Body Weight, Shame, and Projection

the body is not controllable and that is scary

A male spiritual teacher made a post today saying that overweight people are not to be trusted because: 1) they have a lot of undigested trauma and that leads them to be “full of shame”. 2) they are self neglectful and have “boundary problems.” and 3) they compromise on their dreams.

I do not follow this man or know anything about his life or teachings. This post was sent to me because this subject is something I write a lot about.

See the articles: The Crucible of Weight Gain, The Wisdom of Weight, Fat and Valuable, The Fat Nutritionist, Fat Woman Sex, Misogyny, and Responsbility, and more.

I’m not in disagreement that excess weight on the body is a sign of something more than just physical.

It most certainly is.

Our bodies are our shadow; our unconscious aspect, they are constantly inviting us to look at what we may not want to see.

What really scares people is how the body is inherently uncontrollable.

There will always be an element of the body that is mysterious.

No matter how much you understand about biology, nutrition, movement, mitochondrial health, mineral status, and on and on, there will always be a spot of…we just do not know.

This is the shadow. The mystery. Our bodies are quite literally it and it is us.

Controlling the body disguised as “health” is so insidious that most people cannot see or feel the difference.

We are not actually in control of our bodies.

We are not in control of when we get sick, how quickly we get better, or how and when we will die.

Every time we get sick or injured we are reminded, oh wow, I really don’t have any control here. I am at the total disposal of this fallible human form.

This is terrifying to the human ego.

Does this mean we shouldn’t take care of ourselves and just give it all over to chance? No.

We should treat these bodies as the precious temples they are. But that doesn’t guarantee they are going to look a particular way. It never has.

This is the hardest lesson I am learning in the midst of my journey with weight.

I am clear that fat people are just as trustworthy or untrustworthy as anyone else.

Also, what is this man saying he doesn’t trust fat people for? Is he saying he wouldn’t be friends with a fat person? (what a loss for him!)

Is he saying he would make a snap judgement about someone he just met because they were fat? (this doesn’t seem very wise?)

He wouldn’t trust a fat person to work on his car? (why not?)

He wouldn’t trust a fat person to make his food in a restaurant? (some of the best chefs are pretty fat!) Like what does this actually mean?

I am so clear that “fat people” are no different than other humans trying to be with themselves, do the right thing, and deal with the lot they’ve been given in life, the best way they know how.

I am also very clear that overweight people deal with a lot of projection around this fear of the uncontrollable nature of the body.

It can be quite nasty the preposterous assumptions people will make about others just because their bodies don’t fit into some arbitary ideal, which also varies person to person and is subjective.

For example, I lived in Zambia, Africa for over two years and there to be thin is associated with being sick, very poor, or unattractive. It was thought of as a really nice greeting to say to someone you haven’t seen in awhile, “Ah! Clara! You are looking very fat today!” That was a compliment. It is desireous to “be looking very fat!”

A lot of overweight people in the west internalize the projections from other and get the message that they should be ashamed of themselves because of their size. This internalized projection does emanate off them as shame and discomfort with and in their body.

I have felt it in me, that’s why I know. And I feel the resonance of it in other overweight people I see.

The man says in his post, “nobody can shame you unless shame already exists within you,” implying that this means overweight people must be more riddled with shame than others. I generally agree with this statement of about shame.

There is a definite connection between weight gain and being a victim of abuse. Hunger by Roxanne Gay is a painfully potent story of one woman’s journey with emotional eating, obesity and she connects her weight gain originally to a gang rape she experienced in adolesence.

I have a hard time seeing why this makes someone untrustworthy though.

We all have scars and truama, pieces of our lives that we don’t want the world at large to know about.

Some people may wear excess weight as a layer of protection against the pain and some people may kill themselves in the gym or run for miles and miles to avoid the pain.

Some people may starve themselves at an attempt to control how much life is allowed into their felt experience (this was also me for most of teenage and early twenties).

We’re all just avoding the pain…until we’re ready to face it. One way of dealing with this isn’t better than another and it certainly doesn’t mean that ‘fit’ people have something figured out that fat people don’t.

If you have never been overweight you really cannot understand what it’s like. You could never speak about it from an embodied persepetive. I really hope you never have to.

People who haven’t been overweight telling people that are or have been what it’s like or what is going on inside of them, is akin to a man telling a woman what it’s like to be pregnant or bleed every month. It’s just kind of ridiculous.

I think it’s important as an overweight person myself to reject these projections when I can and not take them on.

To not be be ashamed of my body.

To not feel like my body is something digusting or unworthy or a problem.

To show my body with pride and as much loving acceptance as I can muster.

Not in a “body postivity” way because that feels a little like glossing something over, but in a way that I truly revel and enjoy my body and its sensational nature. To trust the way my body feels more than the way it looks.

And I assure you, I am listening to the invitation of my shadow and working with what this excess weight is showing me and inviting me in to as well.

I write a lot about this and you are welcome to read any and all the article linked above or go into the archives.

See the articles: The Crucible of Weight Gain, The Wisdom of Weight, Fat and Valuable, The Fat Nutritionist, Fat Woman Sex, Misogyny, and Responsbility, and more.

I also taught a masterclass last year called The Wisdom of Weight | why we gain weight, why we can’t lose weight, and what we make that mean about us, that I have for sale for anyone to purchase and watch if you feel like diving deeper into my story with weight gain and teachings like “the body is our karma.”