How I Stopped Fighting and Learned to Love My Body
photo credit: sofia alvarez
For 30 years, I've been at war with my body. I remember the moment it started, when my first "real" high school boyfriend poked my belly and asked if I was going to do some sit-ups to try to get rid of the softness on my 125-pound frame. I'd never considered before then that my body did not look the way it should. I was 14 years old, and for the first time I consciously received the direct message that I should be changing my body to please someone else.
Fast-forward through the next three decades, through destructive relationships and self-destructive decisions, through times when I looked at my body and cried because it would not cooperate with the vision I had in my head of what it was supposed to look like, and through years of hating it and mistreating it. I was sure I was unloveable, unworthy of love, because of the curves and rolls that had developed over time because of the way I punished my body for not looking the way it should. I neglected it. I stuffed it with food that made it unhappy, unhealthy, and unwell. I forced it to remain sedentary when it craved movement. I stuffed it into clothes that contorted and restricted it. I did everything I could to control it, but still my body refused to budge. I still had big hips, a belly, and an ample booty, but I saw no beauty in any of them. Though others found comfort in my curves, I found only sadness and frustration.
It wasn't until about a month ago that I realized the irony of what I was doing, of how my hatred for my body was making it look exactly how I didn't want it to: in robbing my body of the love I expected no one could give it, I had fulfilled my own fears of being unloved, even by myself. I realized that I had gone to great lengths in every relationship but my current one to ensure that I would not be treated with love and respect because I didn't think I deserved those things. I begged my therapists to just tell me how to love myself and my body. No one had any viable solutions for me until my current therapist finally answered my pleas by asking me what it would look like if I treated my body with love. I admitted that I didn't know. She pointed out that people tend to think that they'll treat themselves with love once they love themselves, when it's actually quite the opposite: if you want to feel loved, treat yourself with love. You will come to love yourself when you are no longer mistreating yourself. This epiphany helped me to see that I needed to rethink everything about the way I'd treated myself and my body for most of my life.
photo credit: casey kelly
The damage done by the negative narratives I clung to and used to define myself will likely take three more decades to heal, but I have realized that I can love my body even if I can't yet accept or appreciate it fully. It is not my body's fault that I weigh more than I'd like and am not shaped how I would prefer: that is largely a function of DNA, and the rest of it is my own doing. I have worked so hard to punish my body for not looking how I was told it should look to be pleasing to others. Through my own mental, emotional, and spiritual work, I have made peace with this impulse and have released it. Don't misunderstand me: I have not thrown myself into a daily workout routine and a diet made entirely of salads. I have instead begun to offer my body some kind of movement every day that brings me joy, usually yoga, dancing, or walking. I have stopped eating whatever my dopamine receptors want me to and pay more attention to what my body wants and needs for fuel. I no longer treat every meal like it's a celebratory feast that necessitates every form of cheese, carbohydrates, and sugar imaginable. I am mindful when I eat and about what I eat, slowing down and paying attention so that I know when I feel full or when my cravings have been sated. If I want to move, I move; if I want to nap, I nap. If I want a salad, I eat a salad; if I would rather have cake, you better believe I have it. I finally listen to my body, this beautiful vessel that allows me to experience so much in this life and that I have been taking for granted for all of the almost 45 years I've been living within it. I now pay attention to the cues that I'm pushing myself too hard and need to rest, or that I'm eating too much of the things that don't make me feel good and not enough of the things that do. This mindful connection with my body is allowing me to let go of fighting, of punishing, and to accept and love my body as it is, treating myself with as much lovingkindness as I treat the rest of the world and truly living in this vessel and thanking it for all of the opportunities and experiences I have in the life because of it.
Be gentle with yourself. Criticize yourself less. Be willing to extend to yourself the same support, adoration, and understanding that you so freely give to others. It feels just as great to throw this confetti of love toward yourself (though it does take some getting used to) as it does toward everyone else. How can you show yourself some love today and start to let go of fighting?
