Girl In The Mirror

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Ever since I can remember I have known without a doubt that God called me to sing and write music, but it wasn't until my 7th grade year that I realized how deep that calling would go, and how a few short months of my life at age 13 would forever change the course of the years ahead.

 

Many little girls dream of being a cheerleader- wearing the signature uniform, doing somersaults across the floor of a crowded gym, and smiling brightly at the top of a pyramid. But what happens when you fall from the top? Well, this is the story of a girl who fell hard and got back up- and how you can too. 

 

There was nothing I loved morer new coach turned what was a light-hearted hobby into a waking nightmare. It sounds silly, rigEver since I can remember I have known without a doubt that God called me to sing and write music, but it wasn't until my 7th grade year that I realized how deep that calling would go, and how a few short months of my life at age 13 would forever change the course of the years ahead.

 

Many little girls dream of being a cheerleader- wearing the signature uniform, doing somersaults across the floor of a crowded gym, and smiling brightly at the top of a pyramid. But what happens when you fall from the top? Well, this is the story of a girl who fell hard and got back up- and how you can too. 

 

There was nothing I loved more ht? You're probably asking yourself, "Did the coach grow horns and chase us around with fire pom-poms?" No, it wasn't that bad, but what did happen left emotional scars that took years to heal. 

 

In the beginning it was subtle things that she did, like spending a little too much time "constructively" criticizing things I was doing wrong in a routine, or saying that I would look "much prettier" if I didn't have bangs. This poking and prodding continued to build in severity over a period of a few months until it came to a breaking point one day during practice when I was not fitting into the look of a formation with the other girls.

 

"Aubrey, you are TOO SKINNY! You are nothing but a BAG OF BONES! You need to eat MORE! You need to eat peanut butter, peanut butter, peanut butter!"

 

These are the words I remember hearing shouted in an otherwise silent gym full of parents, coaches, and my teammates. She then continued into a full speech about how me and my appearance were failing the squad. Shaken to my core, I ran to the bathroom and burst into tears… and no one came to see if I was okay.

 

The next few days I lived in what felt like a shell of the person I was before. I replayed the incident over and over in my head. Picking it apart until I was picking myself back up off the floor again. The shock that no other adults in the room stepped in to stop it and that not one of my friends ever offered me so much as a hug. The randomness of her comment about my needing to eat peanut butter and the irony that I already ate a peanut butter sandwich almost every day for lunch. Even that didn't add up in my mind. It was soon revealed to me by one of the girls that our coach had been telling them and other teachers at the school that she suspected I had an eating disorder. 

 

I remember one day at practice looking at myself in the huge wall to wall mirror at the gym, comparing my frame to one of the other girls on the team. Her tanned and well toned legs looked so much more attractive than my stick-like pales ones. "Why is it not okay that I'm naturally thin?" "Why don't I look like her?" "What can I do to change myself?" The questions raced through my mind one after the other, a marathon of negativity with no finish line. My eyes scanned back and forth from her body to mine and then the thought arrived: "I hate the way I look." 

 

The innocence was gone. It was as if someone had ripped off a blindfold I didn't know I was wearing and shown me the way the world really looks, and the way that I looked to it. Before that moment I had never given much thought to how I looked. I have been blessed to have a mom who always makes me feel like the most beautiful girl in the world, but I was never one to dissect my appearance.  Suddenly at 13 I felt hate for someone my parents had raised me to love: myself.

 

Though the horrific outburst fell on deaf ears to everyone at my practice that day, when I told my family what happened they went to battle for and with me to see that my coach was held accountable for her actions. But I did not quit the team. I was defiant to finish out the commitment I had made and then vowed to never be a cheerleader again. However, as a result of no longer cheering the following year, I also lost all of my friends who had no interest in me once I was no longer waving pom-poms and high-kicking with them. 

 

I hit the rock bottom of the earth.

 

I spent a year in prayer, on an emotional roller coaster of anger, desperation, and questioning with God. I had so lost myself that I didn't know if I would ever find her again. 

 

Then I did.

 

I was led to the most genuine, good, loving friends in high school who loved me for who I was not what I did. These are friends I still have to this day. God revealed to me the true definition of friendship and I felt acceptance like I never had before.

 

During this time, the themes in my songwriting began to change and I noticed a pattern, the songs were no longer about silly things that I wrote on a whim. The lyrics had meaning, purpose, and an attachment directly to my soul. I realized then: I have something to say. Year by year, song by song, moment by moment, the value of my self-worth became my most prized possession and something I would never allow be taken from me again. 

 

Since then it has become my mission to teach this invaluable truth of self-worth to young girls and women everywhere through song, conversation, and in writings like this blog. Once you know your worth, the world opens up and you can say without a doubt: I am enough.

 

Beautiful, smart, funny, successful- these and countless others are words that fall under the umbrella of what society expects us to be, but I'm here to tell you, you already are. You are worthy to feel whole in the skin you're in. God Himself tells us that we are created in His image, and because He is within us we cannot fail. If He is for us who can be against us?

 

In the past when I would reflect on that 7th grade year, I would be overcome with sadness, labeling it as the worst time in my life, but now I thank God every day for that experience. How can I not? It made me who I am. On the road less traveled I discovered the path God intended for my life. We can all take those dark moments and kindle them into bright, blazing flames that light the way to a purposeful future. 

 

I want to leave you with some words from a song that I wrote as I was coming out on the other side of my self-worth discovery. I hope that you will reflect on them whenever you need to and seek the value of their meaning in your own life. 

 

Staring into the glass is not reality

Worrying about flaws that no one else can see

Silence voices who say that you're inferior

And who you are will become a lot clearer

Girl in the mirror

 

Love to you all,

 

Aubrey

 

 

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