23. Body Image and the Pressure to Be Perfect

Have you ever heard of the quote, “You are your own worst critic?” There so much truth to that statement! So many times, we tend to pick out all of the things we don’t like about ourselves: our hair, our skin, our nose, our weight, our personality…even our laugh.

I want you to take a little test. If you have a pen and paper, go ahead and grab that. If not, you can do this in your head.

The first thing I want you to do is, in the next 15 seconds, make a list of as many things as you can that you don’t like about yourself...and go!

How many things did you come up with? Go ahead and count them and put the number on your paper. Maybe you think your nose is too big…or too small. Maybe you wish you could be taller…or short. Maybe you wish that you weren’t so shy and quiet…or maybe too loud. It seems like there’s always something we want to change, right?

I think one of the biggest reasons that it’s so easy for us to list all of the things about our bodies we don’t like is because our appearance means a lot to us. In episode 22, we talked about cliques and how a lot of times we will either be accepted or rejected based on our we look and how we dress. We struggle with wanting to be ourselves, who God created us to be, while at the same time wanting to be accepted by others.

This is something that I see so often among teen girls. We all want to be noticed and feel accepted and many times we will begin to act differently and dress differently…maybe more immodestly…to get those around us to notice us. Honestly, what it all comes down to, though, sometimes we struggle with knowing how valuable we are to God.

All right, so now, I want you to make another list. In the next 15 seconds, list as many things as you can that you love about yourself that you would never want to change….and...go!

Was it as easy to come up with that second list as it was the first one? Not for most of us. Count how many things were on your second list and compare it to your first list.

Why is it that it’s so easy to come up with that first list, but maybe not so easy to come up with that second one? I honestly think it has a lot to do with our body image and the pressure to be perfect…so that’s exactly what we’

Ladies, we have some exciting news! The SOAR Community is now FREE!! All you have to do to see if SOAR is right for you is grab your parents, tell them why you are excited about SOAR, and while you still have them with you, go to uncommonteen.com/coaching and click on the application under SOAR and fill it out! 

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You are beautiful! 

You are valuable!

Your beauty and your value don't change, 

Even if someone fails to see

How incredible God made you!

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