Cathy - Self Love

My name is Cathy Fong, I am going to be 39 this year. I am a mother of five kids, four girls and one boy. My oldest is a girl and my youngest is a girl, my poor boy.. many girls in between. I live in Nampa, Idaho and have lived in Nampa my entire life. I remember when it was 30,000 people, and now it is almost 90,000 people. I remember when it was all fields, it was safer then. I have 3 dogs, an 11 and a half year old English Mastiff, ( who recently passed since the interview was done), a 4 year old Australian Border Collie and a 4 and a half month old English Mastiff named Bruce who is, right now, the bane of my existence. I also have two fish that refuse to die, and a cat that every once in a while appears in the house.

I married my husband, he went to Meridian, and grew up in Boise/Meridian his entire life. We met our Senior year of High School but never knew we met. I was dating a guy in Meridian and we went to a basketball game, afterwards I met one of his basketball friends, shook hands with him, and didn’t even realize who he was until later on in our marriage we were watching old basketball games and my old boyfriend walked across the screen holding my hand. I asked him if he met somebody that night, and he said “ yeah, some girl in the Hall.” I said, “yeah, that was me!” So that was funny. My husbands name is Derek Fong, and he isn’t Chinese looking at all. In fact none of us are.. but it works.

In high school I was very insecure. I did not feel l belonged anywhere. 

When I was first married I did not feel like I belonged and I desperately wanted to feel that I fit. I have not always been self assured and I realized that if I wanted to feel confident I had to put in the effort, if I wanted to belong I had to push outside my comfort area. It was a long hard road. To be 100% honest, I still have days where I sit in my closet crying. There are days where my husband has to hold me because there is nothing about myself that I like, or nothing that makes me feel good. 

 There are times where I have to smile and be strong. I have four girls, and they are growing up in a very difficult world. I have to show them that they have to be comfortable in their skin. It is hard sometimes because I can’t show them the weakest parts of me, but I do show that I am having a rough day on occasion, and that is okay.

In fact, the “f” word in our house isn’t the typical “f” word, it is the word fat. We don’t use that word in our home. There are days where I slip and my girls catch me and say “mommy, you just used the “f” word and I have to think of another world to describe how I am feeling because it is not a good word. There are days where I am standing next to my 17 year old daughter, looking in the mirror and tell her “Honey I am having a rough day. I am feeling older and I am feeling… whatever.. but it is okay that I am feeling this way. I have gone through five kids, I am almost 40..” Then there are days she looks at me and shares that she isn’t feeling it, that she is struggling and I tell her “ That’s okay, you can feel that way because today isn’t going to last. Tomorrow will be different and you are going to feel differently. It is all in how you take it”

 The one thing I want to share with others out there, the one thing that drives me the most, has to do with the image we perceive of ourselves. 

 Before I had kids, I was 5’6”, 112/116 lbs, each one of my pregnancies I gained more. I have very healthy pregnancies but my body requires me to gain a very big base, the most I ever gained was 85lbs. This put me at 225, so imagine a 5’6” very slim girl shooting up to 225 lbs. 

 I feel like the body images that many women have are very damaging to our perception of ourselves. I know what it feels like to be a size 22 and I know what it is like to be a size 2, and people do honestly treat you differently when you are heavier, which I think is very difficult for many women, especially those who are not necessarily a “larger size” but larger than what is being portrayed as “beautiful”. I sympathize… with everyone… having been on that broad spectrum. One of the life experiences I have learned is that your outside appearance has no impact on what your worth is, It has to do with what you look like on the inside. This is the thing I have struggled with every single day, and the thing that I have learned from the most every single day, 

What I pray for is To have the ability to call myself pretty even when I am not feeling that I am. I have gained confidence because I worked for it. I acknowledge my feelings and my faults, and then I move on.

This life is a constant process, we are not going to be perfect. There are days that we get pretty close, and days were we fall flat on our face. Those days I have a cookie and say “ I will try better tomorrow”. 

Christ doesn’t expect perfection from us but he does expect us to treat ourselves well. Last year at Easter I started reading ‘Jesus the Christ’. As I learned more about him, not just he overall gospel, but about him specifically, I came to realize there is so much love and compassion he had for people. I thought more about the sacrifice he offered for us. I came to understand that he felt my pain, and because he had felt that it hit me.. why would I not go to him and ask him to help me on those difficult days? If he has felt the worst of the worst, that it made him bleed through every pore. My pain is so much smaller, but he understands it and can help me through it. My trials are not nearly what others have to go through, but the atonement isn’t just for getting through rough times. I learned to rely on Jesus to help me heal from my own thoughts, I learned to repent for not treating myself better at times. I talk with him about the days I am ungrateful for the beautiful body he gave me, and I repent. When I started reading more about him, and how people felt around him. It made me want to emulate him a whole lot more. It made me look at others, and want to be empathetic and sincere to others, to be there for them. 

To get closer to Christ you have to understand who he was. When you understand that you understand how he truly feels about you, and when you get to that it helps so much.. it helps you treat yourself better.

I have one line for myself. “They are not worth it.”

I struggled in growing up, in caring about what people thought about me. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t an outcast, I worried about what people thought of me. It wasn’t worth it. Nobody was worth any of the drama that I put myself through. Even now, I don’t know anyone who is worth putting yourself through self loathing , or being critical of myself. There is not a single person on this earth that loves me who will criticize me like that. They say you are your own worst enemy, and I used to be because I put everyone else’s opinions above what the Lord thought about me. In the end, it only matters what the Lord feels for me. 

 I try to tell my girls the same thing. That the people they know now, when someone is unkind. It isn’t worth it. The opinion of others does not change a persons worth. My savior knows me! 

Be kind, love everyone out there. The biggest thing I think we should teach each of our children is character is who you are when no one is looking. Be mindful to be kind when people are looking and when they are not. We don’t know what others are going through, we don’t know their struggles!