Small Strokes Big Oaks

I find it sort of ironic that just a few weeks ago, I kicked off a new series on body image. Why? Because this week, my self image has been the lowest it has been in a while.

I’m not saying I hate myself. No way. Not even close. But a few things have happened this week to make me lose confidence in myself, and it is amazing how quickly your self image drops when you lose confidence in yourself.

For those of you who haven’t yet been brought up to speed, there have been some issues with the approval of my thesis project about literacy in the feminist blogging community. This is a project of which, since its conception in June, I have been very proud. I feel very close to this project, partly because I am a participant-observer and, as such, care deeply about my participants. But it’s so much more than that. I am not writing this thesis just for the piece of paper that gives me a pay raise. I’m doing this as something that makes me feel enlightened and empowered. It’s personal fulfillment at it’s best, so when these issues with approval started arising, I felt it was an attack on me personally, rather than a committee’s response to my project. I’m sure you’ve all felt this way before, whether it was a commenter on your blog or a poor grade on a paper or project – when you are personally involved in something huge (whether it be a thesis, or a paper, or a project, or a blog), you feel torn down when someone doesn’t grant you immediate approval. And it doesn’t matter if they are just trying to help you, it still makes you feel like a failure.

I never thought that something like this affected my body image, but now that I’ve been thinking about it pretty much constantly since my original post a few weeks ago, I realized that it had more of an effect than I thought. Since the issues with my thesis came to my attention, I came home every day and put on my pajamas and crawled under the covers, not wanting to be seen by anyone. I didn’t want to blog or tweet or answer my phone. I went to work in bulky sweaters, and there was no way Tim was getting me out of the apartment this weekend. I just didn’t want to see anyone. I didn’t feel worthy of seeing anyone.

It wasn’t really until today, with wonderful and encouraging e-mails from a few of my participants and my professor, that I realized that I am still worth something, and, when this thesis project is approved, it’s going to kick some major butt. And I made an appointment for a manicure – a little pampering never hurts. 🙂

I needed my confidence restored in order to look in the mirror and feel like I looked good. I guess I never thought about how much confidence and positive body image are entwined.

Do you find that, when you are brought down in another area of your life, that your body image suffers? Or is that just me?