Falling Into Body Love, Part 3

I didn't expect there to be a part 3 to this story (here are part 1 and part 2), but recently, I discovered almost by accident that a few weeks prior, Lindy West had been a guest on Dr. Sanjay Gupta's podcast Chasing Life. As far as I'm concerned, that alone makes it an immediate must-listen. But I also love the episode's title, Lindy West on what we’re getting wrong about weight.

Source: screenshot from cnn.com

Lindy is probably best known as the author of the memoir Shrill: Notes From a Loud Woman and therefore as the woman that the main character of Hulu's series Shrill is based on. But she also gained a fair amount of notoriety when, back in 2011, she wrote an essay (that eventually led to her writing the memoir) called Hello, I am Fat, which is well worth reading if you haven't already. So Lindy is basically known for being an unapologetic fat person—and an unapologetic fat acceptance/fat liberation person. 

The very fact that a mainstream, Western-medicine-educated, and famous doctor would have her on his podcast is significant. (For the thin people reading this: Western medicine is not exactly known for its friendliness to fat people.) 

Not only that, Dr. Gupta even said that their conversation was "really touching" and "challenged some of my own thinking." 

He also said, "She taught me a lot about what it looks like to show empathy and kindness no matter anyone's size." I plan to write more about that in a future post.

Also significant—in fact, it was the moment in the episode that thrilled me the most—was when Lindy shared some neuroscience that she had heard about online: 

When you speak negatively to yourself, your nervous system interprets that as a threat [Dr. Gupta vocalized agreement here] and kind of shuts down as a threat response and makes it impossible to make any changes in your thinking or in your life...it sort of slams this wall down between you and the ability to change [Dr. Gupta: "yeah"]. And so if you do wanna change your life, if you wanna change your body, if you wanna, you know, change the way that you think about yourself, the only path to doing that is to start from thinking kind things about yourself and being kind to yourself and that self criticism and being cruel to yourself will never actually lead to change....

Dr. Gupta responded, "I think they got it right so far, what I'm hearing; I agree with that."

When I heard that, I thought, "This confirms my whole approach!" I detailed this in part 2, but weeks before, I had begun what I call a body love practice—without knowing whether it was doing or would do any real good. I just figured it could not hurt...and then a few weeks into it, I encountered this episode. Wow. I am so grateful for this confirmation from the universe.

There's a lot more good stuff in this episode; I hope you'll give it a listen.

Falling Into Body Love, Part 2

(Source)

In Part 1 I talked about how (oddly through falling off a staircase) I had a body positivity epiphany. That epiphany, essentially, was that rather than trying (or more precisely, continuing to try—unsuccessfully, no less) to convince myself to love its appearance, I can shift the focus entirely from what it looks like to what it does for me.

Because, let's face it: For over 54 years so far, my body (on the positive side of the equation) has, among other things:

• Housed my spirit
• Allowed me to experience this life
• Carried me through the world
• Sustained me through everything I've been through
• Facilitated relating to many wonderful people

...and of course much more. 

(And to think—for the vast majority of that time, I accepted the bullshit messages society [and, not for nothing, some cruel people at times] sent its way—and added some of my own. But...I know that kind of conditioning sinks its teeth into us early and is relentless, so ultimately I can forgive myself for falling prey to it. I mean, who escapes it, really?)

Anyway, all of the above is no small thing. It deserves to be acknowledged and appreciated.

And as I said in part 1, I knew I wanted to make this epiphany into a practice. It's too significant to leave to a one-time experience in C's office. Thankfully it didn't take long for me to realize what I wanted to do to accomplish that.

So now, almost daily, I place my hands on my belly, then on my chest, and sometimes other places, and at each place, I say aloud, "Thank you" and "I love you." (For a while I started each time with, "I'm sorry." Because of course, I am sorry for everything on the negative side of the equation that it's had to endure. But going forward with this practice, I'm focusing on gratitude and love.)

Does it feel weird to talk to my body? Yeah, sometime it does. Does it feel weird to tell it, "I love you"? For sure. But I'd rather feel a little weird telling my body I love it than continuing to treat it like crap. I and my body deserve so much better than that.

Do I know whether this is actually doing or will do anything for me? At this point it's really too soon to tell, but I figure it's gotta be better than feeding it ever more shit.

And so now, when I say that I love my body, I do not mean I am thrilled with its appearance. I mean: I am practicing being loving toward my body. I am valuing appreciating it over shallowly criticizing or praising it either one. What my body is (the home for my soul) and what it does for me far, far outweigh both its appearance and how much that appearance meets or fails to meet society's beauty standards. Which are hyper-narrow, ever-changing cultural constructs anyway.

One may consider my body love practice, in addition to an act of self love, to be an act of resistance.

Because it is.