Here are the essays from our Peer Advisors, who are attending our upcoming workshop on scholarship!
Love what you got!
What an important theme. Many people struggle with body image and self worth. It is so important to have good self worth and body image today. Any one in any profession needs to have confidence in themselves. Loving what you got is the key to happiness. In the end it won't matter what you look like or what clothes you wear if you don't love who you are and who you are becoming. I want to accomplish a lot in life and I want to make a difference. I can't do that without loving what I have. It is so important to love yourself. There are countless reasons to love what you got. To me loving what I have means being confident and loving me for who I am; Knowing that I can accomplish anything if I just love what I have and work hard.
Body image troubles so many young women. Every single day we are told that we could be prettier. It is important for people to understand that everyone is beautiful. It is okay to want to be healthier but we should not become unhealthy for beauty. We only get one body. We should take care of it and love it because we are stuck with it. Everyone looks different. It would be boring if we all looked alike. No body is flawless despite what we might see on the surface. Real beauty has flaws and is unique.
Self worth is also very important. Having confidence in yourself is so important. You can accomplish anything if you work hard and believe in yourself. It is important to understand that no one can tell you what you can and can not do. I think that it is important to know that you can be confident and strong. Self worth is so important, confidence is what helps people get jobs. Self worth is very important.
It is also very important to be who you are. We should be ourselves and show others who we are. True friends will love you for who you are and confidence comes after loving yourself. No one should have to change who they are for others. You will find true friends once you embrace yourself. I think that this is important because it builds confidence. Also loving yourself will allow you to be who you are around everyone.
Loving yourself is so important in today's society. By loving yourself you can get so far in life. People in this world are always telling us that we aren't good enough. It is so important to love ourselves and know that we are good enough. We need to show others how special and unique we are. I want others to know how to love themselves an work hard so that they can get far in life. Life is so hard for young women and I think it is important to teach them how to love themselves. Love what you got is a very important them and should be shared with all young women.
- Madeline F.
Learning to Love Myself
My freshman year I was everything I ever dreamed to be. I was a cheerleader at my Jr. High, I was in the dance company at my studio, I had long blonde hair, I was tall and skinny, and I had the best group of friends that always made me feel so great about myself. I was full of joy, loving life, and wanting to live it to the fullest. At the end of my freshman year I decided to try out for cheer at the High School, by doing so I would miss the dance competitions that were during the same time and had to quit doing Dance Company at my studio altogether but I could still dance which is all I needed to stay involved. I made cheer at the high school and loved it but I ended up not dancing at all.
My junior year of high school I decided with my best friend to not try out for cheer and instead I tried out for Dance Company at the high school. To my surprise, I did not make it. I knew it was just part of life but it still hurt; it hurt that I wasn’t going to be dancing, and it really made me regret taking dance off for a year and doing cheer instead when now, I had neither.
My junior year was still fun, but my personality had definitely changed; I went from being very
socially involved, to not really being involved with anything. I still wasn’t sure if I was going to do cheer or not my senior year so instead I decided to try out for SBO. I didn’t even make it through the primaries, so at the very last minute I tried out for cheer again. My best friend that hadn’t tried out with me the year before made it along with my very best friends; I was the only one who did not. At this point I was confused, I was lost, I was sad, and I was not myself. I had tried and tried my hardest to be the one who never gave up, who kept trying when I got pushed down, and to be the person my Heavenly Father had in mind for me to be. I know I needed to pick myself back up but it was hard. I felt like a failure and I was angry, angry with decisions I had made in the past, and angry that I tried out for cheer again. I could have saved myself a lot of embarrassment and sadness by not trying in the first place. About this same time I was also diagnosed with Celiac disease and I had to completely change my diet. This was also a small thing but it added to my self-doubt and despair about my future.
At this point it was really hard to love myself. It wasn’t until I received a letter from my dad
that I was personally okay with everything that had happened that year. He quoted the lyrics from our favorite song “Hey, Hey, Hey” by Michael Franti. “Hey, hey, hey, no matter how life is today there’s just one thing that I got to say, I won’t let another moment slip away.” I began to think about the things I have already done, and the things I have not even done yet. I have done cheer, I have danced competitively, I have a beautiful body, I have a wonderful family, and I have so many more things to come in my life. To not be accepted into office or cheer or dance groups is sad, but it is a pretty lucky thing to be sad about in such an unlucky world. My friend who made it has gone through a much larger trial of losing her dad, and she needed this much more than I did.
Because of these small trials in my life so far, I have learned to love myself more than I have
ever loved myself before. My Freshman and Sophomore year, I loved myself because I was popular, I was cute, I was skinny, I had the long blonde hair, and I was what the media wanted me to be. Now I love myself for being a true daughter of God, for putting myself out there when possibilities were low of me really making Dance Company, SBO, or Cheer, for not caring about how I look, and for being able to focus on my goals and my potential. Loving me in this way is the way that we are truly supposed to love ourselves. I am not perfect, my body is not perfect by the standards of the world, and there will always be things that I can find that I don’t like about myself because movies and magazines create guilt and anxiety about looking a certain way. But I have a healthy and athletic body; I have so many blessings that make my life full and meaningful, things that are more important than belonging to certain groups or clubs or organizations. I know I can find other ways to serve in school and in the community that will help me grow and feel good about who I am – by loving and serving others I can validate and love myself.
- Adelide C.
Learning to Love Myself
The beginning of my eighth grade year I decided I wanted to run for a
Student Body Office. I had a lot of friends and felt confident. Toward the end of
the year, elections came up. The day we were voting, we had to go on screen and
introduce ourselves. While saying my slogan, I stuttered on some of the words. I
didn’t notice it until some of my friends made fun of me later. I didn’t make it past
the primary election, which was fine, I accepted it.
I had never been worried about my looks, or really get embarrassed by
things. But at that point, I was. I had been on screen stuttering in front of the
whole school. Sure I got made fun of for it, but I decided not to let it bother me,
it only helped me to grow stronger. The “making fun” carried on throughout the
next school year. I was able to get over it quickly and allowed it to just turn into a
joke. It still comes up to this day and gives us all a good laugh. I am glad I had the
opportunity to face embarrassment and be able to get over it as easily as I did. It
has made me a little more empathic towards others.
High school was coming up and I was really turning into a teenager. I always
like to look nice but I never really went out of my way to look my very best. I felt
like I got along well with a lot of people and had lots of friends so my appearance
didn’t really matter to me. I was never the girl to sit there and look in the mirror
all the time. I liked having a good time and enjoying sports. I don’t mind a little dirt
here and there. This made it really easy for me to get along with the others,
including boys.
I hit that age where acne starting appearing not just on my face, but also
on my chest, and back. This was hard for me at first. What was I going to do
now? I went to the Dermatologist and got it checked out. He prescribed me with
some medication to help slow down the acne. I was happy to know that there was a
solution to my problem. It is something that I continue to deal with.
The summer of 2010, I was at an LDS Girl’s Camp where I learned a lot
about my body. We had a presenter, Niki Bennett, who taught us how to love our
bodies. She opened my eyes and made me feel worth more than I had already felt.
Each day we would focus on something different. One particular day we went around
a circle and said something we liked about each girl. You could see a difference in
everyone as they heard what people had to say. It wasn’t about your appearance; it
was what was inside that mattered to everyone around you.
I was reminded I that I am who I am because of my personality, not my
appearance. The beauty of me comes from the inside out. I know that I am worth a
lot. It is my choice to love what I have or dwell on it. I have chosen to love what I
have and be happy!
--Kristen E.
Love What You Got
I have always found loving what I have is hard. Hearing all the other girls talk about what they wish they could change, lead me to thinking about what I wanted to change. My legs are to long, I tower over all the boys, my zits stand out like the morning sun. At first I just looked at all my flaws. But once I changed my attitude towards myself I realized what I had was great. Suddenly my long legs didn't look so bad and I realized others had zits too.
I soon stopped looking at my flaws and by the compliments of others I soon grew to love what I had. I realized the looks I had made me stand out from others, even though sometimes I just wanted to blend in. Soon the trend came back into fashion of having straight hair, so hair wasn't so bad and I realized that this was an easier for me to keep up with anyways. And than seeing my friends curly hair tangle after swimming, I'm was glad that mine wasn't that way.
I realized the looks I have make me who I am. I definitely wouldn' t be Josie if I didn't look so much like my mom's side, was taller than almost all the boys, and didnt' have board straight hair, I wouldn't be the same. All the things I wished I could change, are actually the things that make me who I am today. I may not always love what I have and sometimes I may want to change it, but in the end I am always grateful for what I have.
- Josie T.
Love What You Got
Loving what you got is something we all need to learn in this life. Not loving ourselves is a huge problem in the world right now. There is so much pressure for women to have the “best body.” There are so many ads for weight lose but these ways are not the healthy ways. It’s not just about health anymore it’s about the image. Girls are always trying to become smaller in some areas and bigger in others. The problem with this is that they do not love themselves so getting that boob job or not eating that cookie is not making them happy. They will continue to find things about them that they do not like and so it becomes a habit to fix it. Soon they just turn into a huge mess that doesn’t even know their real self.
I have noticed that body image problems do not go away as you get older. Just last month I went to a three day activity for the youth of my church and one of the leaders that was about 40 or so years old was talking about how small one of my friends was. She would say things like “when you turn sideways I begin to wonder where you went.” She just kept finding ways to relate my friend’s body to her own. This really bothered me because I don’t think it is anyone place to judge how big or skinny someone is. If they feel good about their body then that is all that matters. Plus if she said these things more than once she was obviously thinking about it a lot. How sad it was that she was comparing herself to someone else. Clearly she never learned to love herself when she was younger and maybe that is affecting people around her because she is judging them.
Judging is one of the biggest things I struggle with. I have never really cared about my body size because as a dancer I always stay pretty fit. However being a dancer makes you very judge mental on body types and sizes. I begin thinking “is it really that hard to go work out” or “How does someone let themselves get that big.” Once I catch myself thinking these things I feel awful because that is not my place to judge that. I believe this is just as much of a problem as being down on you. This is what I hope to get out of your work shop. I think that learning about loving yourself will help me learn to not only love myself but to love others. Maybe I have not idea why they are that way they are. If I love everyone I won’t want to judge them.
-Emily B.
Great job girls! And congratulations. We look forward to working with you at our upcoming workshop on July 7 - 8. Visit http://lovewhatyougot.com/2011Workshop.aspx to learn more, and register today!
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