Good morning all!! So very glad you have joined me today!! I have a full meal to offer up today..Southern Style. Biscuits and red eye gravy, French toast and pancakes with real maple syrup, smoked bacon, cheese grits, scrambled eggs, blueberry muffins,fresh squeezed orange juice, a delightful fruit salad, sweet tea and some delicious coffee. Can ya smell it...oh I surely can!!!
We will be working on the inside layer of our latest quilt this week, the stuffing if you will. The part that makes is cozy and warm. Please join me, pull up a chair. I'm so happy to see you here!
I have spent this weekend filtering through some old photos. I have several hundred of my Father's slides from as far back as the 1940's. He sadly passed away in the early 1990's so they end there. On Facebook of late several of my high school choir members have been posting old pics so I went looking for a few to share too. What I wasn't prepared for was the effect looking at decades old photos would have on me. So I am going to do something unusual today..add a couple of old photos to my Bee.
I never thought of myself as very attractive growing up. My sister Barb had the Apple Pie looks. I was unusual looking I thought. Not ugly or totally unattractive...just not what I wanted to be. These days I hate having pictures taken of myself..I'm older and have a couple pounds I would rather not have. I look at the mirror these days and see my Mother. Why does that bother me? Why would I mind looking like this beautiful woman?
So I wanted to share a few pictures..not to get cuddos..just to make my point..it's all in the perspective. Why are we so hard on ourselves? I think I looked pretty good here with my Dad.
Looking at all of these pictures this weekend made me wonder..if I was wrong about my looks when I was younger. Am I wrong now? Was I focused on the wrong parts of me all these years??
Why do we worry so much about what is on the outside and give so little credit to what is on the inside?? So..I looked through pictures of myself over the years and thought about all the things I have done in my life and decided that I like who I have become. Not in a conceited way but in a comfortable in my own skin way. Nothing is permanent everything is ever changing. So I guess I am asking myself to not only be gentle with myself as I grow and work on my inner self, but clearly I need to be gentle about what I view my outsides to be. I know there are things about who I am that I like, I have gifts to offer and beauty to give in many forms.
Last week I talked about how we judge others who are considered different by society's standards. Today I am asking you to consider that the same difference that make them amazing make us all amazing in our own way. To be human means to have gifts to offer..your outsides are irrelevant. When we worry about what we look like and not who we are inside..we loose those gifts. When we blog here we don't look at faces or bodies..we get a chance to look at souls. Beautiful, funny, troubled, wandering, leading, hurting, giving, caring, loving souls. Does the body attached really matter so much?? Only if you beat yourself up about it and loose focus on the soul.
This week I strive to be healthy rather than beat myself up over wrinkles, happy and giving rather than preoccupied with outside pounds. I am going to focus on what the wonderful insides of me have to offer & be gentle with how I view my outsides. So my question to you this week is.. how do you view yourself inside and out? Are you being gentle with you?? Tell me about beautiful you!!
Breakfast is my very favorite meal!! So I am going to dish up some of those biscuits and gravy, delicious fruit & a hot cup of coffee!! Please help yourself!! Thank you for joining me this week!! I love seeing you here!! Namaste, Sarah
23 comments:
Oh, Sarah. I so agree with you. I've had similar thoughts myself about the fact that when I was younger I was unhappy with my looks, and now looking back, I think I looked good! It makes me want to really work on appreciating what I have now.
Geez, this is such an important topic for so many of us. We know we aren't what we look like, we know so many things...and yet, looks still bother and matter to us. I'm the first to admit it.
Great post. Thank you.
Oooh, yummy, I'll have a big helping of everything :)
You are just sooo right about how we look. I've looked back at photos I hated at the time and then wondered why, as now I think I looked pretty good! I'm very hard on myself, inside and out which is a shame, because for a long while, I was very happy in my skin, but in the last year or so, I've lost that contentment. Something to strive to regain, I think. Thank you for sharing your thoughts :)
Kim x
You were wrong about yourself...you were wrong because I only know you to be beautiful...so you must have been mistaken.
Here's what I know to be true...we can not change for the better, something we dislike, do not nurture, do not hold dear...
that's why so many of us attempt to lose weight and can't do it. If you hate it, why bother really?
The change into what we can be only happens after we realize the treasure we are so that we can really take it to the next level.
Here's to that next level of glorious for all of us. And for loving that we are worth our own effort.
One biscuit now, please.
Perspective is so important! Have a blessed day!
Once you see and understand someone's inner beauty, their physical attributes become absolutely irrelevant. We all know this is true when it comes to others, but we just need to apply it to ourselves as well.
I also agree with what you wrote. I have always been so very hard on myself and as I begin to get older there have been times I have been pretty harsh as well. Thing is, I do not want to be the size I was when I was in my 20's; I would look deathly ill. The curves, the weight, etc is what I wanted way back when, when I was rail thin, so now 2 kids later, I have that.
I have begun to nurture WHO I am and not what I look like since it is my Soul that I feel is Beautiful and Genuine which makes the outside more beautiful and when I look in the mirror, I can honestly say I truly like the person staring back at me~
Great topic....That fresh fruit is calling me, pass some please!~
Sarah- I hear ya!
I don't like my picture taken anymore. I'm about 15 lbs overweight, my age is showing and if I have to look at a pic of myself, it makes it all too real. I prefer to stay in denial - lol.
Love that blast from your past pic - you're gorgeous! Inside & Out!
Sarah, you are beautiful now and you were beautiful then. I completely and totally echo Jennifer's words. We are fabulous just as we are. You have always been fabulous just as you are.
What's crazy is I am discussing this topic in today's show!
Warm Hugs!!
LOl Tabitha..I just listed to your pod cast - wonderful!! I was thinking - wow we are on the same page today!!! Whoo hoo!!
Interesting post Sarah.
I guess I'm comfortable with how I look; I only have myself to please these days lol
I suppose others see me as an old long haired feller. And inside? I'm happy with that too. I know my faults, as others would maybe call them. But I'm too old to change now, and I wouldn't want to.
Yea, I like being me lol
I love breakfast -- could have it every meal. The inside is the most important and we aren't *taught* about the inside. Inundated by the media (whatever that is) by looks. The successful people are good looking, etc. Ptuiiiiii I say! It's a hard lesson to learn. Perhaps it is my age, but I think I've finally learned IT"S THE INSIDE. You are beautiful, Sarah ... out and in!
More breakfast please!
Hello Sarah, I sometimes (all the time) just think uggg! But I once heard a saying that has always stuck with me "If you are healthy, you are wealthy" I try my best to remember this saying when I catch myself grumbling. It's so weird,I just posted some past time photos on my blog too! Now pass the maple please, the pancakes are mine!
(thank you for leaving a nice note on my blog about my good old girl - and so sorry about your horse- our friends)...
You know, I had this same thought the other day - I'll look back at photos when I thought I was "chunky" or "unattractive" and think "hey, I didn't look so bad!" (except for the 80's hair days *laugh* -- so, maybe I'll look at photos of myself now when I'm 70 or 80 and think "hey I looked pretty good then!" *smiling*
love the quilt - my mom makes quilts and has done some beautiful ones......
by the way - you are beautiful!
Sarah, you still look "pretty good" I think we never really truly see ourselves the way others see us. We aren't looking through their eyes and our reflection in the mirror tends to make us our own worst critic.
I have lived a long life in just my one and have the scars to prove it. Change the things you want to change that make YOU happy. I don't intend on growing old gracefully...I intend to fight it all the way lol. We are all going to age, but the thing to remember is as we move through the stages of our lives there is beauty in different places. We won't be so concerned with this things once we accept.
I would love to share breakfast with you anyday my friend. Come what may for us ahead, wrinkles, gray hair and all. Your a beautiful women Sarah, you just don't realize it! :)
hugs,
Heather
Sarah you are now so wise, but as with everyone, when we a younger we really have no idea of what's important or meaningful, you've brought back many memories of my negative thoughts as a teenager, but now I'm just happy being me! Thanks for sharing
Yes ... I agree ... blogging is offering one's soul. We get so caught up in how we look that it takes away from who we are.
I love you quilting bees ... very thought provoking.
I could so relate. When I was young I never could see that I was a beautiful young woman, I had an "idea" in my head of what I wanted to look like and it wasn't what I looked like. I look back now and I can see that I was a very pretty girl. Now I'm so busy painting most of the time I usually have paint all over me and my hair pulled up and I don't really care so much about what I look like. I have accepted I am aging and for my age I'm still not half bad. LOL I agree with you its what is on the inside that counts. True beauty comes from within, that glow that comes only from ladies who have somewhat found their place in the world and have lots of love in their hearts. Personally Sarah I think you are beautiful both inside and out! :)
The wealth of oneself in the beauty on the inside. I swear..we are really in sync as this was going to be the topic of tomorrow's post! I never felt not pretty on the outside growing up but inside always wondered if I was good enough, Good enough for what I have no clue. Perhaps to meld in with society. Today, on the outside, I don't worry about the wrinkles or the few extra pounds. They are there and they are me...right now at this very moment!
Always fun to come & quilt with you, Sarah..love that you shared your pictures!
It's been a long time since I've had grits! Yum!
Like so many of us, I've spent almost all of my life being hard on my outward appearances. But now I'm 46, realize that the wrinkles and the stretchmarks are only going to multiply, and I'm starting to look toward older women that I know. How are they dealing with aging? What can I learn from them?
What is beautiful to me, more now than ever: kindness, compassion, wisdom, authenticity, integrity, love, a smile, a laugh, a hug.
When I always thought I was an ugly child and later an ugly teenager, until one day I realized that I might be wrong, considering the reaction of men ! But I don't care about it. I am what I am and as you say the inside is much more precious then the look outside. Now if both are nice it's even better, lol ! One thing is for sur it is not true that "outsides are irrelevant". A pretty girl gets easier a job then an ugly one.
Oh, Sarah. It is good to see mom and dad again. I guess I need to drag out my old photos. I agree you were too hard on yourself - I think we all were - not only about how we looked but about who we were. I'm so glad you have seen your own incredible value and your own beautiful face finally. It was there all along. Hugs, your big sis.
I'm glad you took the calories out of the bee treats! i'll have one of each, please!! :-) Your thought are sooo true! thank you for writing them for us all!! Blessed bee!! Polly :-)
What a great post! We never see ourselves as we truly are, do we? You were beautiful younger and now too...I always say, I better love myself now cause in 10 years I'll look back and say, "D###, I sure looked great!" LOL
So glad I found your lovely blog :D
Have a Happy Day!
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