Five months before I wrote my first post for Compared to Who?, I spent a summer at home in Uganda with my family. Which included three and a half months of drinking water, no cookies, late night talks with ginger tea, laughing hard, and taking long uphill walks. When...
identity
I Am by Michele Cushatt: Buy This Book
It's not often that I find a book on the topic of self-image, body image and confidence that I really enjoy and am happy to endorse. But, this month I found one. And, I'm thrilled to highly recommend that you read "I Am" by Michele Cushatt. The book is a sixty day...
Shopping Cart Righteousness and Drive Thru Shame
Imagine yourself in a back alley of a questionable neighborhood, wearing a hooded coat which hides your guilty eyes. You shift your weight from side to side, resist the urge to run, and command yourself; “Be cool man. Just be cool. No one will know. Just a few more...
What Politics and Insecurity Have in Common
"Cast your vote for Heather. She's the girl with the broken foot!" Freshman year of college, during orientation weekend, I tore a ligament and shattered my third metatarsal while walking on a swinging bridge. Yes. Just walking. (I've never been accused of being...
Why I’m Not Building My Children’s Self-Esteem
There are over forty-six million entries on Google on how to build your child's self-esteem. Forty-six million!!! We've been told for decades that this is the job of parents to make sure their children have healthy self-esteem so they can go off into the world and...
Identity: Can I Be Free From Culture’s Standard of Beauty?
I taught a homeschool co-op class today. In geography, I asked my class of seven and eight-year-olds a question I thought would be easy. Me: "What country do we live in?" Kids: "Texas!!!" Me: "No, kids...not our state...our country! What country do we live in?" Kids:...
Skinny: I Am Not Skinny
I am not skinny. I say that only because my therapist told me I can no longer say, “I am fat.” She gave me the reasoning why (which I don’t really remember) but in an instant I knew that being fat had become my identity, and her denying me from saying those words...
How Do I Get My Husband To Affirm Me More?
Dear Heather: I believe that if my husband would more frequently tell me that I'm beautiful, if he'd look at me as if I was desirable, and if he'd talk to me more about what he likes about my body, I wouldn't wrestle my body image so much. But, instead he barely says...