Listening To The Voices Outside Your Head

Jill,

Isn't it amazing how we not only listen to what others say about us but we actually consider it TRUTH? Your poor ex husband isn't the only man (or woman) who's made a comment that helped build the house of body shame. In the back of my head there's a secret room - you get to it by pushing on the left cheek of a giant plaster sculpture of my ass - a panel slides and exposes where I keep every negative comment anyone has ever made about my body. My dad's teasing, teachers who suggested I lose weight for roles in high school and college, boyfriends who told me they didn't find me attractive because of the extra weight, the director that once told me "I was too young to be this big" (I was 120lbs) The actress I worked with on General Hospital who during a break informed me that the dress I was wearing was the same dress she wore on the show when she was 8 months pregnant. The room is not only chok full of real comments but also packed to the rafters with the thoughts I THOUGHT people were having about me-thoughts they had when I wore THAT dress, when I went to the pool party wearing giant shorts and even my husbands when I undress. In the very back of the room- in a glass case - covered in envy green velvet is the comment I now realize is THE comment that has colored my life from the moment it was uttered. What's ironic is that it was said when I was at my lowest weight. Here my family and friends were telling me I was too thin - I didn't listen to them - oh no, I listened to the someone who said "Hey, you're almost there!" Don't ask me why but something snapped inside me that day. Not only did I realize I'd never be thin enough but every pound I've put on since has taken me further from the number that wasn't good enough to begin with. From that point onward I put myself in a no win situation.

But ya know what? I look at photos of myself from the past and now I can see that I wasn't fat. (oh how I'd LOVE to be that fat 125 again!) There is no body shame when I look at my younger self. Just awe - I can see her as separate from me and I think how pretty, how young, how thin she is. And my heart breaks for her because I know she never felt it. She never got to enjoy it while she had it. And I can't help but feel sorry for my current self - because I know someday we will look back at photos of ourselves from now - and we will think the same damn thing. So why not just start appreciating and loving ourselves right now where we are? What if that's possible? What if it's not "lose the weight" in order to rid ourselves of body shame but instead rid ourselves of body shame and lose the weight? (Or NOT lose the weight but don't mind because we love ourselves so much?)

I have this sneaky feeling that this is why you and I were brought together - and it has nothing and everything to do with raw. Oh we say we're doing this for the adventure of it, for great health, for enlightenment and yes to lose weight- but the real reason we're doing this raw thing is because we're hoping/praying that raw will take away this body shame/loathing that we've carried around our whole lives.

For me - I realize the end of body shame starts with the destruction of that secret room. I'm taking a sledgehammer to that glass case - forgiving the person who said it and forgiving my younger moron self for believing it. Starting today I'm choosing to be my body's biggest fan and cheerleader. I'm going to defend her if comments come her way. I'm going to build a new room, out in the open - one that is plastered with only good thoughts, comments, beliefs. I'm going to stop telling myself lies and putting off living a full happy life until some magical day when I'm thin. I outweigh my younger self by 35lbs and yet today I feel thin for maybe the first time in my life. I'm almost giddy with just the IDEA that I might have found a way out.