Like many women, I have had, if not, a love-hate relationship with my body, at least a love-courtship-sometimes-disdain and frustration with this now 54 year old Goddess who gazes and sometimes glares back at me from my mirror. If you want to get a true reading on how you feel about yourself, stand naked in front of a full length mirror and wait until the monkey mind chatter begins. What does it say to you? The first place my eyes go are not to my gym trained arms, which look great, by the way and of which Michelle Obama would be proud, nor to my tush which is toned and firm, not even to legs that have trekked countless miles on the elliptical, cybex or recumbent bicycle at Planet Fitness (a.k.a. The Judgement Free Zone) that I have been visiting 4-5 times a week for the past 3 ½ years. Nope, they go immediately to my abdomen whose rounded form protrudes more than I would like. In 1992, I had an ectopic pregnancy and the lower ab muscles were cut and no matter what I have done, they remain recalcitrant; not wanting to get with the program. The monkey squawks “Are you ever gonna get in shape?”
Some back story…as a child, I was diagnosed with asthma and was pigeon toed and flat-footed. It stirred up in me, an overpowering desire to prove that I wasn’t going to be limited in any way. I became a type-A overachiever in nearly every respect. At 11, I joined a swim team, at the recommendation of our family doc, in order to improve my cardio-vascular functioning. I discovered that I liked the way I felt during and after intense workouts (and it is also when I learned to meditate, since swimming lap after lap can become tedious, so I became mindfully mindless in the watery ashram). It was referred to as ‘competitive swimming’ and not only did I feel in competition with other swimmers (two in particular who had a few inches on me), but with myself, striving to beat my best time and theirs. When I didn’t, I worked out all the more rigorously. I chose butterfly as my favorite stroke, since it is considered by some to be the most challenging and also my toe-ing in made me a natural. All these years later, I still have the shoulders to show for it. I swam on teams until I was 18 and then coached for 3 summers after that. Never was I as tough on the kids on my team as I was on myself. They would probably have quit, and justifiably so, had I hurled the criticism on them that I have on myself.
In the 5th decade of my life, I don’t have the slim and sleek swimmer’s physique I had 30 years ago. I am a muscular/well rounded seasoned woman who has curves where once there were flat planes. I cringe sometimes when gazing at my belly that was almost non-existent back then. Trips to the gym are physical and emotional necessities. I do what I can while I am there to feed my soul with support and give myself a hardy ‘atta girl’ on my way to the car afterward.
Holding myself to higher standards is nothing new to me. The words “You should know better,” echo in my ears frequently. ‘Because I’m a therapist, because I’m a mom, because I’m in my 50′s, because, because, because….’ At times I have worked myself into exhaustion attempting to ‘get it right’, meet a deadline, offer the perfect therapeutic intervention, or polish an article so that it reads just right.
In my therapy practice over the years, I have worked with people whose self- deprecation goes to extremes that include addiction, self -injury, eating disorders and suicide attempts. Their impossibly high standards for their lives, sometimes lead them to give up on themselves, their families, friends and life itself. I have heard them mercilessly compare themselves to others in their circles and to celebrities who they imagine live charmed lives, so that they fall short. I remind them of the number of notables who take the same turns that they do and end up disillusioned as well. Physical beauty, financial wealth, the trappings of success doesn’t always lead to a happy life. The standards by which we compare ourselves are what are flawed, not the woman or the man we see when we look in the mirror.
Some years ago, I saw Eve Ensler in her one woman show called The Good Body, met her backstage and interviewed her following the performance in Philadelphia. The play highlighted her own ambivalent relationship with her form and figure; focusing as well on her belly and what she did to ignore it, shrink it, camouflage it and begin to accept it. When I saw her face to face, I was amazed at how petite and compact she was. Did her belly round a bit? Yes. Was it the first thing I would have noticed when looking at her? No way.
I’ve started drinking this probiotic drink called Good Belly. I like the name since it is what I would like to think of my own. I have been speaking more kindly to it, massaging it, learning to embrace it for what it is. I think about the image of The Goddess of Willendorf with her rounded breasts and belly and how that icon was honored for her fecundity. Although I have never given birth to a child and am an adoptive parent to a now 26 year old, I have birthed many creative projects. I would like to say that I completely love and accept myself AS IS; seasoned woman’s body and all of the nurturing, and adoration it has experienced in the 5 plus decades since I landed on the planet.
