by Mercedes Baines
A memory I have of myself as a little girl maybe 4 or 5 years old, is walking in my grandparent’s garden. There were lots of rose bushes, it was the summer and I remember pulling a petal from a rose, putting it in my mouth, chewing and discovering that it was sweet…I was curious about the world — tasting the sweetness. I was just myself unencumbered by any shoulds of how be in the world…
By the time I was 10 years old, I went on my first diet. It was a protein diet. Me & my mom – counting grams…and it all was very normal. Normal that dieting was a solution to the problem of my body. At 10 years old, I got the idea that something was wrong with my body. I will repeat because I think it is worth repeating that: When I was 10 years old, I got the idea that there was something wrong with my body. Something is wrong, something is wrong tap, tapping on my mind, something is wrong, something is wrong something is wrong with me, not right, something is not right. And I got the idea and did not question it, that I needed to right the wrong by going on a diet and losing weight.
{Now, some of you may remember when you were 10. And some of you may have 10 year daughters, nieces, granddaughters, students…just hold in your mind your 10 year old self or the 10 year old that is in your life and imagine telling her that there is something wrong with her and that she must right that wrong, that she must make her body right…}
Not that I was not told directly that there was something wrong, but I sure got the idea that losing weight, and sticking to the diet was praiseworthy. That righting my body was praiseworthy. And I remember feeling good, powerful, like I now had ownership and CONTROL over my body…. and the clothes!!! Oh, the clothes…But that came a bit later…It began with that very first diet and my initiation into the story of the lie…the lie that something is wrong with me, the lie that fat is a feeling, the lie that allowed me to view my body as a series of parts like a cut up chicken. The lie that grew as I disavowed and become at odds with parts of myself….the lie that spread as I commiserated with friends about “if only…20 lbs this or skinny that…THEN life would be…” what exactly? I don’t know, but it seemed to be more desirable, that what I had…the lie that generated dichotomous thinking of “good” or “bad” based on what I ate or did not eat for the day, week, my whole life…which seemed to equate whether, I, as a human being was good or bad…the story of the lie that I will be validated if I fit, literally, fit…
But there is no way, I discovered to actually fit, ever…at least not in the story of the lie anyway…the lie perpetuates a continuous dissatisfaction with self, sometimes a body part, sometimes an attribute (I’m not talented enough, smart enough, fill–in- the-blank enough)…my worth got translated into a reduced in size version of myself…
And that reduced self, became a metaphor for other aspects of my life, making myself smaller symbolically in my professional life and in my intimate relationships…and the thing is, I KNOW, my story is far from unique, it is a common as grass and grows just as quickly!
Then over time, something started to shift… the thing about trying to believe a lie and live a lie is that there is a niggling doubt, a vague unrest with the message that becomes a whisper that perhaps the lie IS a lie…
…for me it started with body hair, in particular under arm hair. I remember just out of university beginning to feel quite irate that I felt I HAD to shave my arms and legs…particularly when most men do not…and I just stopped shaving…it was an odd experience to find that folks would get distracted by my armpit hair …it would draw their focus mid conversation…
…then next came a decision not to engage with negative body talk when a woman friend or colleague would begin a long lament about the quality and quantity of her cellulite for example…I decided not to feed the lie (pun intended) anymore…and then weight loss was no longer something I admired in a person. I shifted my focus to who the person was and how I felt in their presence…
…and then I began to see a much bigger picture…that this oppressive lie that I and many women like me ate whole was a way to keep me and other women from living full embodied lives…it was a huge distraction, detrimental drain on creative resources and a soul sucking path…
So yes, I got angry and yes I am doing something about it through the work I do in my psychotherapy practice…but the thing is…this paradigm shift, particularly one that moves against the tide of the dominate discourse is really hard to maintain…and I DO falter and fail at times to maintain my own feminist standards of body acceptance. And that for me is how self-compassion makes its entrance: for those times where I have fallen back into the rabbit hole of dissatisfaction with my body, for those times when it is hard to love my changing middle aged body, I say to myself: “it’s okay Mercedes, you are enough as you are right here and now”. And I try to believe it, some days I do and other days I do not…but I DO know that the lie is still a lie and going back to pretending it is true is not an option…
And that little girl that came to understand that who she was not wholly acceptable: I say to her now: You are perfect as you are. Your body is an amazing feat of wonder!!! Your beating heart, your creative mind, your capacity to love, your curiosity, your sense of humour are cherished and valued. There is nothing WRONG with you. You are YOU. And you are loved as you are…go ahead and taste the sweetness of life…it there for you to savour…
This was first read at a Crave Event March 2015 celebrating self love & self compassion
Mercedes Baines is a psychotherapist in private practice. She is offering workshops on body image & radical self acceptance through body awareness and creative expression. For workshops information click here.
To book a counselling appointment click here.
Or contact Mercedes: [email protected]/ 604-721-5399