Stop the narrative. I’m serious. Look. I get it with the body image slammers. With the fat bullies. Stop the madness with those folks who judge others based on their body size. Also, stop the madness with ourselves. You know who you are, the one that bullies the person in the mirror that they see every day. What is also dangerous on the flipside is the narrative of those who say a blanket statement like “f#$% New Year, New You! F#$% the body image! F#$% those who want to help you get ‘healthy’!” While I agree that New Year’s resolutions are rarely resolute, I don’t pass off negativity to those who choose to make a fresh start at the beginning of the year. I also believe that our opinions of our bodies and of other people’s bodies need to always be kind and loving. Body image must not be dictated by the media or the scrolling unrealistic images in our own heads. But I’m drawing the line at turning your backs on the healthy narrative. We have been duped by so many different government studies and supposed health and wellness gurus about what is healthy and what isn’t that we just get tired of the rhetoric and decide that if it says “healthy” that automatically I don’t want to or shouldn’t be interested in it. Yes, the diet industry makes hundreds of billions of dollars annually on our search for the truth. But here is your answer. Yes, I’m claiming to have the answer to you finding the answer. The answer to what is healthy and what is a good body image lies within you. The problem is, we don’t want to know what that is because that means we must look inside the sometimes-scary places in ourselves or we must take time out of our already busy day to decide to do some self-care.
Our health depends on our entire being. It starts with an awareness of self. Checking in with our bodies to see if there is anything that needs a bit of tweaking. Then it moves on to a plan to start to take care of ourselves. For myself, my journey into self-care has been years in the making. I bought into the narrative that exercise was the way to go. I now have extremely poor knees and a shoulder that won’t let me do what I want it to do. All because I signed up for that fitness bootcamp and didn’t consult someone who knew better and who could’ve said what my challenges were going to be and to take it slow and steady. Then I thought time and time again that it was my food. So, I bought into the no carb, then the only carb, then the only protein, then the no fat, then the low fat. I’ve done all the Beach diets and the doctor diets books. I was convinced that I was just one of those people who would always be overweight and that I was just always going to be this way. For me it was a body image issue. Since I was a teenager, I have donned thunder thighs. It wasn’t until I was well into adulthood that I embraced my genetics in that area. At that point, however, it was apparent that the storm wasn’t just in my thighs but that I had summoned an overall body hurricane. I knew that I wasn’t just dealing with genetically modified thighs but also was super unhealthy and my body was screaming at the top of its lungs trying to tell me to get a grip. Did you know that you can mute that voice in your body the more Oreos you eat? I had chalked my unhealthy life up to the result of taking care of my family and not having time for myself even if I wanted to. Bullshit! Calling it! For some reason, women especially, have been tricked into thinking that there is no time for ourselves during the day that we could carve out for self-care. I used to believe that no one could care for my family while I took 30 mins to myself. Seriously? The time it takes to bake banana bread or to watch a sitcom or run a washer load of laundry on the quick cycle. That’s it. That is utter nonsense. So, I worked myself into this bad place that pushed my body image buttons, took me to an unhealthy place mentally and just made me physically feel so awful with aches and pains and poor energy levels, among other things. It wasn’t until about 2 years ago that I realized that it was not just a focus on the physical, the nutritional or the mental but a combination of all three that held the answer. Here we are at the healthy narrative. I stopped listening to the health haters and decided to walk forward into a new day that included me being kinder to myself and my world. Yes, I’ve lost weight and found more energy. Yes, I’m helping others find their self-care routine. But I will always be dancing to “All About That Bass” no matter what I look like, because I believe loving me where I was is where my health journey or kindness started.
Are you being kind to yourself, not just mentally, but physically and nutritionally? If you’ve wiped your slate clean Gregorianly (new word) then maybe its time to take inventory. I read some awesome books last year and listened to some amazing podcasts and speakers on this topic of health. Marianne Williamson in her book A Course in Weight-loss, which is about mental weight and physical, talks about the violent way we treat our bodies with nutrition or lack thereof. It hit me hard that the body image haters out there did less to sabotage my success than I actual did. I have been so violent with my body for so long. I would never let anyone outside of my skin abuse me, why would I allow myself to do that? What made it more acceptable? Was it because it was my choice to do what I wanted? Why does that make it ok? I already knew that I was bad at making good choices in that area, so I know that just because I want to choose badly doesn’t make it ok for me to do. What I’m trying to get at here is the thought that just because I look in the mirror these days and like the person I see there and think she’s pretty awesome does not validate good health overall. I still struggle with physical ailments that are there because I carry extra weight in certain areas. I’d like to see that diminish but I don’t think that I now believe if I become smaller physically that it somehow makes me a negative person to my overweight self or that I am now turning my back on the one I love in the mirror. It’s not about loving me as the larger me, it’s about loving me. Period. And because I love me and want to be a kinder me to me that I search for less violent ways to treat me on the inside. If that lowers my fat cell production, great! If I stay this size forever but become a more energetic, less physical pain person that’s great too!
I don’t believe that makes me a cog in the health and wellness machine, I think it makes me a better decision maker for self-care. So the mindset of my youth to trash my larger self physically and mentally is gone BUT is not being replaced by the rhetoric of trashing my self-care healthier choice self. I won’t let it. Healthy is not a bad word. Weigh-loss is not a bad term. Check yo’self. See where your anger is coming from in those areas. Is it fueled by celebrity social media folks? Is it an area where you struggle and just because you don’t know how to make sense of it all you decide to trash it? What does your body need to survive? I guarantee you that it needs you to pay attention to it. Self-care. Let’s go to the spa and talk it out. Yaaaaasssss, let’s.
2019 is a year of abiding for me. Abiding in my heavenly father’s love for me. Abiding in kindness for my humans that I have an opportunity to engage in their lives. Abiding in me, the one who is with me every day of my life. I would encourage you to abide with who you are, if just for a moment to get to know you better.