Our bodies hear everything we say to it
“I used to be able to.”
“If only I was taller/younger/smaller/bigger.”
“That’s for people who are not like me.”
There are still days where I avoid looking in the mirror. In times when I’m alone. When the house is quiet. When I’ve let stillness become boredom, and spent too long looking at a screen of some sort. Images of comparison of some sort. Messages flying at me for so long that I ceased to remember to differentiate between what was my voice and what wasn’t.
I noticed recently that there’s a part of me that still tends to obsess. Addiction is a habit that tries to latch on to anything, like a parasite. If I don’t give it one thing, it will find something else. The dopamine receptors in my brain seem to like it when I give in. Since quitting alcohol, my relationship with food has been strained. At first, sugar was such a welcome relief. When it was clearly becoming a problem, I swore to never touch it again. Protein became the new obsession. Then it was calorie/macro counting.
Anything “healthy” becomes a problem when it’s all we think about.
With any obsession, I’d say we do it because it feels good. Because we’re looking for satisfaction of some sort. Whether that be physical, mental, emotional, or all of the above.
And because it offers relief from something else. If our minds are occupied around a problem that needs to be solved, it can put off the bigger, more complicated problems we’ve been putting off. The ones we can’t bear to look at, much less think about.
The message my body always got was that it wasn’t good enough. That once I made this change, and looked a certain way, I could finally rest. Be complete. Be “good” for the rest of my life.
How I’ve gone astray, once again.
When I think back to everything my body has taken me through, protected me from - how it’s saved me, again and again, from death - I cannot imagine how it must have felt every time I told it it was lacking. This faithful, unquestioning companion that works tirelessly to make sure I’m rested, renewed, fed, repaired, revitalized every time I wake up from another sleep that I’ve taken for granted. That takes me wherever I want to go so that I can have the experiences I crave. That allows me to feel, taste, touch, hear, and see all the beauty that life proffers - and without which none of this would be possible. How could I have treated it like that?
There was a miscommunication that happened when I was young. Moments, words, and shame drilled into me that worthiness, lovability, and belonging all depended on my weight. My mind constructed a whole separate department to manage this one thing. This department became the biggest, “highest up” in the building. I still remember as a teenager hearing about a study where women were asked if they’d rather get cancer or get fat, and more said they’d rather get cancer. And me, at the time thinking to myself, “They’re not wrong.”
In the past month, after seeing my sister, and being reminded of what it is to be loved and accepted unconditionally, and noticing how much more relaxed she was about eating, how much more intuitive rather than hard set around a certain list of “rules,” I started examining my own beliefs and behaviours around food, again.
And when I got still, and asked my body how it was doing, I started hearing all the things it’d been trying to tell me for months, maybe even years. We understood each other. It didn’t guilt me for my misgivings, because it knew I was just trying to look out for us. And I didn’t guilt myself either, because I knew the best thing I could do for it then was forgive. Forgive myself, and all the messaging I’d received all my life. The messaging I’d been actively looking for to reinforce my beliefs. Because no one can change our minds unless we allow them to. And when belonging feels like it comes from outside, it seems near impossible to not relent to outside opinions.
The last two years have felt more and more like a journey back to what I call my true home. My body has always been the safe harbour of my soul. We only get one. And I know now that I want to take care of it in the same way it’s taken care of me. With loving kindness, with unconditional support, with unfiltered eyes. To answer its requests and needs with thoughtful reciprocation. To cease to ignore all its gentle nudges and telling signs. It has always been ready and willing to do whatever I believe is possible. It’s always seen me, just as I am. And I am now ready and willing to do what I’d thought to be impossible - I will love it, just as it is.
