I’m not exactly sure when I started hating my body. I do know I didn’t always hate it. In fact, for a fair part of my childhood I didn’t give my body a second thought. It just was. It wore clothes. It gave me movement. It housed my organs and my mind and in some invisible place, my soul.

I’m guessing the hatred started somewhere between puberty and girls suddenly getting separated into categories of pretty (ie: popular) or smart.  Apparently if you were smart you couldn’t be pretty, even if you were.  As such, smart = unpopular – which mostly meant boys didn’t like you so neither did the pretty girls. (I still don’t consider myself attractive even though many have insisted otherwise). Ugh!

I’m guessing it started there. From that point forward, I learned to idealize thin, and came up with the idea that 113 pounds on my 5 foot seven frame was my goal. For many years, 113 was no problem.  I ate what I wanted. I didn’t concern myself with exercise. I just naturally stayed somewhere between 113 and 115 pounds. Then things began to change and my frustration with my body’s refusal to comply with my wishes turned to hatred. In a subconscious attempt to reinforce this self-hatred, I made sure to only date men who were equally, if not more, obsessed with emaciated women. Now I had two voices in my head shaming me for eating or daring to have flesh on my bones.

Tens of years, two children, chronic illness, menopause, medication, and tens of pounds later, I still despise my body. What’s most ironic about the hatred now is that I’m finally the size and shape I always imagined myself to be even when I weighed a really unhealthy 113. The weight I carry now is not for lack of healthy exercise or because of poor food choices. In fact, I’m not sure my food choices could be any better. I am aware, however, of the complete lack of enjoyment in eating, and all that I deprive myself of enjoying because “it might make me even more fat!”  UGH! I also know that by 99% of the population’s standards, I am nowhere near fat, but I think I am, and that’s all that matters.

And I know I’m not alone. I despise our culture for what it has done to women in causing us to hate our bodies. It would be easy to cast a finger of blame at the media, fashion magazines, TV, and movies. They’re an easy target. Another less obvious target: The American Medical system. We’re all familiar!  At every doctor visit we’re weighed and measured, asked how we eat, and how often we exercise. Then our blood is tested for anything that might indicate early death from heart disease from being too FAT. I’m not eschewing good health, but who is it that is determining what is healthy and what is not? You got it – white American men who have been conditioned by the same “stay thin” mentality as we have.  ☹

But what if we’re not fat? Better yet, why does it matter?  Some of the most attractive women I know have abundant curves. Right off the bat I think of actress and model Liris Crosse and clothing designer Kenya Freeman. Beautiful, curvy, healthy women who are enjoying life and loving themselves. I want to love myself like they seemingly do.

Don’t we all?  What would happen if we really started loving ourselves? Loving our bodies exactly how they are without having to squeeze, starve, manipulate, torture, botox our bodies into some idealized form that isn’t even real. 113 was only healthy for me when I was a pre-pubescent teen. As a post-menopausal woman of 58, despite what our culture and even our medical system want to tell me, my current weight must be the right one for me because I’m doing all the right things. This is simply where my body wants to be. Not to mention, a few extra pounds after menopause is actually a good thing as it is in fat that estrogen is stored which we desperately need to keep our bones healthy and strong.

I know this all in my head but that doesn’t change the unhealed wounds or the voice in my head that continues to shame me for being “fat” and which is constantly chastising me for not being thin. It’s a constant voice in my head.

This is where I turn to my spiritual practice and the Authentic Freedom protocol I developed for healing these inner wounds. For the next thirty days, I am committing myself to a “Loving my Body” practice.  Perhaps, you would like to join me.

Image Credit: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons