What I learned in my 20s Lesson 2: Body Image is a State Of Mind

I have gained and lost 20-30 pounds at least 3 times in my life. The changes my body went through each time really had nothing to do with the food, it had nothing to do with my body, and the changes were more a reflection of how I was trying to process events in my life. When I felt good about my body this was more because of how I was processing my life and when I felt negative about my body this was also again how I was honoring and paying attention to my feelings.

Have you ever had the experience where you looked in the mirror in the morning and thought, "Damn I look great today!" and then as the day moved on and perhaps you got some bad news or you had a lot of work and a lot of stress arose and suddenly you looked in the mirror again and thought, "Ugh I wish I weighed 5 pounds less." Our body is actually exactly the same. It hasn't changed but what has changed is our connection and compassion toward ourselves and perhaps the heaviness we are feeling is not necessarily because of our body but because of how we are mentally processing external events.

I am guilty of having said in the past, "I feel so fat today." In my process of honoring and embracing my emotions and how deeply I feel things (which will come in another post) I realized that fat is not a feeling. Fat is something that is in our body that we need to be alive. Fat is something we eat. Fat is not a feeling. So when we hear these internal thoughts of I feel fat we get to take a pause, breath, and start to get curious around how we are actually feeling in the moment.

Perhaps we are feeling tired, mentally heavy, sad, frustrated, angry. In just the process of naming how we are feeling in the moment by stating out loud I feel fear, I feel tired, I feel stressed we embrace our human experience exactly the way that it is and we don't have to make our body the battle ground of fighting our emotions. We can separate how we are processing our life from our body image and that no matter what is happening day to day we are still wonderful and beautiful just as we are. When we create more internal space to foster compassion and kindness and self love toward our body then no matter what emotions arise or how we are processing our life we can still take care of our body and discover how we can even increase our level of self care in the moment.

I no longer reach for food when I feel stressed or anxious or sad or depressed. This is a process that took me throughout my 20s to re-learn how to honor my physical and emotional hungers. Give yourself so much compassion on this path. Every moment is a new moment where we get to begin again and to catch our internal thoughts and ask ourselves is this the most loving and nourishing this I could say to myself right now? If the answer is no then the power and choice is within you to re-shape those thoughts to ones that feel more loving to you just the way you are and that you are always doing the best you can to take care of you.

This was my very first episode of Gut Guru. 

In this episode I talk about cravings and how they are meant to be heard, they are meant to be listened to, and they typically have a message for you.

How do you typically approach your cravings?  What do you find yourself craving on a regular basis?

The stomach lining changes over about every 5 days, your taste buds change every two weeks, every day you shed over a million skin cells, the uterine wall for a woman sheds every month.  We are constantly changing and from day to day we are never living in the same body.  How will you begin the process of coming into relationship with your body and your gut for who they are and what they need today?

I can't apologize for disappearing.  Sometimes life calls us away from being so external and whispers to us to come inside and sit and be still.  Lots has changed over the past couple of months and life was calling for me to heal some deep wounds.  I am not saying I have ultimately healed these wounds but the questions bouncing around in my head, my mind, my body, my soul can no longer be contained and I am ready to write again.  The idea of the feminine and how I want to inhabit my feminine form has been a large question in my life lately.  I have not always embraced being in a female body and this is not just my own issue but a cultural one as well.  Our culture does not make it easy to be in a female form.  Skinny, curvy, apple, pear, muscular, ultimately the grass is always greener on the other side.

I was at the gym tonight and I looked at the machines in front of me at all the women sweating away.  All shapes, all sizes, and each one in their own form was beautiful.  Yet, I wondered what each one was thinking in their minds at that moment.  Why were they all pushing themselves so hard to be something different?  Furthermore, why have I pushed myself so hard to be something different.  I wonder now, why did social media, magazines, my brothers and their friends, have such weight and authority in telling me what I "should" look like?  And after 25 years of being ingrained with indoctrination not only from the outside world but also from myself, it is so hard to break out of my culture and be something different.  To actually embrace your body, in whatever form it currently is at is a truly radical act.

My body is speaking to me.  Its telling me to slow down.  Its telling me I have to learn how to love being a woman or else it is going to cause me some pain.  Now for some TMI (too much information): For the past three periods I have had the most intense cramps that this past weekend I almost passed out.  I spent from 9 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon half non-coherent to the world while my boyfriend tried to figure something out as I refused to go to a hospital.  I have never experienced pain like that before ever (not even in all my years of digestive woes) and I also never take medicine but after hours of excruciating pain I was convinced to take some ibuprofen.  My body is speaking to me.  And its funny how it takes pain to finally slow down and listen to its messages.

It says love me.  Love my curves.  Love my ebbs and flows.  Love my blood that can one day produce life.  Love my fat that keeps me warm and my brain functioning.  Love my large hips and my strong thighs.  Love me because I love you no matter what you do to me.  No matter what you feed me or how you treat me I will still love you.  Our bodies love us unconditionally.  They don't judge us or leave us.  They keep working and healing and growing and changing no matter what.  So the question I will leave you with today, something I will be working on myself, is will you allow yourself to love yourself back?