A call to radical self-love
"Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen"
Marge Piercy "The seven of pentacles"
According to the societal standards of beauty, I am an abject failure. For years, I walked around, beating myself up in my head because of my fat body. Every day I looked in the mirror and was never satisfied. I obsessed about everything I ate, especially when eating in public. Unlike many fat women, I don't have any horror stories of ill-treatment from strangers, or potential romantic partners, or employers, but we know these exist for many, many obese men and women.
When I look around me at women on television, in movies, in magazines, in advertisements, and in almost every representation, I see more benchmarks of beauty that I do not meet. That I will never meet -- not because I am slothful and uncaring -- but because they are meant to be unattainable.
Long, thick, glossy hair. Wrinkle, blemish, and pore free. Perfectly proportioned body, boobs and booty. Cellulite free. No "excess" body hair. "Naturally" beautiful. Artfully applied makeup to look like you are not wearing makeup at all.
Our culture tries to sell women, and to a lesser extent, men, an image that we must always be striving for. This is why you hear women who are regularly held up to the world as "perfect" and "beautiful" spend so much time in interviews hating on something or other about their bodies. She must talk about her weird nose or too-long neck or how she can never gain weight or her bizarre repressive diet and her military exercise routine or some other such nonsense. She must remind us that at 10 she was skinny and gangly and didn't date in high school or whatever to show her imperfections and insecurities. A woman must never, ever, ever express in public the idea that she is satisfied with her looks. She is okay with her body. Comfortable in her skin. She must always be striving for that glorious ideal of perfection. (If you doubt me, take a gander at some the press Gabourey Sibide has amassed over the past few years as she talks about herself in confident, body-positive ways.)
When I hear women talk all the time about how disgusting their bodies are and how they are x amount overweight, even when they are friends, I think, what must they think of me and my obese body? I must be so incredibly disgusting to them. (Not that I think everything's about me....but if people put themselves in other people's shoes, there are so many things that just come across as painful and destructive.)
Just when you think you're good, and you feel comfortable in your skin....blam. New standard. New goals. New ways of shaming you and making you feel like shit about yourself. Finally got the BB cream into your skin care regimen, oops, now you need the CC cream...then it will be the DD...etc. etc. Shape your eyebrows this way. Wear your hair that way. Use this shampoo. No, that one! Eat this not that! Juice cleanse. Make home-cooked meals for your family every day. Never feed yourself or your family fast food. Schedule every minute. Take time to stop and smell the roses.Excel at your job. No, stay at home with your kids. Home school. No, charter school. No, wait, private school...or is it public school? It's exhausting.
And frankly, I'm tired.
If you can't come from a place of love, what's the point? If you want or need to lose weight, want or need to change your schedule, or improve or change any area of your life, you can't come from a place of hate. You have to do it because you love yourself. How do you do that when you live in a culture that's reinforcing self-hatred and low self-esteem at every turn, in every possible way?
Ok now, here's the radical part. What if we just stopped?
Stopped feeling shitty about ourselves?
Stopped endlessly thinking and talking about diets and what we eat?
Stopped comparing women with each other and to photoshopped advertising?
Stopped talking trash about how other women dress, their hair, their makeup?
Stopped judging women for how they discipline their kids, or don't have kids, or stay at home, or go to a job somewhere?
Stopped feeling bad about cellulite or the size of our butts (or ankles, thighs, boobs, neck, stomach, etc.)?
Stopped thinking we have to be a certain size?
Stopped feeling like a failure because of the numbers on a scale?
Stopped injecting ourselves with toxins and foreign substances?
Stopped talking about "bikini bodies" and "getting in shape for the dress"?
Stopped obsessing about what foods are "good" or "bad"? (Unless you actually have celiac disease or a life-threatening allergy...then you can obsess all you want.) Eat without justifying it to others. Eat in public without shame.
What if bodies were just bodies? Each one uniquely shaped and sized.
What if we stopped demonizing and shaming fat?
What if we stopped making thin women feel less "real" because they don't have "curves"?
Why can't people be lumpy?
Why can't we be shaped and sized differently?
Keep buying and doing all the stuff you do now if you want, but don't do it because you're trying to meet some mythical standard or you feel bad about how you look. If you buy into that cycle, you'll never win. You will be stuck forever on a moving sidewalk going nowhere.
Instead of viewing your body with loathing, view it with compassion. Think about how strong you are and what you can do with that body. Or how weak you are and how you need the help and compassion of others to make it through the day.
Think about your brain and intellect.
Think about what kind of person you are and what kind of person you want to be.
Live as if you like yourself -- your whole self, so-called imperfections and all.
And maybe, just maybe, you'll begin to actually (really, truly, madly, deeply) like yourself.
Marge Piercy "The seven of pentacles"
According to the societal standards of beauty, I am an abject failure. For years, I walked around, beating myself up in my head because of my fat body. Every day I looked in the mirror and was never satisfied. I obsessed about everything I ate, especially when eating in public. Unlike many fat women, I don't have any horror stories of ill-treatment from strangers, or potential romantic partners, or employers, but we know these exist for many, many obese men and women.
When I look around me at women on television, in movies, in magazines, in advertisements, and in almost every representation, I see more benchmarks of beauty that I do not meet. That I will never meet -- not because I am slothful and uncaring -- but because they are meant to be unattainable.
Long, thick, glossy hair. Wrinkle, blemish, and pore free. Perfectly proportioned body, boobs and booty. Cellulite free. No "excess" body hair. "Naturally" beautiful. Artfully applied makeup to look like you are not wearing makeup at all.
Our culture tries to sell women, and to a lesser extent, men, an image that we must always be striving for. This is why you hear women who are regularly held up to the world as "perfect" and "beautiful" spend so much time in interviews hating on something or other about their bodies. She must talk about her weird nose or too-long neck or how she can never gain weight or her bizarre repressive diet and her military exercise routine or some other such nonsense. She must remind us that at 10 she was skinny and gangly and didn't date in high school or whatever to show her imperfections and insecurities. A woman must never, ever, ever express in public the idea that she is satisfied with her looks. She is okay with her body. Comfortable in her skin. She must always be striving for that glorious ideal of perfection. (If you doubt me, take a gander at some the press Gabourey Sibide has amassed over the past few years as she talks about herself in confident, body-positive ways.)
When I hear women talk all the time about how disgusting their bodies are and how they are x amount overweight, even when they are friends, I think, what must they think of me and my obese body? I must be so incredibly disgusting to them. (Not that I think everything's about me....but if people put themselves in other people's shoes, there are so many things that just come across as painful and destructive.)
Just when you think you're good, and you feel comfortable in your skin....blam. New standard. New goals. New ways of shaming you and making you feel like shit about yourself. Finally got the BB cream into your skin care regimen, oops, now you need the CC cream...then it will be the DD...etc. etc. Shape your eyebrows this way. Wear your hair that way. Use this shampoo. No, that one! Eat this not that! Juice cleanse. Make home-cooked meals for your family every day. Never feed yourself or your family fast food. Schedule every minute. Take time to stop and smell the roses.Excel at your job. No, stay at home with your kids. Home school. No, charter school. No, wait, private school...or is it public school? It's exhausting.
And frankly, I'm tired.
If you can't come from a place of love, what's the point? If you want or need to lose weight, want or need to change your schedule, or improve or change any area of your life, you can't come from a place of hate. You have to do it because you love yourself. How do you do that when you live in a culture that's reinforcing self-hatred and low self-esteem at every turn, in every possible way?
Ok now, here's the radical part. What if we just stopped?
Stopped feeling shitty about ourselves?
Stopped endlessly thinking and talking about diets and what we eat?
Stopped comparing women with each other and to photoshopped advertising?
Stopped talking trash about how other women dress, their hair, their makeup?
Stopped judging women for how they discipline their kids, or don't have kids, or stay at home, or go to a job somewhere?
Stopped feeling bad about cellulite or the size of our butts (or ankles, thighs, boobs, neck, stomach, etc.)?
Stopped thinking we have to be a certain size?
Stopped feeling like a failure because of the numbers on a scale?
Stopped injecting ourselves with toxins and foreign substances?
Stopped talking about "bikini bodies" and "getting in shape for the dress"?
Stopped obsessing about what foods are "good" or "bad"? (Unless you actually have celiac disease or a life-threatening allergy...then you can obsess all you want.) Eat without justifying it to others. Eat in public without shame.
What if bodies were just bodies? Each one uniquely shaped and sized.
What if we stopped demonizing and shaming fat?
What if we stopped making thin women feel less "real" because they don't have "curves"?
Why can't people be lumpy?
Why can't we be shaped and sized differently?
Keep buying and doing all the stuff you do now if you want, but don't do it because you're trying to meet some mythical standard or you feel bad about how you look. If you buy into that cycle, you'll never win. You will be stuck forever on a moving sidewalk going nowhere.
Instead of viewing your body with loathing, view it with compassion. Think about how strong you are and what you can do with that body. Or how weak you are and how you need the help and compassion of others to make it through the day.
Think about your brain and intellect.
Think about what kind of person you are and what kind of person you want to be.
Live as if you like yourself -- your whole self, so-called imperfections and all.
And maybe, just maybe, you'll begin to actually (really, truly, madly, deeply) like yourself.
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