Confession: Yesterday I did a bad thing. Something that I would have yelled at you for, if you’d done it. I would never let you talk about yourself the way I talked about myself yesterday. See, I saw a couple of pictures of me that were taken on Sunday and this was my reaction: “Oh my god, I’m so fat! Look at my chins! Look at that roll around my middle! I’m disgusting! Ugh!” And so on.
A friend of mine said to me, “Stop saying mean things about my friend.” And she’s right – I shouldn’t say those things to myself. I definitely wouldn’t let you say those things about yourself. Am I less kind, loving, generous, or smart because of the way my body looks? No. But I also live in a society that prizes thinness and beauty above most every other quality, so sometimes it’s incredibly difficult not to hold myself up to those (often impossible) standards. When you’re bombarded with messages about how a thin body is the only acceptable, admirable, lovable body, how to you cope with having a non-thin body? How do you stop being mean to yourself, punishing yourself, shaming yourself? I do my best, but some days I struggle.
Here’s the thing: Being body positive is a process. You don’t wake up one morning and say, “I love my body today, unconditionally!” Well, maybe someone does, but I sure don’t. There are days when I look in the mirror – or see a photograph of myself – and shudder. There are days when I’m downright angry that after six years of marathon training, cardio, weight training, etc., I still have giant arms and a flabby middle and big calves and thighs. I have to remind myself that those big calves and thighs have carried me over hundreds of miles and nine finish lines – and even then, I’m sometimes just completely disappointed in myself, and I get mean. Because of course we’ve been taught that failure to achieve thinness is a personal failure, that a fat body is the result of gluttony and sloth, or simply not trying hard enough. It’s hard not to internalize those ideas, when we are faced with them daily, hourly, every minute.
So, how do we right our course when we veer off the path into body negativity? We can focus on the positive things our bodies can do. We can focus on the people that love us, even with our giant arms and flabby middles. We can even take a break from being body positive – because some days it’s just too hard – and instead think about all the amazing and wonderful things in our lives that have nothing to do with our size and shape. I’m a daughter, a sister, a friend. I’m a photographer and a voice over actor and a writer. I’m all these things, and I’m pretty good at them, and none of those things are affected by the size of my butt.
What do you do to stay body positive? How do you get rid of negative thoughts? Share your ideas in the comments!
