I touched a tender spot this weekend around not fitting in.
I taught an in person workshop and it was a lovely experience but afterwards I found my mind spinning off into stories like “nobody likes me” and how “nobody can see me.”
Which is an old and tired story of mine.
It’s a young part of myself that just wants to fit in and be likable.
Teaching the way I teach, because I truly let people feel all of me, is very vulnerable.
So to teach in this vulnerable way to an entirely new audience, can feel really exposing and it exposed a wounded young one within me.
This young one is like a hungry ghost for external validation and praise.
The day after I taught the workshop I was on the phone with a friend and she told me her husband had made some comments about “women being overweight” in our shared community.
My friend didn’t say he said anything about me directly, and I don’t think he did. But because of my tender state I took a lot of it personally (when it wasn’t personal) and felt like the generalized comments included me.
This is a classic example of how our wounds getting triggered happens. We take something personal that isn’t necessarily. We make a statement mean more than it actually does at face value.
When people make comments about other peoples’ bodies it is either a way to make themselves feel superior or inferior.
It is a really good way to separate themselves. To say “those people are worse/better than me.”
It tells you a lot about their relationship to their own body.
It is a sign they are living on the surface and in the collective programming that we are only as valuable as our physical appearance.
I am simply not interested in people who are committed to that paradigm. It’s not in service to the world I would like to live in.
I know that there are certain collective “ideals” of beauty, but I do not ascribe to them. I do not allow them to influence me, most of the time.
I focus on the markers of true health and integrating all parts of myself, which I consider to be true beauty.
However, because I was in an extra tender place having felt a little exposed by teaching an in person workshop and was unexpectedly made aware of this commentary about people’s bodies, a wound in me got even more activated.
And so I’ve been sitting with what this wounded part of me believes.
This young, small, wounded part of me believes:
Being fat is bad, shameful, and shows how irresponsible I am.
Being fat is something I have control over on a mental level, and therefore, I am a failure because I am fat.
My value comes from my physical appearance.
My value comes from the male interpretation of my physical appearance.
Other peoples’ opinions of my body should matter to me.
Having a smaller body makes me more palatable and will make my life easier.
There is something wrong with me because my body is bigger.
I will never be able to have the things I want in a bigger body.
People will always judge me when I have a bigger body and that is my problem.
I could honestly go on and on, this part of me has a lot of programming!
When I read these over and even as I was writing them, I could feel how deeply untrue these statements are.
However, I could feel how deeply these statements are programmed into the collective in one way or another.
When someone comments on another person’s body, as in “Wow! She is so overweight/fat!” most of the time, he or she is operating from the above beliefs.
In our society comments about weight are not a neutral statements, they are value statements.
That is why it activates these beliefs in me. It’s that resonance factor, we cannot be shamed unless we believe we are shameful.
There must be resonance within us for shame to activate.
If someone tells you, “You are bad,” and you believe them, you must have a part that believes, “I am bad.”
If someone tells you, “You are a carrot!” it doesn’t have much charge I’m guessing, unless some part of you believes you’re a carrot.
So what do I do with this activation?
What do I do with the part of me that still believes on a very quiet level that because of the size of my body I am devalued and broken?
The part that hears someone make comments about women’s bodies and takes it so personally?
The part that is living her worst nightmare being in the body I am currently living in?
I most certainly DO NOT stuff her down in to a box and shut her away pretending I’ve moved past her.
My practice is to call her forth, bring her up, invite her in.
My practice is to love her.
To get really clear on what her beliefs are. Write them out like I just did, neutrally. To really see, all the way, what I am working with.
I don’t write out the beliefs and go on a pity party for myself or freeze because I’m so afraid of them or go and try to pick fights with anyone who tries to say fat women aren’t valuable.
I don’t beat myself up and call myself a phony because I talk about loving myself on the internet and I have a part that doesn’t love myself.
No.
I write them out and have my adult Woman really contemplate whether or not those are beliefs she would like to take on and operate from.
I don’t say to this wounded part, “You aren’t allowed to have these misogynistic beliefs! What’s wrong with you?!”
I say, “I see you. These beliefs are in the collective and they can be quite convincing, especially because they are beliefs we operated from for a big portion of our life. I see that these are still subtly hanging out in the background and I’ll just continue to love you here. I’m with you. You don’t have to worry about these things anymore. We operate from different beliefs now.”
It is true that I would like to have less fat on my body. I would like to move more freely through the world. I would like to fit into airplane seats more comfortably. I would like to be able to go to any store and buy the size of clothes that fit me. These are all actually true statements.
But this does not mean that I am not valuable, desirable, or healthy as my body is now.
And this is where it can be tricky to parse out the Truth about ourselves from our programming, when it comes to bodies.
I take incredible care of my body.
Over 80% of my meals are cooked at home, from organic, local ingredients, and made with a lot of love and intention. And when I do go out to eat I almost always go to restaurants that have similar values (organic, local etc).
I lift heavy weights 3-5 times a week.
I go on walks daily.
I spend a lot of time resting and relaxing mentally and physically.
I have a deep spiritual practice and daily devotional practices and feel very connected to my greater purpose.
I am active. I play with my toddlers and am outside any moment I can be.
I dance daily.
I prioritize sleep and I get at least 8 hours of sleep most nights, or at least I am in bed ready to sleep for at least 8 hours each night.
I read books that are enjoyable and books that stretch my mind.
I spend time building community in person and online.
I have hobbies and passions outside work.
I feel well used and well loved.
The people I surround myself with know me deeply and I feel safe sharing myself with them.
My husband and I have the most beautifully supportive and loving relationship. I am wildly in love with him and he is wildly in love with me. We love what we are creating together.
I have a strong ovulation and virtually symptom free periods.
My hair, skin, nails, and teeth are strong and glowing.
I had two incredibly healthy pregnancies and two empowering, fast and natural births.
I have good body temperature throughout the day.
I take supplements sometimes, but do not need any supplements to feel good.
I feel capable of holding myself through just about anything life could throw at me.
I could honestly go on and on here too..
This may sound like a long list of arrogant bragging about how good my life is, but I assure you, this is what I needed to do to come back to myself when the story that there is something wrong with me at my current weight started to circle my mind.
I love myself. I feel really, really good in my body. My body loves me. And I love her.
Would I like some things to be different? I would.
But I also trust exactly where I am at the moment. It’s been a long road to get here and if the only thing that is seemingly “wrong” with me is my weight, well then I’ll trust that it is what my body needs.
And no programming or commentary is going to change that.
I choose to operate from the beliefs that serve me and my opening. And that is the thing we can all do.
We can hear the parts of us that believe unhelpful things.
We can really look, neutrally, at what those things are.
We can really see those parts and love them where they are.
We can parse out what actually might be true and then choose which beliefs really serve the reality we would like to create for ourselves.
This is how we change the collective programming. This is how we become less trigger-able. This is how we value ourselves and love ourselves in an integrated and fully self attuned way.
A podcast episode I did with Nik Toth called Embracing Your Body Beyond Size I did recently felt like a beautiful compliment to this peice so I’m linking it. It’s just 35 minutes and just a great deepening into this thread.
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