I'm MORMON ?! What...

Be forewarned...this is a very religious post! So, it's true, I'm LDS. Mormon. LDS. Whatever you want to call it. I was thinking about this lately, because there's been SO much negative media about the LDS church. I'm on Twitter, and I've noticed a lot of anti-LDS articles and reader's comments coming from The Salt Lake Tribune. I'm pretty sure all the new hype with mormon's has a lot to do with Romney running for president. I'm not saying all the new spotlight on the LDS church is bad, a lot of it is good; but a lot of it is bad. I was thinking the other day, I would much rather be LDS (like I am) and be the one being made fun of, talked bad about, etc.; than be on the other side, and be the one doing the bad mouthing and making fun of other people. I can tell you, that for me, the LDS church is more than just church. It's somewhere I can go on Sunday's, and get away from everything. Now, granted, I've only been going back to church for four months now, so it's still new to me, but I love it so much. I love the feeling I get when I go to church or even when I read church material (books, scriptures, etc.). The years I was away from the church, I wasn't happy in comparison to how happy I am now. I know Tyler has a lot to do with my happiness right now, but I know that most of it is church. Looking back, I don't know why I spent so many years feeling how I was feeling. I remember being so sad and feeling so alone and upset, I would just cry in my room asking God to take away all the pain I was feeling and to help me do what He wanted me to do. I remember begging him to just take me away from the world and the pain. I remember sometimes feeling so alone, so bitter, so angry. I looked back on the person who I was and wished so bad I could be that person again. Now, I'm not dismissing other religions, and I'm sure people of other religions feel the same way about their church. But the LDS church is where, I personally, feel the happiest and most at peace. I'm so glad God didn't take away my pain, because I wouldn't have learned anything. I had to find my own way back. I had to work through the pain and heartache to find out who I really am and who I really want to be. My ex and his dad are anti-LDS. They would always say negative things about the church. They would find anything and everything to spin and make the church look false and dumb. I would sometimes fall into these traps. I would find reasons to hate the church and to think that it's false. Looking back at these claims I would make, they don't make sense now. I soon realized that by doing that to the church, I was being very hypocritical. Me, on the outside, was judging the church and the people of the church; but then I was judging them, based on my assumption that they were judging me. How is that right? It's not. It's very wrong. I can't expect my actions and thoughts to be justified when those thoughts are the very thing that I'm judging the LDS church for. That's like me getting upset at my brother for not sweeping the floor, when I don't sweep the floor either. It doesn't make sense, right? But there are so many people that do that! Judging is very common, and everyone does it. But to be hypocritical, that's another thing. I finally realized that this was so wrong, and I really didn't have a valid reason for being so against the church. I decided I wanted to go back. The LDS church teaches you to love everyone. The media makes it out that the church is anti-gay, anti-everything. They make it sound like the LDS church is a brain washing cult and they are strict. This is not the case at all. The church makes you feel loved and wanted. It makes you feel like you're worth something and you have a purpose in this life. I know that I would hate to be that person who is so hateful towards something. I would hate to carry that around, harbor those bitter and horrible feelings. I've witnessed how it is when someone gets hateful feelings everytime anything reminds them of that thing they hate. How can people live like that? They must be so uptight all the time. The anger just boils up inside of them and then bursts out when that thing they hate shows up in the tiniest way. I just know I would never want to feel like that. The LDS church teaches us to love everyone and to treat everyone with respect, no matter their background or who they are. Jesus would never make fun of anyone, make them feel stupid, or treat them like they are lower than him. This is what I strive for everyday, to not be prideful, to not think I'm better than someone, and to treat everyone with love. I want people to know they can come up to me without thinking I'll say something rude or judge them. I want people to leave me happy, not upset. I don't want to be that kind of person that you talk to and you know they'll talk about you behind your back. I want to become a better person everyday. Anyway, this is such a random post. Sorry! It's probably something that shouldn't be posted, but I feel strongly about it and wanted to share it!

Ok, so lately I've been struggling with my body image. I'm not sure where these lame thoughts came from, but I don't like feeling this way. I work out at least four days per week for an hour or more, and I eat healthy. There's no reason for me to have these thoughts about myself. After researching the issue, I've realized that a lot of women have these feelings. In fact, eight out of ten women are dissatisfied with their bodies. That's almost 90% of all women! I also read that of the women who are of average weight, 10% of those women want to weigh what would be classified as underweight. They also say that out of those women who are dissatisfied with their appearance, over half are seeing a distorted view of themselves. 80% of women who look in the mirror see themselves as bigger than they really are. I once watched a show on TV, I forgot what it was, and they had a group of 10-15 women dressed in the same outfit. They had one woman choose which woman she thought most closely resembled her body. They always chose a woman who was larger. One woman, who was a size 8, even chose a woman who was a size 14! I think that just proves how distorted some of our views of ourselves are. Men have body image issues too, but it's not as common as women. I do think that women are judged based on their image more than men. A man can walk around over-weight, and still be attractive. But for a woman to walk around slightly over-weight, society doesn't deem her attractive anymore. Just think about it, beautiful women are everywhere, most of them are not all natural. We see them everywhere, billboards, TV, movies, the mall, etc. It's proven that young girls see more images of beautiful women in one day than our mother's saw throughout their entire adolescence. Did you know Marilyn Monroe was a size 14? She was a complete sex symbol in her day. In 1917, the ideal woman was 5'4" and weighed 140 pounds! It has become increasingly less. Even 25 years ago, the ideal woman only weighed 8% less than the average woman. Now? They weigh 25% less than the average woman. The current media ideal for a woman is only achievable by less than 5% of the population, and that's just the size. But if you want the height and weight, it's less than 1%. Less than 1% of the female population is able to achieve the "perfect" look, according to media. A fact I found: A 15 minute exposure to a fashion magazine will decrease a woman's satisfaction with her body image by 50%. They've also done recent studies and found that a woman's exposure to magazine pictures of super thin models produces depression, stress, guilt, shame, insecurity, body-dissatisfaction and increased endorsement of the thin-ideal stereotype. Vogue and Elle are actually banned in many eating disorder clinics. It has also been shown that women with eating disorders think their actual body size has increased after eating a chocolate bar or soft drink. Some even think this after eating a high-calorie lunch or snack. An estimated 1,000 women die each year from anorexia. This number is way too high. I could go on forever about this. But I wanted to talk to on some things I found about air brushing!

I just posted this picture to show you how dramatic it really is. We look at this girl in a magazine, and we think she's perfect, and try our hardest to look like her. We are all perfect the way we are, God made us how he wanted us to be. If we were all supposed to look the same, He would've made us that way. Why do we go by what the media wants? They want someone who is pretty much impossible to get to, someone who's bones are sticking out, and who's unhealthy, and fake! They show us these pictures of fake women, who are air brushed, and we fall into their trap that they're real. We look in the mirror and see a normal body, we all have flaws, but we forget that every single woman in the entire world has those flaws. We forget that the flawless women in magazines and on TV are fake, that their flaws are just being covered up. I want to show you this picture too. Marilyn Monroe was considered perfect in the 1950's, and now look at the "perfect" woman.

Anyway, I'm just going to post a few more pictures on airbrushing, just so you can see the before and after, and the huge differences in their bodies. Sorry about the long post, I just think we've had enough of the media telling us how our bodies should be.

And your beloved Victoria's Secret models before airbrushing...

Anyway. I know this was a long post, but it's something that's been bothering me. I hope this helps anyone who is struggling like me!