roses in my heart

Something to Think About

This week Hillary Duff was one of the guest hosts on The View. So since Amanda is such a big fan of Hillary's, I taped a few episodes. I thought she might enjoy watching a few of the segments at the beginning when the hosts gather around the table and talk about hot topics in the news; however, I felt the need to preview these episodes before she saw them because sometimes these ladies go places a bit too mature for my precious 10 year old daughter (and a bit to mature for me at times, if you know what I mean?!) Though I did think that they might tame it down a bit this week given their 17 year old guest host...apparently, I was wrong! I just finished previewing a couple of episodes while doing my workout on the Gazelle this morning. There are actually a couple of episodes that I just don't think are age appropriate for Amanda to see. However, one of them greatly intrigued me...

On one of the days, they had Jane Fonda as a guest. I'm not really a Jane fan so this didn't entice me to watch. Apparently she has a new autobiographical book out, and during the hot topics the ladies from The View were really going at some of the more salacious parts. I watched briefly as Hillary Duff sat there quietly embarrassed by the conversation. I was ready to turn off the tape when Jane came out, but then was really captured by something she said as she gave a context for the salacious tidbits of her life that the ladies had been talking about. Here is what Jane said:

"When you grow up feeling you are not good enough...It's a girl-thing - with men, good enough is good enough, but with girls, good enough is not good enough, you have to be perfect. And when you feel that you've got to be perfect for someone to love you, you get stricken with the disease to please.

I got it early on and it was trying to please a parent who just let me know I wasn't perfect enough...So I just got used to leaving myself behind...I'd pretend that everything was fine, and I was a good actress... I wrote about it (those events the ladies on The View were gossiping about) not to be salacious. I wrote about them to show that no one even asked me. I did those things (to) myself."

Then Jane asked Hillary if she could relate to what she was talking about, and she could. Jane said, "I knew you would." Hillary then talked about herself and her friends and the pressure on them to be this "100 lb person". To which Jane responded about how "toxic that is." She said "We're not supposed to be perfect, we're supposed to be complete..." and then she hugged another guest host (I believe the actress' name was Sherry and she was from a program called 'Less than Perfect'). Jane said, "Like you!" (as she hugged Sherry, who was a beautiful full-figured woman, married and with child).

Who would have thought that I could identify with Jane Fonda?! But I did... and in more than just the fact I grew up trying to please a parent who always let me know I wasn't perfect enough... I'll stop there because I'm still processing my thoughts about what she said. But I praise God, that my heavenly Father has shown me something so different than that and that He has healed so many parts of my life, and I ask His forgiveness that sometimes I still walk around trying to be perfect to be loved.