A "Black Swan Event" is when the unexpected occurs, causing a huge mindshift and change in how the world works. People never imagined that Black Swans existed, until the discovery of the first Black Swan... (as per book "The Black Swan", by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, 2007, that sold over 3 million copies)

Is a perception change the next Black Swan Event? Consider that by changing perception we might change the world. Look at everyday things from different angles. Find beauty in the unexpected...
Change our thinking, change our actions, change our world!

See that all people are part of God's puzzle and have something to give. Black swans do exist. The ugly duckling was actually a swan who needed to discover himself and where he fitted and be who he was meant to be. To the last, the lost and the least, you are beautiful as you are.
May all who visit this page feel God's touch and experience His blessing...

Monday 25 March 2013

The Importance of Cultivating Good Self Image as a Child

Are you fat? I am, though I often forget I am. Maybe because I used to be very skinny as a child, and my new body shape surprises me sometimes. I am not sure what happened. I think I must have been slowly gaining weight one kilogram (or more) at a time over a number of years. I don't even eat much. I used to have a lot of coffee though, at least three large mugs a day, and a chocolate muffin. That's all I would have to eat at work, actually. And I gained weight eating that way. Huh? Seems impossible to me actually, but it's true. Then again, I also used to snack on cafe food sometimes during the week and on weekends, for example, sandwiches at coffee shops, and they may have contained loads of hidden fat products. But I was very aware of calories and how much to eat. So now I have decided to cut out coffee, and of course full cream milk, which was probably one of the real culprits for me. But my body hangs on to sugar too I think, so complex carbohydrates like muffins and white bread need to go too. Maybe even bananas. I have taken to eating bananas as a replacement starch, but I suspect they are not good to scoff down, at least not more than one for lunch anyway. I know eating raw rolled oats works well for me to keep weight in check, eaten with a bit of milk, though the oats must not be the instant variety. If I only ate oats all day, I know I'd lose weight, but, not sure if I want to go to such an extreme measure. Yet.

Here's the real crux of the matter for me though. I once said to a psychologist, my body image doesn't bother me at all. He looked at me, troubled. It bothered him! He was a lean and fit sport's psychologist, so perhaps that's the reason. I knew an overweight squash playing psychologist once, who had a really big build and could have been considered quite overweight, and I don't think that statement would have bothered him. He would have understood. As an aside, squash is an awesome game to play, but hmmm, maybe I was a bit skinnier when I played it.

There is a perception that fat people eat all the time, and are totally unhealthy, but just as some skinny people eat anything they want to, even more than many a fat person may, and are still thin, that is not true of all fat people. My blood pressure is within healthy limits and I walk quite actively. I don't get out of breath much, unless I jog. I can outrun children, especially over short distances, until they keep going and overhaul me. I even swing a mean axe (I am trying to remove a tree stump from our garden). So being fat is an irritation, but does not cramp my lifestyle much. Except where other people are concerned, like strangers I walk past, or people where I used to volunteer, who seemed aghast when they realised I drink coffee and seemed to wonder how much they needed to keep in stock for me (I only had one cup of coffee a day there!), or people I am interviewed by for jobs. It's taken a while though for me to realise society sees my fatness as a problem, as I didn't notice it myself and couldn't understand why some people were treating me as stupid or were being condescending, though not sure if that is the reason this sometimes happens, but talk about a rude wake up call, when I realised why some people treat me as they do! Ironically, some other fat people laugh at me too--maybe they have the same good self image phenomenon that I do! Or maybe we can't see how fat we ourselves really are, and even a mirror doesn't tell the real truth. It's like someone with a dirty house walking into another dirty house and thinking, oh my gosh, forgetting what their own place looks like. Fatness could even be considered a disability for some people with static metabolism and food intolerances. I do know there's a way for me to lose weight, and I am totally set on doing so--ensuring I eat oats for breakfast, lunch and dinner of course. Because I know being thinner will make life easier, and of course I would prefer it. But it's not because being fat overly concerns me, I would merely prefer to be thinner. It's not like I'm dating, and I know my family are used to the way I look and fully accept me the way I am; I hope anyway. My weight is a bit of a joke, to tell the truth, at least with the ones who really love me. And for the ones who don't, well, maybe their bodies will go out of whack someday and they might understand. Maybe they have things they could work on too--everyone does! Funny actually, because when my family tell other people we are changing to a more natural diet, that suddenly becomes an issue which overrides the fat problem. You want to eat what?! That's terribly unhealthy for you, you can't eat only unprocessed natural food! Well, I'm fat aren't I? Maybe a change of diet will work!

The real point I wanted to mention is, I have realised that many self limiting thought patterns are set in childhood. If I had always been fat growing up as a child, then I might have had a really poor self image regarding my weight now. But I don't. It rankles that I am having difficulty losing weight, but I know I am still a valuable person. In my mind's eye I don't see myself as fat. I only became fat in my late twenties. And as an adult, if someone now tells me that I am fat, I can laugh it off, or justify it to myself, because I don't have triggers formed from traumatic insults about my weight as a child. It's an important point, because it's important to ensure your child has a positive self image no matter what he or she looks like. It will stand a child in good stead as an adult. I may have had many other traumatic things happen to me as a child, but fatness was not one of my problems then!

Link to news article: Opinion: I'm Fat, so What?

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