As a child I didn’t think much about my size. I was tiny, with little chicken legs that always seemed to be scratched up with a bandaid on at least one scraped shin. I used my body and lived in it without any shame or self-consciousness until I hit junior high.
Several things changed that carefree way I approached my body. My doctor called me chubby. He said it in a manner of fact sort of way, and also with condescension. I didn’t know I was chubby. No one had ever told me. During those years, I also realized boys noticed bodies, my body, in a different way than they did in elementary school, and through a couple of encounters I learned we could use our bodies to give us great pleasure, and that somehow or another the contours of my shape mattered in the giving and receiving of pleasure.
Now, as a grown woman, I fluctuate about fifteen pounds up and down. As I’m leaning toward forty, I must say I don’t lose weight quite like I used to be able to. It clings to me like an insecure child who doesn’t want to lose his mommy. But on the whole, my weight has been fairly easy to maintain. I gain weight almost every winter, and make sweeping attempts to lose it in the spring, and then do the cycle again next year.
However, my approach to my body has been one of long disconnectedness from it. Almost as if I see my body as something separate from me. I have to make it look good, I have to trim down so I can wear that bikini in the summer, I have to hide my tummy. It has its own life, its own personality, along with its very own secret areas of shame.
And yet, it’s me. Just me. My body is the vase that holds me inside. My body is also the me everyone sees.
Several weeks ago, while we were moving through a flow segment in yoga, I glanced at myself in the mirror and immediately, upon seeing the curve of my backside, made a quick mental note that I needed to lose weight. It wasn’t a shameful note, or even a thought that overwhelmed me, it was just the certainty that I must do something with this part of my body. It shouldn’t be that big.
This led me to another fleeting thought. Will I ever be at place where I am simply content with my body?
This led me to another thought, the one I’ve been meditating on. Maybe I should just enjoy it, settle into it, and stop wishing it were different. Maybe I could start to love my body as me and stop trying to control it so much.
The thought, the flashing insight that I could settle into my body and accept it, just as it is, was so fleeting, I hesitate to even mention it. The habits and patterns I set up years ago, to always be in a state of trying to make it better, are deeply ingrained in me. Even now, I’m still thinking about summer and wanting to look better in a bathing suit. And yet, that thought has niggled at me for weeks now.
What if I could enjoy my body as a gift, use it, love it, be present in it, and stop wishing it looked like someone else? That there is this possibility I could love my body, and accept it seems almost out of reach. And yet it’s there.
My body has been my constant companion. I’ve traveled to four continents with this body, been to over forty countries, and walked the earth over thousands of miles. I’ve used my body to grow life, gorgeous life, life I’m proud of. I’ve used it to make love, to tend to sick people, to build a life around me… as nourishment. I fed my babies with my body. I have loved with my body, and offered it as a gift …
My body has also been used… as an object, as a toy, as someone else’s right to …
In counseling and recovery groups, one of the most important aspects of overall health is the area of self-acceptance. We cannot be healthy at the soul level if we don’t accept who we are, flaws and beauty both.
I think it’s also true for the body.
I would like to come to a place where I accept my body as the vase that contains my true self. Maybe I’ve done that. But there lies a deeper truth, a truth I need to grapple with and reconcile, settle into. My body is my true self. I am not separate from my body. It’s not a separate entity. If someone uses my body inappropriately, they use me inappropriately. If I abuse my body, I am abusing myself.
Perhaps this is why touch is so healing. When a person touches our body in love, and we are at a place to receive it as such, it heals something in us. It nourishes us, it grounds us.
As we go into summer, we will certainly see more of our bodies than we do in the winter. Some of us are proud of our weight, our shape, our frame. Others of us are mortified summer is arriving and we’ll have to be in places where our bodies will be looked upon and leered at, or where we’ll be compared one to another.
Maybe it’s time to practice something different. To practice loving our bodies just as they are. I’m not talking about a self-focused love. I’m talking about a settled acceptance. This is who I am right now. And it is enough.
For Reflection and Conversation: How do you see your body? How have you come to accept yourself just as you are?
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Tina,
I like the observation that our bodies are the “vase” we are poured into, and, even more, your observation that “my body is me” strikes me as important. At Fuller Seminary, there is an emphasis on the unity of the human person, in contrast to the tripartite model that is more commonly held in Christian circles: it is not just our souls that will experience eternity, it is our whole selves, body mind and spirit. When it is said we are loved by God, it is not just some inner subset of emotions and thoughts, it is the totality of our being that was “knit together in our mothers’ wombs” as God the craftsman lovingly studied God’s handiwork–and this certainly includes our bodies. I wonder how the theological realities that God crafted my body, and that my body will be with me as I transcend the bounds of earthly life, should rightly affect my relationship with it now.
Blessings,
John
I love that God loves the “totality of our being” – including our bodies. Your thoughts challenge my theology. I need to think about these things some more!
Thank you so much for joining in the conversation.
xox
John,
You’re rattling my theological cage… 😉
I have a nephew who, due to complications at birth, was born with severe physical/mental challenges which have permanently affected his development. He is mute, but has no problem communicating through other means! He may have challenges mentally, but he has no shortage of character!
I have often wondered if, when we get to Heaven, what Rob will be like. Our immediate reaction here and now is that he is somehow “broken”, and that in Heaven he will be healed…. but what if God *doesn’t* see him as broken at all? Yes, we can ultimately trace all sicknesses and physical deformities back to the Fall and the resulting curse, but Rob is no less a “person” than any of the rest of us. He even has a relationship with Christ, which in its simplicity might just be more spiritually deep than the rest of us “normal” people.
Relating back to Tina’s original idea, we need to understand ourselves–all of ourselves–as loved and redeemed by God the way we are now, not as we somehow wish we would be, and that we need to somehow learn to love others, and especially ourselves as HE sees us, warts and all…
Once again, Tina, thank you for pushing this conversation forward!
What an incredible comment. I love it! It’s interesting you’d bring this up because yesterday John and I were talking about how our perceived weaknesses may not be weaknesses after all, but the very birthplace for where God’s grace breaks in and helps us live more fully into the person we are called to be.
Love this! Thank you for joining the conversation.
Tina
Great comments! I know body image is a huge thing these days, regardless of age, or even gender (though men approach it a little differently).
I know that there is a huge range of body types and weight that can still be considered healthy, but the question I’m still wrestling with is, what happens when you reach a point, either above or below norm, where your weight starts to have a serious negative impact on your health and life expectancy, raising serious concerns about diabetes, high blood pressure and stress on your heart, to mention a few? Add to this the fact that I’m talking about a spouse, and how I can be a positive influence on both her self image, and her physical health. I know there isn’t any simple answer to this issue, but it’s a serious concern, both for the individual, and for those around them who are supporting them.
Hi Charles,
I’m so glad you brought this into the conversation. Health issues matter so much. It’s really important to take care of our bodies and to love them. It’s also important to be a positive influence on those we love and not to shame them for overeating, or under-eating, and also to cultivate relationships of vulnerability and honesty. This January I decided to stop drinking wine for a short season. My good friend, John, quietly joined me in it without calling attention to his actions or making me feel bad. He simply joined me in my journey. That made all the difference. Companionship is a big deal and having no ulterior motives. We have to lovingly let our spouses be on their own journey and also be aware of opportune moments when they need us to help – which usually comes after they’ve asked for it.
I think it’s really beautiful when a husband wants to be a positive influence on his wife’s self-image. There are so many ways to do this. Most of them will have nothing to do with the outer appearance. When we see the true self and call it forth, name it, and people begin to live out of a deeper place of being loved instead of earning love, many times the strength to lose weight or eat healthier will just come on its own.
Thanks for commenting!
Tina
I love what you had to say John. I’ve always had a thought about how God knit is together but haven’t always given thought to what happens when we transcend with that body. I always figured our heavenly bodies will look “perfect”, unflawed. Like heavenly botox. No wrinkles or wobbly bits. But doesn’t Jesus say “let it be on earth as it is in heaven”? Doesn’t Jesus look like what he did on earth? He rose fully man right? Therefore, whatever he looked like on earth at 33 years old is what he looks like in heaven right?
(If none of that makes sense don’t judge me…. I’m coming off night shift. Everything looks a little less clear! Ha!)
I love those thoughts. I think we have such a misconception of what it’s all going to look like on the other side of time. And we’ll have a different understanding of wobbly bits and wrinkles … I bet we’ll see them differently.