an inflammatory war zone, my doctor introduced me to methotrexate, a DMARD. DMARDs, disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs, are basically the non-steroidal answer to arthritis treatment because they help bring down inflammation, pain, and swelling, but also treat the actual arthritis-affected joints by slowing down their deterioration, according to WebMD.
The time I was on steroids seemed like the longest ever–I was in a transitional age and felt like all eyes were on me. I also felt additionally uncomfortable in my own body because I was gaining weight (side effect of the steroids). I was at the highest weight I’ve ever been at that time but at least I wasn’t in pain. So, by the time my body got settled on methotrexate, and I eased off the steroids, the worst was behind me. My pain stayed gone, methotrexate seemed to work without negative side effects. Some days required an extra naproxen pill on top of the methotrexate I took morning and night, but, otherwise, things were pretty smooth sailing.
The coolest part, now that I look back, was watching how I started on 7 little methotrexate pills daily and over the years was able to drop them down bit by bit. A time or two I would work with my doctor to try dropping down the amounts and my body would flair up. It wasn’t until I was a senior in high school, around 2011, that I finally got cleared of JRA.
I had reduced my medication successfully and symptoms no longer persisted.
I am so thankful for the amazing pediatric rheumatologist that I had treating me. He was patient, insightful, and helped me so much. Admittedly, he offered consistent suggestions to do things like pick up a sport or physical activity and that would help my joints all the more. The teen girl in me ignored the advice but, in later time, I’ve seen how implementing exercise helps maintain fluidity in my body, reduce stiffness, and lower inflammation. That being said, there is still one frustrating aspect about western medicine in that I never found out the root cause. Way before I ever got the chronic pain I did in the 6th grade, I was having knee pain most days out of the week. Were those early signs of arthritis? Even my rheumatologist could only say, perhaps.
While I was “in remission”, I was also concerned about symptoms coming back. There is a possibility of individuals who have Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis developing other forms of arthritis as an adult. However, it is also quite possible to not have arthritis symptoms come back at all.
Years after all of that I acquired an interest in health and went on to study nutrition through IIN. Some of the takeaways I got from there made me wonder if diet and lifestyle habits could have influenced my development of JRA. It’s hard to say. Even I especially cannot say that certain things were healthy or unhealthy because that is so individual. Yet, perhaps there are genetic predispositions and certain lifestyle habits will flick on those symptoms like a light switch. All I can do is take the best care of my body that I can now and give thanks for the amazing doctor and treatment options I had available to me at the time.
I only had arthritis for about eight years in my youth but many people of ALL ages suffer from arthritis. I’m awaiting more discoveries in the field of arthritis and hopefully increased research about holistic treatments to help the millions of people dealing with arthritis today.
*While I had arthritis, it was labeled as Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis but in later years the terminology changed to Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis. I use JRA for consistency and time-relevancy throughout this post.
Self-image only matters to one person. By that, I mean that self-image is purely one person’s own perception of the way they carry themselves. With May being Mental Health Month, I think it’s important to address the very real fact that the health of our mind influences the health of our body.
In my experience, I have been in situations where talking about mental self-work (be that therapy, journaling, or any sort of practice to help tend to your thoughts and beliefs) feels superior to physicalities. As if it doesn’t matter what we look like on the outside as long as our head is in good shape. Respectively, mental health is so important but I don’t think we need to dismiss our physical bodies either. Our bodies aren’t just the vehicle we use to talk, walk, and interact with the world, they are a physical manifestation of how we feel about ourselves on the inside.
Some more “intellectual” folks may snub those who care about appearances as if it is all vanity. Both the mind and the body are beautiful though. Bodily features like the size, shape, color, or any physical attributes are part of the beautiful unique masterpiece that is your body. The mind for what it can create and the body for how it allows us to present ourselves and engage with the world.
There is a mind-body connection when it comes to self-image and one helps the other. The way I see it, if our mind feels stable and peaceful, then we are able to look at our bodies through that same lens.
It’s a complex case to describe how to achieve mental peace, and it’s a case that will mean something different for everyone, but I think a big part of that is taking ownership of yourself and being true to you.
When I was growing up, I was constantly looking at myself in terms of lack. I’d feel ashamed that I didn’t have something, maybe I had less money than someone else, or I wasn’t as smart in a subject area compared to my peers. I also suffered from bouts of depression and hopelessness more times than I could count. In my young mind, I felt that all eyes were on me and everyone knew I wasn’t capable or as well-off as I wished I was.
When everything around me seemed so dreadful, I began focusing on my physical features. I couldn’t “change” how smart I was but I could put on make up to make me look prettier or wear black clothing to hide myself. I got nit-picky about everything from the moles on my skin to the size of my thighs. It was innocent banter but my girlfriends used to joke about the size of their thighs and I thought: well, I might not have much but I do have the smallest thighs out of all of us. It’s sickening to think back on that.
Yet, when all else seemed to suck, I needed to create my own merits for success–and that’s why I’m here now: to talk about ways to value yourself mentally and physically.
I have picked up a strategy that I use to improve my feelings of well-being and I see how employing it helps me in many aspects of my life.
So, remember earlier when I said I’d compare myself to my peers and some were smarter in certain subjects than I was? Here’s the thing: we’re all smart in something. We all have unique skills, talents, and strengths. Focusing on those over the shortcomings is how you can feel better about yourself.
When you spend time cultivating a skill or learning about something, you feel pretty empowered afterwards, right? Not everyone has this information but you do. For example, maybe you picked up a sport and after falling flat on your face a couple of times, you began to improve your posture and established some better techniques. You might now be at some professional athlete’s levels (or maybe you are!) but that doesn’t mean you aren’t good and don’t have skills!
The point I’m trying to get at here is that spending time with yourself and cultivating the relationship to your inner self is what gets you out of the mental ruts that impact your view of your body and all areas of your life. You don’t have time to worry about cellulite if you can launch a massive kick into a soccer ball that sends it flying 50 feet away. Okay, can you tell I know nothing about soccer? I think the biggest thing you can do for yourself is pick yourself up!
It’s great when friends or family or people you admire tell you you’re great but that isn’t everything.
At the end of the day it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. It won’t matter if everyone in the world likes you, if you don’t like you.
The body and mind connection cannot be ignored. Unfortunately, just attending to our physical bodies cannot get us very deep in terms of improvement in self-image. We cannot neglect the underlying thoughts, beliefs, and feelings present in our mind. Yet, a stronger place of mental ability–or perceived ability–we feel more capable of tackling other problems, tasks, and ventures. Thus, we can see our body with a renewed frame of appreciation. Maybe even be more apt to make a list of 10 things you appreciate about it instead of 10 things you hate about it.
When you are driven by an internal sense of validation, mental purpose, and ability, you will find that your body is just as brave, strong, and empowered as your mind.
In my last post, I shared how judgment is the cloud that alters the way we see the world.
When you solely choose to put your sense of value in material things, people, events, situations, or anything outside of yourself, you’re setting yourself up to get hurt. I think it’s totally okay to have a favorite TV show or a candy that makes you happy.
It’s natural to like and want things but we all need to have our own system of self-validation.
If you’ve ever had to compromise some of your wants, needs, or values for something else, you won’t forget that. Those events stick out like a sore thumb in memories. Usually, because they are filled with strong feelings that keep them alive. Feelings of fear, shame, disgust, and discomfort. If you repeatedly allow yourself to compromise on your values, this creates fragmented selves. Remember we talked about this? These are aspects of ourselves that we haven’t allowed to be free.
For anyone reading who thinks: hey, I don’t have control over many of the things that happen in my life; it all started when I was younger–I’ve never had a choice. Respectively, there were likely a number of times as a kid when choice wasn’t always in your favor, or situations around you trained you to believe you did not have a choice. However, if we are ever going to attempt to change anything we need to understand that everything is a choice. It might be so uncomfortable to say NO or cancel plans or set a boundary but these are the necessary first steps to putting yourself first.
How does all of this relate to the way we feel judgment?
Subconsciously, we store all of these memories and pieces of information that then create an internal dialogue that says: I can’t have what other people have because I am unworthy. People don’t just walk around openly stating that they feel unworthy but somewhere deep down, we’ve internalized ideas that say as much. You see, when we constantly let ourselves play second fiddle, don’t speak up for ourselves, or rush to an appointment instead of giving ourselves two minutes to center, we are allowing things to happen to us.
Are you sitting passively in the passenger seat of your life while other people and things are driving the car? Remember it is your life and you’re meant to be driving the car.
In non-metaphorical terms: don’t sit by, letting things happen to you when things could be happening for you.
TLDR: the first step is always recognizing if and where you’re acting out of misalignment. Do you feel like you can’t fully be yourself in even a small way? Next, get to the root and find the trigger. When you can uncover why someone or something bothers you, you can trace it back to how you aren’t meeting your own needs. Is there something you’ve been denying yourself? Space, freedom, rest, basic needs, sleep, connection, etc. Name it.
When you respect yourself enough to give yourself the time, love, or amenities you desire, you don’t hate on other people for doing the same for themselves. Naturally, you’ll know that what they do doesn’t matter and doesn’t affect you.
It’s easier to judge than it is to accept that you want what someone else has. It’s easier to fear something than to admit you’re secretly curious to go learn more and try that thing out for yourself.
We judge other people by what we don’t accept in ourselves.
This may not make sense right away so I’ll give some examples, but first let me talk about repressed aspects of self. We all have different parts of our identity created by interests, people we spend time with, environments, and more. For some of us, these are so unconscious that we naturally slip into one version of ourselves with each changing situation. Others of us are aware of it and we’ll call it “putting on a face” when we have to act a certain way to please an external party. We can be one version of self when we clock in at the office, another version when we meet up for drinks at 6pm, and a different version entirely when we answer a phone call from our mom.
On a surface level, we can all probably imagine how we act a little (or a lot) different in different settings. Some people can be pretty consistently the same person wherever they go but there are always aspects of self that only certain people (or maybe only you) get to see. The different selves, as I call them, are very deeply conditioned by society and upbringing. To know what they are is to be in tune with your subconscious.
A whole and integrated person, without fragmented selves, will see someone else doing something or having something and not feel threatened. What someone else has or does really, truly, does not impact you or take away from you.
A surefire way to tell that you have a separation of identity is when you freak out or get upset when you see someone else disobeying the societal standards.
For example, maybe you dress very conservatively for work even though it’s not your style or you wear shoes that are uncomfortable because they meet the standards of attire. Then, in one day walks your coworker wearing relaxed attire, maybe sneakers instead of dress shoes. What’s your response? If you’re a little ticked off and wondering why they get to wear clothes outside of the dress code policy you’re not the only one.
Some people might fume in silence but the really fired up people might head to the manager’s office and alert them about so-and-so’s clothes. While, yes, technically the person might not be wearing the right attire based on company guidelines but the judgment you’d be imposing has nothing to do with them and everything to do with what you feel. Let me repeat that.
Judgment has nothing to do with another person or thing and has everything to do with what you are feeling.
It can be a number of things brewing beneath the surface that stir up the “threat alert” in your brain (aka is triggered) enough to make you upset or run over to the manager’s office. It could be as straightforward as you hating your uncomfortable shoes and thinking: if I can’t wear sneakers to work, then they shouldn’t be wearing them either! Or, it could be deeper-seated discomfort tied to other things going on.
You’ve probably heard how it’s important to talk about stuff that bothers you because it will just bottle up until you explode. It’s kind of like that. If you’re dissatisfied in any way, those emotions can cloud your views and impact your treatment of other people.
Maybe you haven’t had time for your hobbies or social life so a job or living situation makes you feel creatively castrated. Note: nothing external can make you do anything; triggers only stir up feelings. There isn’t anything necessarily wrong with the job itself (I mean, there could be) but it’s the way you’re looking at it that is dissatisfying. All it takes is a trigger, like the person behaving outside of normative standards, and then you apply your frustration onto it. Will calling out someone else make you feel better? Eh, perhaps for a split second but not long-term at all. After this person or thing, you’ll need to find another situation to get upset about. And yes, find. We have to go out of our way to look for problems.
You can play the blame game and name 100 reasons why someone else is at fault but you’re still the one who is holding onto the judgment that is keeping you out of alignment with yourself.
When you stay focused on yourself and create internal sources of validation, you don’t need to search for it outside. People who are in a good mood have this. Perhaps you also know the feeling: when you’re in such a good mood that nothing anyone says or does can bother you; all else rolls right off your shoulders?
Frustration comes from looking outside and viewing others as having something you don’t have. You judge them for it, imagining that they’re somehow better than you because of certain qualities or situations you see but that’s not the whole picture. Likely, it isn’t even the right picture because you’re making assumptions or projecting beliefs based on your own insecurities.
In my next post I’ll further explain how to unpack these denied aspects of self.
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