venturesque

One Good Thing About Trinny and Susannah

My newsletter this month is about how to develop body confidence (sign-up for Venturesque at www.uksexcoach.com) and writing it reminded me of an interesting and encouraging experiment conducted by Trinny and Susannah on the show they did about Getting Britain Naked (or something similar). When I start working with clients who want to accept and celebrate their body, at some point we end up talking about sexual attractiveness and self-esteem. I ask people to think of at least 3 people that they would consider to be attractive but who they themselves are not attracted to in the slightest. And everyone can do this and do it easily. There is always going to be someone who is not attracted to you but this does not have to affect the way you feel about yourself and how much you like and value who you are. There is no one person who is attractive to everyone so why should we worry so much if someone is not attracted to us? A very positive take on this was provided in the unlikely guise of T&S who conducted an experiment that indicated that as well as there being no one person who is attractive to all of us, there is also no one person who is not attractive to someone.

T&S gathered together a large group of people of all ages and shapes and asked everyone to rate each of the others for attractiveness between 1 and 10. Grading physical appearance is not something I generally support but bear with me. What they found was that no one person was rated as highly attractive by everyone and also, and interestingly,

not one person was rated as less than 7 by at least one other person.

Every single person was seen as attractive by somebody else. I found this very encouraging and inspirational. As I talk to and work with so many different people I am able to see how attraction is something magical and wonderful and that far transcends social and cultural standards of physical ideals. No matter how good-looking someone is, if they bore you, if they have nothing interesting to say, if they don't make you laugh, if they can't listen and show an interest in you, sooner or later you will not want to be with them. Your attraction to them will fade and there beauty will no longer attract you. Working on body confidence is about the mind as much as the body, usually more so. It is a process of learning to love your life and who you are before clarifying how and whether you actually want to change anything about your body. We all need to be attractive to ourselves before we can become attractive to others.

The State of Independence

Eden is now over 14 months old. She walks, she points, she hurls things around, she can communicate what she wants and lets us know when she is unhappy at being thwarted (no you cannot eat biscuits all day just because you know where we keep them and can point at the box). She is no longer a baby.

I never thought I would miss the very early stages of babydom when you hold in your arms a tiny, mewling heap who doesn't seem to know who you are and certainly has no concept of appreciating how totally they have messed up your previously carefree life. I can remember when I was pregnant and ambivalent about the massive changes the baby was going to bring and comforting myself with the thought that I well at least she'll be an adult most of her life. There I was, wishing away the baby years. Now I look at tiny babies and remember Eden when she was that age, with an irrational yearning. I talk about this with my friends and we all remember the sheer horror of the very early months but yet also we forget the true emotional impact of how we felt and think nostalgically of having a very young baby. Whilst none of us has cracked yet and gone in for adding another addition to the family, some day at least one of us will. But I don't think it will be me. I have been ebaying some of Eden's outgrown items and finding it all a bit sad; sad that the experiences and feelings I had with her was she young are so fleeting and that I may never have those experiences again. All the people who told me to appreciate her when she was young were right, although at the time I thought that I only wanted those times to BE OVER and as soon as possible.

I wasn't aware this was going to turn into a slightly melancholy post. I had envisaged it as a jaunty, see she grows up and has wants that she can express - ha ha ha type of musing. I think I need to prepare myself for realising that motherhood is a series of new experiences and possiblities with your child, as well as an amount of mourning for the ways for being together that are now unattainable. And that doesn't sound so bad really. I remind myself that it is not important that I keep Eden's bouncer chair because as long as I have her, what does it matter?