Here we go again - a body image entry in the grand tradition of this piece. Actually, it's more of a direct follow-up to this one. I hadn't intended to do a half-year later progress report, but my brain naturally demanded it.
The other night when Mike was doing a trivia gig and HR was in bed, I was all stretched out on the couch in my loungewear, watching something, comfy as could be, in my literal glory. There's almost no place I'd rather be or anything I'd rather be doing and I should have just sighed and relaxed, but I casually glanced down and noticed the lumps under my clothing and automatically adjusted my position and the waistband of my pants so I was more presentable. I WAS THE ONLY PERSON IN THE ROOM AND I WAS SELF CONSCIOUS ABOUT MY FAT ROLLS. Come on with this bullshit.
I have a complicated relationship with my body and how it affects me in every way. I automatically feel better about how I look when I'm in a routine of eating well and moving in the way I choose at the rate I like to move. Lately my routine has been all effed up with sickness and injury, and when I'm off my game in that way it gets me mentally and physically shook. I needed rest, and resting is really hard for me. Why? Resting is awesome. What I need to do in times like these is figure out a workaround in lieu of spending so much goddamned precious energy robbing myself of the joy my body should be bringing me by simply operating so reliably. Even when it fails me temporarily like it does with all humans, for the most part inhabiting this particular meatsuit is a gift and I squander it all the time and it makes me mad at myself.
Here's what I'm striving for at the moment: not to change my body, in fact to not WANT to change my body at all. My ultimate goal is to be free of that idea of physical perfection. I want to operate from a base level of "this is it" and just accept it and love it so that every time I shift into critical mode, I can immediately shift out and eventually transcend these thoughts about the way my body looks altogether. To not seek the approval of others but to concentrate on how I feel for me alone. I've just started a guided meditation practice and I'm warming up to the idea of acknowledging thoughts as they occur and not judging them, just knowing they're there and moving on. My shrink recommended it for general anxiety, but I think it's another step closer to unlocking my body issues.
Here are some other things that help:
-Photographing myself in natural ways, not posing or contorting to achieve a specific type of appearance.
I took this one before yoga the other day because I wanted to get a sense of what I might look like through most of class. At first I was like, buhhhhhh, but the more I looked at it, the more it brought me peace. I'm not repulsive. This is just my body and it performs well and I went on to have a fantastic class. It helps me a lot to normalize my current body for myself. Don't worry, I have no intention of sharing a fraction of the pictures I take, it's just good for me to personally challenge my idea of what "attractive" is and why I want to be that and for whom.
-Keeping to my routines when I can, but not beating myself up when I'm off them. It's no wonder my kid is a stickler for the structure in his life, I'm way less mentally flexible about my own than I thought I was (though to be fair to me I think having him is what broke my easygoing mode switch). It does help me feel much freer and less nitpicky when I get can run and work on my yoga practice on a regular basis. It's central to my well-being. I'm at a point now, too, where I only want to do the workouts I want to do and I'm cool with that. Running and yoga make me feel good, even when they're hard. So if I can get in a few runs a week, my classes, and other than that walks for enjoyment and, like, the occasional adventure (ice skating, my annual Orange Theory class with my sisters-in-law, dancing, etc.) I'm good. My butt and legs and arms might not be as whatever-shaped as I think they should be because I don't want to lift weights or do HIIT workouts any more these days, but I dread those and life is officially too short to dread things I have control over. Or to totally scrub my diet of carbs and cheese and alcohol.
-Stemming from that, reminding myself, as needed, of the difference between healthiness and/or fitness and imposing beauty standards on myself. I don't need to look like a crossfit model. I only need to do what I think is best for my physical and mental health and look like me and be good with that.
-Listening to Lizzo every day, preferably while shaking my ass in the mirror. This might be the most crucial, unskippable step and the takeaway from this entry, if you're gonna take one. Lizzo is ev-ry-thing.
Clearly I didn't magically turn into a fat-roll-embracing earth mama in the past six months, but I can see the ways I'm making progress. I have a mammogram in two hours, and maybe that's what's behind my current drive to appreciate the form I was allotted, but whatever the impetus, let's all take a moment to just be cool with our cool. Do it for me or for Saint Lizzo until you can do it for you.
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