The SkinLess Project

May 5, 2012

Mother’s Day special:
You are a supermom: embrace it!

A recent blog post by April Perry on the topic of motherhood prompted me to think critically about how women view motherhood in light of current societal standards and expectations.  As a working mom, I’ve had my fair share of highs and lows.  Am I working too much? Am I home for my boys when the need me? Should I be working more?  Is there dinner on the table when my husband comes home?  Do my kids have clean underwear?  Am I volunteering enough?  Do my friends still like me? These are just a handful of questions I have found myself pondering, and I’m sure there are more. The real question I should be asking myself is, why am I asking all these questions in the first place!!  I started graduate school after my firstborn turned three months and it took seven years to complete my degree, during which I had my second son as well.  I laugh at myself that it took me so long; so long that the program at the School of Public Health disbanded, and I had to change the track I was on in order to graduate!  Since graduation, I’ve co-founded a nonprofit organization , started volunteering on a weekly basis at my sons’ school as the health teacher, and am working part-time as a community health educator , yet I still wonder, am I doing enough?  Am I supermom quality and if not, what can get me there?

Yes, I would like to propose that we all have a bit of supermom in us! I can be a supermom (and according to my 7 year old, I am), and I can also be a phenomenal woman (nod to Maya Angelou) and here’s why I believe it.  I want you to begin with an examination of your heart, mind, body and soul.  Start with your mindset and think about the stereotypes women are faced with every day.  Society measures up women according to body image and body type against 1% of the entire population (thin, white ideal).  We (and here I mean, women AND men) all don’t look like supermodels, and even supermodels don’t look ‘perfect’ all day.  Yet the media infiltrates these messages into our lives, which seriously impact our self-esteem.  And because of that negative impact, you are more susceptible to believing what you hear, which can cause a multitude of problems.  That’s where you have to stop and look at your self critically.  Are you being hard on yourself?  Turn off that inner critic!

Let’s talk about self-love.  Who are you to yourself?  Do you love yourself?  Are you happy with where you are in life? It’s important to always be challenged, which helps to increase your self-esteem and self-efficacy.  Learn a new skill, try a new sport, sign up for a 5k, do something that scares you, and then prepare to be amazed. If you can’t love yourself first, you cannot expect to receive or give love to anyone else.  When you are happy, everyone else around you can be happy.  Happiness has become a commodity in our society, something sought after, when in fact, and it’s right in front of you; it’s within you.  Don’t let someone think they can sell you happiness.

Now here’s my favorite part.  Exercise.  Yes I love it.  I enjoy my daily run and I don’t feel guilty about making time to exercise.  I will schedule meetings around my weekly running date with friends, because I know how important that time is to my self worth and my self-esteem.  Even my kids know it: when mama doesn’t run, she is grumpy.  I recently had a woman approach me after a presentation, asking me how to find time to exercise.  We all have the same 24 hours in a day, right?  But its how you create it.  Start with something small, but find joy in something physical every day.  Take a long walk to mail a letter, park at the end of the block and walk to your house, start with something small if you have to.  For those who are able to do more, challenge yourself!  Find a race that challenges you, that pushes you out of your comfort zone, just a tiny bit.  Remember that what doesn’t challenge you won’t change you.

Once you’ve done your mind, heart and body makeovers, take time to nurture your soul.  Revel in your accomplishments.  Make a vision board and put pictures of yourself on that vision board.  We’ve all done amazing things in our lives, and we don’t need a measuring stick created by society to tell us how we stack up.  Connect yourself to your Creator; ground yourself, humble yourself.  Yet at the same time, praise yourself for your own accomplishments.

If we think we are supermoms, then we are!  I truly believe in the power of visualization, as it has a transformative affect on the psyche.  Every year I make a visual chart of my top three accomplishments, my top three goals (make sure they are SMART), and then three goals that are a stretch, but attainable if I work hard.  Revisiting that every year (and during the year) is part of my self-growth process, and reminds me that I too, am a supermom and a phenomenal woman.

April 1, 2012

Making Time For Self-Reflection

If there is one thing I dislike is the traditional ‘to-do’ list.  For some individuals, a to-do list is essential to migrating from one task to another, relishing the feeling of checking off each item.  For others, (present company included) the to-do list becomes an evolving depressing list with addendum’s such as ‘oh this too’, and ‘oh yeah, that too’, and before you know it, you have 27 ‘tasks’ to complete between Monday and Friday.  The reason why I dislike the to-do list is because there is no opportunity to appreciate accomplishments.  What about that deadline you met a day early? What about that extra mile you ran or the extra load of laundry you did just for kicks? What about the time you helped your neighbor by watering her plants?  All of these and many more can be considered mini-milestones, and reason to pat yourself on the back. Here’s the thing: if we don’t reflect on our accomplishments, we have no way of setting new goals. We have nothing to aspire to if we don’t recognize where we came from .

I periodically review my goal book, which is a collection of journal entries, pictures reminding me of my goals, and past accomplishments.  There is nothing better for my self-esteem than reviewing just how I attained my goals and redefining new ones.  I usually take a sheet of paper, and create 4 boxes: 1) what I am doing now, 2) what are my short-term goals, 3) what would be amazing and extraordinary to accomplish and 4) what I’ve already done.  Reviewing this grid quarterly is not only refreshing but helps me recognize what I am capable of and what is beyond my reach. Too often we set goals that are not SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely), and that can lead to emotional let downs and sadness, and of course, lowered self-esteem.

Here are some helpful starting points for self-reflection. Do them how often you prefer – I designed these questions to be asked monthly.

• What was my greatest accomplishment last month?
• What is one extraordinary thing I can do this month?
• What did I not like about myself last month?
• What did I do last month that completely surprised me?
• What is something I can do this month to de-stress or de-clutter my life?
• What is the most important thing I need to do this month?

As you start your regular self-reflection, your questions will evolve and the hope is that you will begin your new segment of time more refreshed and polished, having reflected on all your amazing accomplishments!

Feel free to share your ideas and offer your tips!

March 1, 2012

Your parents, your relationships, your self esteem: your evolution

Think about the relationship you had with your parents growing up.  What did that look like, and what does it look like today?  Are you close with your parents? What was the emotional relationship you had with them when you were growing up?  Did your parents fight at all, or fight often?  Were you a favorite child or middle child?  Think about the dynamics in your family with your siblings.  Did you grow up feeling emotionally secure?  How much does your culture play a part in how you were raised? Were you praised for your achievements, or were they never ‘good enough’ for your parents?

In all of our current relationships we bring a piece of our past .  Undeniably, there is a part of human nature that yearns for validation, justification, approval, confidence, praise, you name it.  Something lacking searches for something fulfilling.  But at what price do we allow ourselves to bring emotional baggage to our next journey, next relationship?  Why is it hard to let go if we’ve been wronged by a friend?  Self-esteem is affected by rejection, failed friendships, leaving us wondering what we’ve done wrong, and how we can be a better friend to others, or search for better friends.  In my south Asian culture, there is a sort of unstated obedience to our family ties, which imposes us to maintain (even if fake) relationships, even when they’ve soured.  Talk about negatively affecting one’s self esteem: you still have to visit your uncle’s family even though you don’t all get along, because culturally it is taboo if you write them off completely.  We are mechanical in our and we pay an emotional price for the experience.

There are many cultural undertones to how we nurture relationships.  Many of my peers of south Asian descent will tell me they did not receive much praise in their childhood. Many would say bringing home a report card of A’s was not enough, that they had to be A+’s.  Girls, when praised, often receive only compliments or critiqueswhich are physically descriptive.  Someone’s hair is not long enough, behavior is not feminine enough, or someone’s complexion is fair & lovely.  It’s easy to praise or criticize girls based on their physical attributes; we do that all the time as a society.  And look where that has gotten us.

Consider same-sex friendships and the concept of ‘best friends forever’.  Young girls, (I was one of them) take great pride in having a ‘bff’ (think necklaces, bracelets, etc), and sure, many adult women do too.  At what loyalty standards do we hold our bffs and are they really forever?  Some girls maintain temporal friendships, ending with a falling out, and often with no explanation, while others have ups and downs for years and years.  Those are beautiful relationships which can withstand the test of time and life changes.  My parents taught me values of loyalty, honesty and reciprocity in their friendships, so naturally these were qualities I sought out in my own relationships.  I examined a handful my own ‘close’ friendships and realized that only two of them were real and authentic, based on the aforementioned values.  The others had soured and consumed me daily.  Why did I care so much? Why can’t we move on?  Is it just a girl thing, I wondered.  My self-esteem was challenged again, and all the values my parents instilled in me were questioned.  I realized that as much as it hurts to admit it to myself, some of those girls simply befriended me to get from one place to another; others dissociated from me when I reached a new place in my life (i.e. had children).  Because I needed validation, I spoke with Aisha Khan, an LCSW based in Chicago, to probe this broken friendship phenomenon further.  She talked about the relationship we maintain between our parents and the impact that has on our self-esteem as it is demonstrated in our friendships and relationships.  Often an experience of rejection from our past can prevent us from moving on, or prevents us from trusting someone knew.  Self-esteem is delicate and can be strengthened with healthy relationships.  She asked me a tough (rhetorical) question, ‘What was lacking in my life that I’m trying to compensate for now in these failed relationships which I continuously seek to rectify?’  How a girl thinks about herself is directly related to how she is perceived by the world.  If she has a lot of friends, good friends, she will have good self esteem.

How we are raised not only affects our friendships, but also romantic relationships (marriage, etc).  We seek out partners who remind us of our parents or are very dissimilar.  We bring baggage from childhood, failed relationships into our romantic lives, seeking validation and appreciation.  Sometimes this can work for us, others against us.  We have blamed romantic partners for not living up to certain, idealized standards that were created long before the partner entered the relationship!  To preserve marital integrity, we need to be cognizant of how we were raised and what that childhood looked like because those are the experiences which shape our self-esteem, which in turn shapes our self-perception.

Friendships are like library books, sometimes we renew, we return the item, or sometimes we lose the book and have to pay a fine.  That fine is emotional damage.  My work with HEART Women and Girls has allowed me to be introspective and forced me to confront factors affecting my own self-esteem.  I’m hopeful that as a society we continue to think deeper about the sources which affect our self esteem, and how that impacts our relationships with one another.

February 20, 2012

Project Self Esteem

Islam offers guiding principles on wellness and health and taking appropriate measures to ensure it. When we are physically ill, we take precautions for rest or medication if and when necessary. We exercise to build healthy bones and keep our heart strong and oxygen flowing within our blood. We eat foods that nurture our bodies. But what do we do when something ails us internally? Certainly Muslims are humans who have emotions which can be abused, and thoughts which can be challenged.
With new opportunities of integration and assimilation come new challenges, and acclimating to a culture so different from that of the first Muslim immigrants is certainly one of them. For young Muslim girls, poor self-esteem or body image is especially problematic. In general, there exists too much stigma with depression or low self-esteem. It is as though we Muslims are collectively not allowed to feel depressed, sad or blue. In traditional cultures, low self-esteem or depression is often considered an indication of one’s low level of piety, or that s/he has ‘deserved’ that angst somehow.

When we feel good about ourselves, it shows in our dress, or communication and our interactions. Whether we realize it or not, we wear our self-esteem on our sleeve. Because it is so evident, we must learn to recognize symptoms of stress and anxiety, and collaborate to address their root causes. In a recent survey of young Muslim girls attending private Islamic schools, the most salient causes of anxiety and stress for them were their ‘dress, body image, and self-esteem’. If we are not giving our youth the opportunities to improve their self-efficacy, we are setting them up for emotional stress and anxiety. And there is much to be anxious about as a young Muslim girl. With images of confused sexuality in every corner, we as a community need to provide these girls (and boys) with avenues for self-efficacy to help boost self-esteem and body image. Many girls who have grown up in public school systems had the opportunity to be a Brownie/Girl Scout. I did, and absolutely enjoyed those experiences. Why not give the same opportunities to our girls attending private Islamic schools? We need parents to get on board and take leadership opportunities for the future successes of our young girls!

Our society places too much emphasis on physical beauty which provokes young girls to stress out, desperate to look a certain way to be accepted by the majority. Many Muslim parents extend this ridiculous emphasis further, and focus on whether or not girls are fair-skinned, hijab-wearing or are tall and how that will factor into an eligible suitor. Unfortunately, many girls are brainwashed into believing that beauty is a means to an end: marriage. Our community needs to re-examine what is really important, which is the bright future of our young girls (and boys, of course). If left unchecked, girls who suffer from low-self esteem can become vulnerable to complicated situations often involving boys. Especially in schools where girls are segregated from boys and are not participating in team-building exercises, girls are susceptible to bullying and chastising. In co-ed situations, girls look to boys for validation and acceptance. Girl-girl bullying, however, must not be ignored, and has recently come to my attention via a Chicago-area Islamic school. A letter written by a female student wrote prolifically about the physical attributes of another student in a most hateful way. While the letter was intercepted by an administrator, the Islamic school is not equipped to handle problems stemming from social and peer pressures. We need more social workers in the Islamic schools to provide a safe space girls can receive mentoring, and more activities that help girls improve their self-esteem, not reduce it.

I would be remiss not to mention hijab. Muslim women living in non-Muslim countries tirelessly fight for their right to wear hijab, and not subjugated as a sign of oppression. We mass e-mail images of Muslim women who cover with images of nuns, and highlight similarities of modesty. What a respite it was to read an article by Naomi Wolf , who welcomed the hijab and chador as an experience to feel free, which gave her a “novel sense of calm and serenity”. As she correctly points out, the choice belongs to the woman, but that feeling of privacy and sanctity is invaluable. By donning the hijab (and in this article I am using it in the loosest term as ‘covering’ to include arms and legs), Muslim women are not oppressed but rather liberated and strong. An empowering self-image is expressed by choosing what to wear and what to conceal, how would that be oppressive? What about traditional western wear? How is that not oppressive? Every where anyone looks are hints of sexuality in advertisements for clothing, of course, but also in ads for laundry detergent and even toothpaste. Why does everything have to be so sexy?

Compound the hijab as dresscode issue with the rather conservative environment that is a private Islamic school. Uniforms are drab and boring, sexuality is repressed and ignored. Wanting to fit in and look beautiful is an issue that becomes exceedingly problematic (as I have found in my experience). Where will these girls explore their adolescent curiousity and feelings? So they wear their hijab in school and retreat to their homes and look to the peer-selected Hollywood celebrity to emulate. Is this a problem or a common consequence of any adolescent girl commuting between home and school? By not addressing these issues and looking the other way, our girls are creating microcosms of fantasy lives. A life in which they are accepted for who they want to be, not who they really are; and that is because we are not allowing them to be unique.

I’d like to believe we wear our self-esteem on our sleeve, and as such, need to be conscious of disquieting symptoms, celebrate happiness and be responsive when we see trouble in our youth. Let’s begin a healthy discussion on how we can create these opportunities for young Muslim girls. What are you doing in your communities to give them experiences that enhance their body image and self-esteem?

This article was originally published on AM.com