The Self-Esteem Sandwich

Body image is on my mind, in case you couldn't tell.

I was on the phone with a man the other day--one that I greatly admire and think is more or less made of awesome and I-wish-I-were-more-like-you--and we've had some great phone conversations before, but that one just felt a little... flat.  Maybe my fault, maybe his, maybe both, maybe neither, maybe I interrupted him doing something (in which case, I'm glad he took the amount of time he did out of what he was doing), maybe he was distracted... doesn't matter.  It was shortish and inconclusive in the realm of "Hey, so when do you want to get together?" and I felt like a complete doofus who can't communicate with the Y-chromosome portion of the species to save my life after we hung up.  Not my finest moment.  (Then I got to whine about it to a friend afterwards to distract her from her own man-woes, so that worked out okay.)  And, as so very often happens, it got me thinking.  There might've been a nudge/shove from Dryad involved, too.

Anyway, I was finally able to verbalize something I've known about myself for a while but hadn't found the right visual for it.  Usually, I think of self-esteem as one whole entity.

Kinda like one of these. (Buy a tree here)

There's seeds of doubt or confidence at the core of it, and then the flesh is either good or bad, juicy or dry, healthy or rotten.  That model never really satisfied me, though, and I finally figured out why.  My personal self-esteem looks something more like this.

On top we find a fine, strong, lovely layer of good feelings about self and healthy attitudes.  This is my smile, my laugh, my kindness to others, my encouragement, my Feminista, my "I am a good person to be around and know"ness.

On the bottom, we find a fine, strong, lovely layer of "I am a daughter of God and Goddess", divine nature, individual worth, core values, and a relative confidence that I have a right to be in the world, that I have a purpose, gifts, things to share and contribute to humanity: my "I am a good person to have exist."

And in the middle is a thick, brown, sticky layer of "What are you, why are you here, and why would anyone want you?" that leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

This is echoed in the conscious realization that the physical traits for which I do get complimented are all peripheral: hair, eyes, face, hands, feet... eyebrows.  (Seriously, people love my eyebrows.)  I have never, ever, ever been told by a reliable, male source that my body is beautiful.  I've been called sexy by guys on dating sites, and at that point it doesn't feel like a compliment.  I am unable to take it as a compliment;  it feels objectifying because they don't know me.  I can't or won't trust it, and I'm automatically suspicious of any man that says it.

Hell of a rock and a hard place situation, isn't it?  I know I'm awesome, but I only know that on the top and bottom.  The mush in the middle is hard to swallow, and there's precious little Mother's Milk with which to wash it down and tell me I'm good all the way through.