Pregnancy Has Made Me Realize How Superficial I Really Am
Getting pregnant was a major blow to my ego.
Kevin laminto | Unsplash, Ron Lach | Canva From adolescence up until my early twenties, I was pretty preoccupied with my looks.
As a teen, before going to meet friends at the mall or the movies, I would spend long bouts of time in front of the body-length mirror attached to my closet getting the makeup, the clothes, the jewelry, the flat-ironed hair perfectly right. I would flirt with myself, try out my dance moves, imagine how boys would see me and want me.
And other times, I would judge myself, praying my boobs would finally grow to a “normal size” and my thighs would shrink.
I wanted to be adored. I wanted to be popular. I knew how I looked was an important part of all of that.
But despite how much thought I put into this, to my dismay, in high school I never got a serious boyfriend. That prom night fairytale the early 2000s rom-coms had promised never came to be.
So when I reached college, it was that much more satisfying when I did finally start to get the level of attention from boys I’d craved. My first love adored me in the way I’d always wanted and more.
And it was so validating. I had many flings and several boyfriends in my college years.
Eventually, I graduated and moved to New York, and it didn’t take me long to realize I had so much of what I’d always wanted already. I had the male attention, I had friends, I had access to money I’d never had before.
Is this it? I wondered. I wanted more.
Freedom, purpose, passion. Although I may not have put it in those words, I knew somewhere inside that’s what was missing.
A spiritual journey
In 2014, I learned to program so that I could work remotely and travel the world.
On my travels, I took up yoga and meditation. I became a vegetarian. I stopped straightening my hair because I wanted to love myself as I naturally am.
I no longer exercised or ate healthy with the goal of looking a certain way or keeping my weight down.
I did those things mostly because they made me feel good, they gave me energy, and they represented respect for my body and myself.
And throughout this switch to focusing on less superficial goals, something weird happened. I became more beautiful on the outside too.
People saw a light in me I don’t think was there before. I was no longer just a pretty fun girl. I was stunning, radiant. And I knew that that radiance came from inside of me. My self-acceptance, my focus on something bigger than myself.
But what I didn’t realize until now, until my pregnancy, is that although the story above is true — for the last ten years, my outer beauty took a backseat to my inner beauty as the priority — this whole time, that outer beauty was pretty damn important to me too.
A wakeup call
I know that now because I don’t look the same anymore. I don’t have a flat stomach and the tight yoga body I worked so hard for.
My face has filled out, and obviously, my belly has grown to a ridiculous size (because ya know, there’s another human in there).
If you asked me outright if this matters, I would say, no. This doesn’t matter. Fat is beautiful and sexy. Pregnant is also beautiful and sexy. I know that intellectually. But my feelings don’t match up.
As someone whose work lives partially on Instagram, I’m constantly looking at images of myself and there’s a clear difference between how I looked a year ago versus how I look now, 6.5 months pregnant.
I pine for that thin face and body that disappeared.
The radiance I saw in myself, I just don’t see it anymore. And that hurts.
And so I wonder if maybe I’m not as spiritually enlightened as I thought I was. I wonder how much I depended on this outer beauty to define my self-worth this whole time.
I wish to God I didn’t care about this, but it’s so clear now that I do.
A personal challenge
At the same time, over the last weeks, through talking about this openly, with friends, and with a coach, I’ve started to accept more and more the underlying superficiality that was always there. To accept that looks did always matter to me. It’s normal. It makes sense.
And also I’m beginning to recognize that inner radiance is still there even if I’m having trouble seeing it right now.
I’m still motivated by a deeper calling, to make the world more free and less lonely, now more than ever. I’m creating a life, in my body. And if all goes well, I’m going to deliver that little life into this world. I am strong.
I just need to rediscover that light inside. Maybe the one that comes from the slightly different mother version of myself.
This journey has been challenging. But I’m so grateful for this opportunity to look myself in the eye and understand something I never did before. Yes, I still care about how I look. I can acknowledge that. And ya know what? If I hadn’t felt my confidence wane, I might have remained in this delusion that looks didn’t matter at all, for who knows how long?
I’m grateful for this illumination. I am grateful for seeing the truth. Because only from this place, can I truly move forward.
Sarah Stroh is a coach, writer, and speaker. On Monogamish, Sarah writes about her unfiltered journey exploring non-traditional relationships.