How I Stopped Hating My Body
Love is returning to how we were created.
I wish I could give every girl in the world a big hug and tell her how much she matters, that the way to get love is not to become perfect, or more of something or someone else, but to become more of herself.
Here’s a thought pattern I had for a long time, and I’m ashamed to share it with you. I would see a couple walking down the street, notice that the man was attractive, notice a flaw, an imperfection in the woman, and my first thought would be — she’s not perfect, how did she get him? I’ve unconsciously carried that belief my whole life, wondering how anyone could ever choose me if they could choose someone better. Maybe you’ve felt that way, too.
Struggling with my health for all of my twenties has also been a road to loving my body, my body shifting from something I am ashamed of into something I nurture, take care of, and feel pleasure in. If you gave me a choice to have my health restored, but still have the relationship with my body I did as a teenager, I’d take an unfinished healing story and the freedom and joy I have in my body now.
Earlier this summer, I had something going on and lost my appetite for a few weeks, probably losing a few pounds because I wasn’t eating enough. I’d forgotten the rush, the following hunger, the celebration of sharper angles, and the bad habits that try to worm their way in again. But this time I noticed it. “We’re not doing that,” I told myself. I slept more than usual, ate more than usual, and watched my body get a little softness back. And this time I made a point to celebrate it, stopping for a moment in front of the mirror to appreciate a curve as beautiful instead of something to work away.
I think it’s important to protect our struggles, waiting to share them when they don’t feel so vulnerable. I’m as close to there as I’ve ever been. My favorite part of getting older is with every birthday, I can look back and see how I’ve grown into myself more than the year before. I could have a seventeen-hour conversation with you on this topic (and honestly if you want to, reach out), but here are some ways I’ve learned to stop being so cruel to my body —
Switching from long-distance running to walking and doing short, daily pilates flows.
Nourishing my body with balanced meals. Letting go of extreme diets. Eating enough.
Resting more.
Having fun with personal style, viewing it as a means of creative expression and something to have fun with, highlighting my best features instead of hiding the ones I don’t like.
Experiencing pleasure in my body, not viewing it as something I have to deprive or beat into submission.
Having friends who listened to me, validated my feelings, taught me that it’s okay to feel the way I feel and it’s usually for a good reason. Honoring this helped me honor my own body’s cues, too.
Letting go of the idea that being as thin as possible is the goal, or when I am my most beautiful. Recognizing, enjoying the benefits of being at a healthy weight (more curves on my body, not being freezing all the time, healthy hormones, getting a period, etc).
Learning about how women are different from men, and how we can see better results and more radiant health from doing LESS exercise, resting more, and being more in tune with how we feel at different times of the month.
Tuning out other people’s advice and opinions about what THEY think I should do for my health, getting really in tune with my OWN body, sticking to what works for me and makes me feel my best.
Letting myself open up to men at vulnerable times of my life instead of pushing them away, when I felt far from perfect. Realizing you don’t have to be perfect to be loved.
Exploring and deepening my relationship with God, realizing that sensuality and pleasure are not evil but sacred. Realizing that how we feel matters. Realizing how infinitely loved I have always been.
Taking really good care of myself. This also teaches you how to nurture/ take care of others. Good health is beautiful.
Physical beauty goes so far beyond how much we do or don’t weigh, it’s everything we are in life — our confidence, how we carry ourselves, our character, how we treat others, who we surround ourselves with, what we believe about who we are. It’s the radiance we see in someone when they’re doing the things that light them up, nurturing their relationships, resting, taking care of their health, enjoying the simple pleasures in life, and weeding out the lies that can so easily work their way in. Daily.
Though I struggled with disordered eating for so much of my teens and early twenties, I spent a summer in a psych ward for a more serious eating disorder brought on by my GI illness when I was twenty-three. Something I would think of as motivation as my body put on weight quickly was my children, the children my body could be home to if I made it a safer place. There’s the control of thinness, the false sense that we have a grip on our reality. There’s a fear in letting go, but in moving through that fear we find the beauty of softer edges, a world where we don’t know the answer, possibilities and futures more divine than we could have imagined. And we ask ourselves — “What would I rather have? A small, known future, or one expansive and more beautiful than my wildest dreams?”
