I'm not sure how many people who read this blog have ever battled with body image. I'm not just talking weight, I mean anything: skin, proportions, you name it. If you've been battling, I can only assume that there have been wins and losses, ups and downs. There are days when you are sailing and days when you are scraping the barrel's bottom.
These are the moments that I've been considering lately.
Actually, I sat down to write this blog yesterday but couldn't. You see, I made a commitment a while back to use my words responsibly. I think that the ability to write is a gift that I've been given, by God and the Universe, for a purpose that I don't entirely understand. However, like Arthur's gift of Excalibur, it can be weilded to liberate and inspire or to damage and degrade.
I'm committed to using my gifts for good instead of evil, but don't think for one second that the alternative isn't tempting.
So what's the connection between body image battles & words that can cut like mythical swords? It comes down to wounds, retaliation and recovery.
The battle to love yourself despite all the negative messages and artillery that come hurling your way can be overwhelming. Once we figure it out, I think there is a temptation to go a little medieval on those we feel were hurtful in the past.
Maybe it was a comment, a look, whatever, but something someone said may have made you feel like less, like a failure for not winning in this one particular aspect of life. I know that at 201 pounds, I had many such stings. Too many to name, some too hurtful to remember.
One of these came from someone close to me, very close. On a visit to her home, this person spent time going on and on about how good she looked and how much weight she'd lost. Then she gave me a top to bottom appraisal and with a spark of inspiration, she broke her thought and said, "Oh, we should see if you can fit some of my old clothes, I mean, they are entirely too big for me, but you might be able to wear a few."
It's been years now and the ache of that humiliation still lingers.
You see I'd always been in shape until I had children, worked full time, and lost myself in the onslaught of newly defined roles. I didn't realize it, but this person felt inferior before, when I was "on top". Now, that the tables had turned, she took the opportunity to make me feel as small as she'd once felt.
I received a call from her recently. Seems word of my weight loss had traveled. Rather than catching up or talking about what we normally would, the conversation was consumed with confessions of weight gain and eating blunders.
Guess the universe turned again & once again, I was on the winning side.
This was a little something I like to call a defining moment. The point when your words and actions define who you are and who you are committed to becoming.
Here's what I chose to do: Say nothing. I'm not your food and fitness priest; there is no sense in confessing to me because I have no desire to judge or absolve you. Heavy, thin, fit, or fat. I don't care. Your battle with your body is your business. I love you because of who you are, not because of what you look like.
At 201 lbs, I needed love. Moreover, I deserved love. I deserve the very same thing right now and will continue to deserve it tomorrow. Part of loving yourself is protecting the person you need yourself to be. I need to be positive. I need to be gentle. With others and with myself. No urge for revenge or retaliation is worth losing what both provide in my life.
In my humble opinion, that whole cycle of attaching worth to your body image is nuts. You can't wait to look the way you want so that you can feel worthy of love. My self talk during the fitness journey has always been that I am worthy now. I work out because I am worthy, not so that I can become worthy.
Whereever you are in your journey, I hope that you will embrace the idea that you are worthy and that worthiness is the fuel, not the finish line.
Until next,
