I am my body
I wrote a post last week about yoga, and (un)relaxeddad made a comment that included this: “It never ceases to amaze me how much our bodies know about where we are and what we need (and how separate we hold ourselves from them except in situations of extremis). ”
That comment really stuck with me, and it reminded me of my mom in a lot of ways. She was working pretty hard to try to come to terms with her body, to accept and love it, and to not judge herself because she was fat. She was working with a program called Overcoming Overeating, and I think she was doing well. I haven’t read the books, I haven’t studied the program, but here’s the tiny bit that I think I know about it, the parts that she told me. She was working to demystify food. To get to a point where foods weren’t ‘good’ or ‘bad’, so that she wouldn’t have so many issues around it. She went from scarfing down any ‘bad’ food in the house right away, because she knew she would never get another chance to eat it (because she would be on a diet next time, and would be stronger next time, and so this was the last time, really), to having a house with plenty of ‘bad’ food in it, that she had lost interest in. It was available, she could eat it, and eat how much she wanted, and that was that. She had made a lot of progress in that area, though she still had some problems with it. When she was in the hospital in Anchorage, she mentioned to me that she should finish her food, even though she didn’t like it. I told her there was no reason to do that, and she was relieved. The other thing she was working on was trying to accept her body. She told me of standing in front of the mirror, naked, and saying, This is my body. Like it or not, it’s my body. And it seemed to be that she had made some progress in that area, as well. In loving her body for all that it did for her, rather than hating it for being fat.
But mom wasn’t as attached to her body as would have been healthy, I don’t think. She tended to miss symptoms of illness for much longer than made sense, to ignore things that were wrong, to not really want to know what was going to happen when the doctors came to talk to her about procedures and surgeries. I think this comes from being told, every time she went to the doctor, that she needed to lose weight. Go in for an ear infection, hear how you need to lose weight. Go in for a flu shot, hear how you need to lose weight. That part got old. Although she finally found a doctor who didn’t lecture her, agreed that going on yet another diet, losing weight, and then gaining it back plus some, wasn’t such a good idea. So left her alone about it. She was happy about that, but still, I think she kept herself pretty separate from her body.
Have you ever heard someone claim, “I am not my body”?  I have, and often it is in the context of someone with a disability, or someone with an eating disorder, who doesn’t want their body to define them. They say, “I am not my body, I am my words, my hopes and dreams, my thoughts, all of that.” And they’re right, because they aren’t merely their body. They are much more. But without your body, where would you be? We can none of us function without our bodies. And when our body is as healthy as we can keep it, our mind and our moods function at a higher level. If we can keep our organs, our hearts and lungs and livers and so on, healthy and working well, if we can avoid pain and treat it when it occurs, rather than ignoring it and hoping it will go away, then I think our quality of life will be better. So even though we certainly do not want to be judged by the perceived imperfections of our bodies, they still are a large part of who we are. They shape our lives, and the quality of living that we do.
I wish I could have helped my mom to love her body. But I can’t. What I can work on is loving my own body, warts and all, and treating it well, so that it can be as healthy as possible for as long as possible. Seems like a good goal to me. I am not my cellulite, nor am I that twinge in my lower back. I am not my aches and pains or my body’s flaws. Nor am I merely my body’s successes. But they are all a part of me.
I think I’ll go walk the dog.
9 Comments
Nance
You write the most interesting, thought-provoking stuff (but I read it in the morning when I’m not quite ready for it! LOL)! There are so MANY times when I feel so betrayed by my body. Today, I have to go for another MRI for a continually unresolved issue and I’m so sick of doctors and medicine and all that crap. And I can remember my grandmother saying, at age 90, that she felt so sharp that she hated to drag her old body around with her. There are times when my body feels like an encumbrance to me.
Body Acceptance is almost a SKILL anymore, isn’t it? Especially for women. We have a ton of products to make us smell better, become less hairy, have more facial color, be more curvy, be less curvy…you name it! Sigh. No wonder the sale and use of antidepressants is on the rise.
Autumn's Mom
What a great post J! It is time to love ourselves. Warts and all (literally haha) And by example, teaching our daughters to love themselves. I remember a time not long ago when I was starting to worry about Autumn’s body because she was starting to resemble me more and more. But she’s Autumn and not me. It’s tough, but I think helpful if we keep talking about it with each other 🙂 And get that stinkin thinkin out of our heads.
Linda Atkins
Another fine post, J! I agree with all, once again. (I am also an Overcoming Overeating devotee and find this approach has brought me a lot of wonderful gifts. I was put on my first diet at age seven, so there was a LOT of work to do, but at least in OO it has been the kind of work that really pays off, as opposed to trying yet another doomed-to-ultimate-failure diet.) Yes, we inescapably are our bodies, along with everything else we are and that is us.
V-Grrrl
I think making peace with our body–its health, its appearance, its capabilities, its weaknesses–is an ongoing process.
The older I get, the larger the disconnect I feel between my inner self and outer self. It isn’t vanity or self-loathing but truly a sense of shock when I glimpse myself unexpectedly in a mirror and see that I am a slightly dumpy middle age woman and not the person I visualize in my head. It’s disconcerting.
Jimmy
Mirror Mirror on the wall …….who’s the most thought provoking blogger of them all!!!!!
The older I get…..the better I was!!!!!!!
J
Yeah Jimmy and everyone, I think that part of the problem is that we all still feel a lot younger in our heads than we are. I know I’m stuck at about 25, and so looking in the mirror can be a shock, as can getting up off of the floor when my legs complain that I really shouldn’t be down there or something like that. And I think, what’s the big deal, anyway? I’m not old, I’m only….oh, that’s right. Sigh.
lilalia
A friend of mine told me that she always tries to look at her body in the mirror as someone who is twenty years older. So she is now 45 and when she looks in the mirror she thinks what will her 65 year old think of her now. I had to laugh when she told me this, but what is true is how relative our perspective is on our body image. I have yet to meet a woman who embraces her body as it is, with joy and patience. Even though many of the women I know bring joy and patience to so many other parts of their lives. Wouldn’t we do well to practice this on ourselves? Thanks for the post, it was very interesting.
Starshine
I am me: body, mind, soul and spirit. There is a tendency to pick just one part and claim that as who I am. But the truth is that they are all part of who I am in this life. The outer body will one day fade away, but the inner me will stay strong and live on. I think that is part of why I believe in eternal life. As my body changes and will one day wither, the outer doesn’t match what is going on inside.
KelliAmanda
I think that was how your mom found my blog, and I think the first comment she left for me was about Overcoming Overeating. I did read the book and it made a lot of sense, but was (is) still a challenge. I’ve been fat since I was 9-10 years old, and have let it severely limit much of my life. Unfortunately, much of my limitations haven’t been because I *couldn’t* do something, but because I felt ashamed of trying, or assumed that others wouldn’t want me as part of a group (team, social, whatever) because I was/am the fat girl.
Now, at nearly 32, I’m still fat, though not the fattest I’ve ever been, and I don’t diet, after learning that dieting not only didn’t help me lose weight and keep it off but also seemed to make me more depressed. Unfortunately, I still have no self-confidence when it relates to my body. I’ve thought so many times about wanting to join a softball team, or go swimming (I love the water), or dance, or do yoga, or… but I won’t because I’m not comfortable in my own skin. I know logically that doing those things would likely help me become more comfortable with my body, but it’s a fear I have yet to overcome. I don’t know when, or if, I will ever feel comfortable with my body.
Hopefully Maya will learn to be comfortable with her body as she gets older through watching you.