What does your loo say about you?

You have probably seen the ad. A bunch of women come to your house, ostensibly to visit your newborn baby, but with the secret mission to find out how you are coping via the cleanliness of your toilet. And they are scoring you, so you better use our product because it will ensure that you are acceptable! Really???

Over a period of time, but especially the last few days, I have been impacted by a number of truths about the lies we believe. One is a recurring thought, which clarified today as I cleaned the tiles in my bathroom. It is about the idea that a certain product will bring your tiles and grout back to perfection with just one spray and a wipe over. I have tried this product. It doesn’t work. Friends have agreed. I have wondered a number of times, how these products keep making sales, keep advertising, keep people coming back. This morning I realised that a large part of the problem comes from our beliefs. Because the advertisement on tv says something, we give it authority in and over our lives. We believe that it must be true because it is so public. So, rather than acknowledging that the advertisers lie, or at minimum stretch the truth, we take the blame ourselves. We must be defective in our cleaning prowess, we must not be using it right, or often enough and so on.

Another insight came from a clip that my husband was watching on the internet the other night. It was a presentation by Jean Kilbourne, who has been highlighting the issue of the way in which women are both portrayed and used in advertising over a number of decades. Amongst many other points (check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ujySz-_NFQ&feature=related), she showed just how much of a lie the pictures are that advertisers present us with, making the point that even the models don’t look like their pictures in reality (the images are so doctored). My daughter made the statement that she doesn’t believe the stuff she is told by advertising. However, the absolute insidiousness of the lie is that it is not the message we are given explicitly, but the images that are stored away in our brains. Although we don’t do it overtly or even consciously, every time we look in the mirror (or at our photo) our brain is comparing our looks, shape, and so on with those images stored away in our brains. This is what is takes to look good, if you don’t look like this, then you don’t look good. The problem is that looking like that is an impossibility because it is not real. The advertisers want us to stay in that place, though, because we will never be satisfied with ourselves so will keep buying products to try to feel good about ourselves, even though there is a part of us that knows we will never succeed. (An interesting side note here is about a mascara ad we noticed a while back, which actually carried the disclaimer that the model was wearing false lashes – it was not the product that gave her those gloriously long and voluptuous lashes!)

Added into this mix was an article I came across in the Herald Sun asking what type of “schoolgate mum” you were. Just to make sure you really couldn’t compete, they used celebrities as the ‘models’ for each ‘yummy mummy’ category, with tags such as “high end glamour”, “sporty”, “earth mother”, “casual chic” and even “homely classic”. Where was the “depressed, haven’t had a shower, but got my kid here on time, fed and clean anyway” (that was me for a period of time), or “slept in, so still in my pyjamas and late for the third time this week”? Again, we are given an impossible image to live up to. In reality, how many of us have nannies and other paid employees to help with child-raising and housework so we have time, let alone money to spend working out and so on to look like that? And even more importantly, who gave the mandate that we are not good enough if we don’t look like that? The reality of the lives of most of us are ignored, and another burden is added as we are given the message that there is only one way to be. I ask the question again, who made the decision that the only look that is acceptable is “sexy” or “hot”? And why do we accept it?

So where does that leave me? It has been a long journey. Going through the pain of divorce meant I had to dig deep to find the resources to deal with my issues of rejection and low self-esteem. But it didn’t take divorce for me to struggle with these issues, they were there long before. And I don’t think I am alone. I have a feeling many of us put on the face of pretending we feel good about ourselves, all the while dying a little more inside each day.

A huge question comes back to what we put our trust in. I don’t think the world’s opinion in general has been a conscious issue for me, but I know I have struggled for many years with a desire for acceptance by individuals. However, I came to a place of realising that other people were not the answer. While I am looking for their approval or acceptance, trying to find my worth from what others say about me (or I think they think!), I will always struggle. The reality is that no matter what they promise, other people will always let you down. They can’t not, as no one is perfect, no one has it all together, no matter how well they present. When we put them in that position, we are also setting them up for failure, not to mention the fact that we have no right to expect them to perform to our tune!

I had a friend at uni who suggested that she could find her strength inside herself. The problem with this is that we start to make ourselves ‘God’ – we become the beginning and end in ourselves. Asides from the self-centredness this breeds in us (it is all about me), it doesn’t work. We always come to a place where I am not enough on my own. Sometimes (lots of times!) I need more than just ‘faith in myself’.

In the end, the answer came in genuinely putting my reliance in God. As much as I had believed in His love for me theoretically, I have to experience it and accept it and receive it for myself, not just once, but by living in that place of knowing that my worth, my value must come from what my Creator thinks of me, the value and worth He places on me. The verses in the Bible that tell me about this are innumerable, but one that I was reminded of again more recently is 1 Peter 1:18,19, “You were rescued from the useless way of life that you learned from your ancestors [Getting your worth from what others think about you, or from what you think they think!]. But you know that you were not rescued by such things as silver or gold [or looking “hot” or having a clean toilet or 2000+ facebook friends] that don't last forever. You were rescued by [bought with] the precious blood of Christ…” (CEV+my additions) As was pointed out to me sometime back, “How much are you worth to God? The blood of His only Son.”

Every time I feel the weight of condemnation over my life, whether it be in reality or in my mind, I remind myself that condemnation does not come from God (conviction, yes, but that is a whole different matter). My acceptability and value to Him does not come from what I do, how I look or who I am friends with or even how many facebook ‘friends’ I have! It comes from the fact that He created me and loves me. I am His beloved. When I find myself comparing myself to others in any of these areas and using this to judge how I am going, I realise it is time to go back to the bathroom. Not to clean the toilet, but to look myself in the eyes and remind myself that I am His beloved, which says far more than any loo ever could!