Embodied Body Image
Creating Space for Expansion
We invest so much time and energy and resources into our self-hatred. Maybe hatred is a harsh word - maybe non-self-acceptance is more accurate but I digress.
CW - body image, disordered eating in this post
I witnessed a friend grab her thighs in disgust, desperately trying to shape her reflection. After meals, I hear family lament about how their stomach distends upon digestion (of course it does). I hear person after person equate their worthiness with the flatness of their stomach.
I will forever be grateful for my mother hiding the scales in our house after my grandmother commented I was getting “chubby” at 8 years old. I cannot tell you how many stories I hear that when children are growing, they hear they are “fat”.
We learn to equate our growth with being “bad”, that our expansion is a problem.
Fatphobia infiltrates every level of our society where moralism is attached to our size. Fatphobia is attached to every single system of oppression - patriarchy, capitalism, white supremacy - it is everywhere and nowhere. It is in our schools, our families, our workplaces, in our heads.
We have internalized fat phobia as a culture and as individuals, we have unconsciously agreed & participated in the policing of our bodies because we desperately want to be good. To be valued.
Our attachment need can get the better of us.
And our Bodies hear how we talk about them.
Our relationship with our Bodies is just like any other relationship - it is developed with shared experience, values and dialogue. If we spoke to our partner(s), our friends, our children, in the same way we spoke to our bodies, those relationships would suffer accordingly. Our bodies suffer accordingly.
You can check out a worksheet on connecting with your Body with embodied consent here.
Social media has created an unrealistic standard never experienced before. While there were always body elites that have wreaked havoc on self-worth (from Karen Carpenter’s tragedy to countless others), social media has created a new paradigm.
While I can appreciate advertising dollars investing in individuals rather than corporations, as it has been since shifting to an influencer world, it also creates a murkier paper trail. Influencers are supposedly “just like us” (the phrase grocery store magazines have been selling us for years) - so their body types must be achievable for someone like me.
With celebrities, I can reasonably assume that I don’t have four hours to spare for the gym like Marc Walburg but influencers are just regular people from small towns like me. It creates a false standard of achievability.
Because it isn’t.
I don’t need to tell you how much photoshopping happens, how images are completely altered from their original form to adhere to the rigid standards and how social media perpetuates disordered eating through targeted algorithm formulas. I don’t need to tell you how beauty standards aren’t based in biology of puberty nor the diversity of body shapes and sizes that actually exist.
10/10 recommend Danae Mercer’s IG page to dispel what’s real and what isn’t.
All of this comes down to a rejection of our natural body - who and how we naturally are. If you have to restrict your food intake to maintain your body shape / weight, that is not your natural state. If you have to
We are in rejection of our Bodies as alive because systems of oppression like capitalism view our Bodies as disposable, as resources to be exploited. Your Body is Alive so your Body is always changing. Just as the earth is alive and is always changing, so too are our Bodies.
Intuitive eating & intuitive movement is a beautiful way of respecting your Body’s aliveness. Because you are a grown ass person and can eat as much as you want. You don’t need permission from anyone but your body. Listening to your body’s desires, listening to your body’s appetite, has beautiful impacts. We become more able to meet our needs, to listen to what we want and don’t want, to set boundaries. When someone has permeable boundaries impacting their life, the first question I ask is about how they restrict their food. We restrict what we don’t trust. Restriction is a sign we don’t trust our Bodies.
What inevitability happens with intuitive eating is there is a binge for about a week or two but when your Body realizes it’s true - there is nothing off limits, the taboo repression dissipates. And we can come into contact with our authentic desires.
Embodiment is the first step of healing because healing is an inner dialogue with our Body. Embodiment is the first step of healing because it gives you permission to expand, to grow. You taking up more space is good. You are allowed to take up more space.
(next week is the promised post on social media and nationalism - it is becoming much longer than I intended ;)