I have been thinking about this for sometime and after having a shower thought, I finally decided to write a post about it. Bear with me because this is deep(ish) material and a little bit of Tough Love with Teri Time. Everything I am saying below, I am saying with love. I promise.
I am a firm believer in the fact that the BODY has nothing to do with body image and how do I know this? Because I had women write to me to tell me their stories about when they felt "inadequate" and started to second guess their bodies and guess what....they were all DIFFERENT sizes and shapes! Some were too thin, too fat, too short, too hairy, too much of anything one way and not enough the other way. The dumb thing about this, is that most of these women's stories started when they were as young as 5 or 6 and as a result of an ADULT telling/teasing them about their BODY.
The problem with body image is that it is all psychological. You don't hate your BODY because there is fat in your thighs, you hate your BODY because someone, somewhere made you feel that you were inferior as a result of this. So you thought, if I "fix" this physical issue, then I will become less inferior. We fixate on our bodies because it's easier to try to become someone else than maybe accepting the fact that we are beautiful individuals.
It's easier to starve ourselves and tell ourselves that life will be better once we reach a certain weight or achieve a certain level of "societal perfection" than it is to process our feelings (ugh....gross....feeeeeelings.) Our weight, our skin, our hair are all superficial parts of our being, but we fixate so heavily on them that we suppress the other crap, the feeeeeeelings, below the surface. The problem with feeeeeelings, however, is that they are very much like a volcano. An insult here, a bit of a tease there, a traumatic event there and then before you know it, you are overwhelmed with emotion and exhausted, so you look to the thing you can control the easiest: your body. For instance, victims of sexual abuse will focus on covering up their BODY, cutting their BODY, and using their BODY as a shield from the rest of the world by gaining weight to make themselves "less attractive" to the opposite sex (in their mind, not mine). The issue here is not that the BODY did something wrong, but it is the thing that can be controlled in a situation where a woman feels she has lost control. Therefore, the BODY becomes the focus and the thing associated with a highly negative experience, leading to an unhealthy body image.
In other circumstances, there may have been an unfortunate childhood of being bullied for being TOO much of anything or perhaps a verbally abusive relationship where you have been made to feel less than desirable and decided that "if I change, than maybe so and so will like me more." The thing is, if you change for someone else, you won't recognize yourself anymore (physically or otherwise). So, again, we focus on our BODY. We get thinner, build a bigger, rounder butt, grow long, glossy hair, wear fake eyelashes, etc. all while despising the natural parts of ourselves that are, in fact, GOOD ENOUGH and perfect enough for us, right??
At the end of the day, everyone is looking for one thing: HAPPINESS (and it's not because PENIS can be heard when you say it....but that probably made you smile.) We want to feel good about our bodies and we want to feel loved by people and we want to feel desired and we want to find our purpose and we want to be successful and all of these things will apparently make us happy. But nobody wants to put in the damned work. If you worked as hard at loving your body as you do hating it, you wouldn't have a bad body image (or at least AS bad), but it does take work and it does take work that is hard. You need to confront the reasons of why your BODY is such a concern and you may have to revisit times and situations that are unpleasant and if you need to, you may need to talk to a professional. And yes, bullies, abusers, and mean people suck (like, big time) but YOU are not responsible for them....YOU can only be responsible for YOU and your reaction. Those people didn't tease you because you were too fat (despite what their words may have said)....they teased you because they were probably being teased or abused and did not have the coping skills to handle it, so they transitioned their anger, insecurities and hate onto you. But that's not on you. That's on them. Does it suck and is it unfair?? Yes, but if you step back and realize where their anger and abuse is coming from, then it makes it a bit easier to brush it off and move on. (It does not, I REPEAT, it does NOT excuse it!!)
Now, call me controversial, but I truly believe that we love to hate our bodies. 100%. It gives us something to focus on, work towards, and an unattainable goal to achieve so voila...there's your purpose. Ask anyone who had a goal and once they achieved it, they were like "Perfect. I'm perfect. I'm good now." You won't find anyone like that because there will always be something that can be different, "better", prettier, stronger, etc. So, we love to hate our bodies because it gives us a purpose....and it's VERY easy. And it's easy to blame all the things: media, other people, the world, etc. but at the end of the day you, literally, are the only one responsible for everything that comes out of your mouth and into your mind when you look at your gorgeous bod. Society is made up of people JUST. LIKE. YOU. Everyone feels out of place and insecure, so why do we blame the blanket term "society" when WE ARE SOCIETY. And media? You buy the shit they sell so they keep sending it back to us. Fun fact, brains have an easier time hanging onto negative shit than positive stuff which makes it easier to sell us on the fear that we might be outcast due to our weight, our hair growth, our skin, etc. Blame whatever you want but you make a choice every single day to love or hate your body and because it's always easier to be negative and say hurtful things. You are responsible for your own thoughts, feelings, and words. Catch yourself saying negative things. Swing them around and phrase them positively. Yes, it's okay to have a bad day, but don't dwell there. Move on and focus on the good, people.
Our bodies are nothing more than just our vessels, my loves. We can hate them all we want, but they will be the only one we get in this lifetime. I would hope that you would run away from an abusive relationship if you could (it might not be easy, but it would certainly be worth it) and this is the same thing with your self-love relationship. If you were in a relationship with someone who constantly put you down and made you feel inferior, think about how it made you feel.....I'm guessing: exhausted, tired, frustrated, sad, depressed, angry, hurt, disappointed, and empty. Now imagine if you HAD to stay with that person for the rest of your life. Think about the compound effect that type of relationship would have on you. This is you having a negative relationship with your body, when in fact, it is not even about the BODY. In the name of all things Valentine, give yourself the best gift and practice some SELF-love by yelling lovely things at that fabulous and dynamite bod of yours.