Self-Help Happiness Blog

Do you have a funny spot?  I do.  It’s on my head.  Sometimes it pops up a week after getting my hair cut.  Sometimes two, or even three weeks later.  And it seems that each time it pops up a little differently.  More than anything, my funny spot dictates when I get my hair cut.

Most of us have funny spots in our personalities, too.  Certain things might rub us the wrong way.  Or in certain situations we might become suddenly shy or clumsy after a while. 

Just as my hair needs maintenance to help manage that funny spot, we all need personality maintenance, which we often call self-help.  We need to know what characteristics about ourselves look “funny” or somehow interfere with smooth relationships with others.  And we need to take regular measures to manage those elements.  Chances are, these are not things we can eliminate (although some might be), but simply to keep a check on them so that they allow us to be pleasant to others and function at our best in our community.

Consider this: you give your car regular maintenance, don’t you?

P.S.  I once had an even funnier spot on my head…

This post first appeared in A Daily Dose of Happiness newsletter

What on earth is this rubbish?

A role model for ordinary women? No, Miss England finalist is fat, lazy and a poster girl for ill health

So Chloe Marshall, a plus-size model, has been named Miss England. And the debate rages on. Is she fat? Well, she has a little extra fat on her body and she could use to lose it. How much extra you need to be labeled fat, I don’t know, but would you write it out about somebody in big letters in the newspaper. Shame on the Daily Mail and on writer Monica Grenfell.

Is Chloe lazy? You can bet your bottom dollar she is not. Nobody gets to be Miss England without putting in a lot of effort…especially after failing the mandatory anorexia test!

Is she a poster girl for ill health? I’ll buy that one from a fitness/nutrition perspective, because she is overweight (with a BMI clearly exceeding healthy proportions), but only if her detractors concede that she is no more a poster girl for ill health than 99% of models who show young girls how glamorous it is to be anorexic. The fact is that both anorexia and obesity are dangers women face and both are worrisome. And the modeling industry vigorously promotes anorexia. So taken in isolation, Chloe might be a poster girl for ill health, but taken in the context of the modeling industry, she actually represents a faint glimmer of balance.

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What short-sited observers like Monica Grenfell fail to recognize is that nutrition is not everything - that self-esteem and a healthy body image are also important. I do not think Chloe sends a message to young girls (or old girls, for that matter) that they should eat too much. No risk of that.

But in a world whose subtext is be skinny to get ahead, Chloe is the poster girl for “even if you fail at what everyone else says you have to be, you can still go out and do what you want and even succeed!”

So whether you happen to be born too short or too tall, with wide bones or narrow. Whether you happen to have challenges keeping weight off or pimples off. Whatever physical traits you might have, beyond your control or simply challenging to control, do not let them stand in your way of pursuing your dreams and reaching your goals.  You are more than your packaging.

Go for it!

Words of wisdom form Kristie Alley:

 ”I tell my kids, ‘I know you want to be beautiful and handsome.  Beauty and handsomeness first come from being happy, and second from being healthy.”