Reclaim Your Body
Welcome to the July newsletter. Summer is in full swing, and here in Kentucky, it's hot! I'm an avid reader and, recently, I read a book that floored me, The Body is Not an Apology, written by Sonya Rene Taylor. The book is about using what she calls "Radical self love"' to change the way we look at ourselves, the ways we relate to other people, and to change the world for the better. Some of the ideas are familiar to me, and she says some of the same things in the book I say to clients: that we have to make friends with the parts of ourselves we've rejected, and that we have to love all of ourselves without reservation.
I was reading along in the book, saying "yes, yes, yes" as I read. Then, I got to a passage where Taylor wrote about posting a picture of herself on Facebook, and part of the caption read, "...I am unashamed, unapologetic" (p. 18 in Kindle version). She asked others to post photos of themselves, "in which they felt unashamed and unapologetic in their bodies" (ibid). I stopped reading as I felt my whole body tigthen up. My throat closed, my heart pounded, I could feel my shoulders hunching up, I closed my mouth. I realized there is not a single picture of me I am proud of, not a single picture of me where I can honestly say I am unashsmed, unapologetic. It was a lightbulb moment. I am 62 years old and I have a long relationship with body shame.
As a child I was naturally thin and I used to get taunts of "knobby knees," and other things, which made me not want to show my legs. As I began to get my adult teeth, they were stained, because I'd taken tetracycline as a baby. Taunts about my teeth caused me to not want to open my mouth. I had eczema and my pediatrician told me I better stop scrathing, because if I didn't no one would ever want to marry me. When we moved to Pennsylvania when I was in sixth grade, I was taunted about my hair, which was wavy. It goes on and on. Along the way I internalized that shame, and began to hate my body, my face, my hair, my teeth, my smile, my skin.
Even now, I took at pictures of myself and see only flaws. I am just beginning to unpack all of the shame I still hold about my body caused by those stories I told myself based on what others said. We all do this to some extent; allow the opinions of others to shape us and shame us.
The picture I have posted with this was taken on my eigths birthday. My parents were taking me to a fancy French restaurant for a birthday dinner. I loved my new, paisley printed dress, and my green fishnet tights. However, I am clasping my hands together to try hiding the obvious eczema and after seeing the picture, I was horrified you could see the dark blotch in my elbow folds from eczema. This picture became one piece of evidence in my prosecution of myself for being wrong and bad and having a defective body. I post this picture today to reclaim myself, to remember not the shame, but the delight at that dinner; the excitement of going to a "real" restaurant with cloth napkins and linen tablecloths. I remember drinking a shirley temple and eating fancy food. I remember that the waiter made me a doll out of a cloth napkin, folding it in such a way that it looked like a chef, complete with a face and details drawn on with his pen. I remember the joy of that new dress and those tights, and the black patent leather shoes.
What shame about your body do you hold? What parts of it do you consider bad or wrong? How does that influence how you treat yourself and treat others? How do you make the bodies of other people bad and wrong? Begin asking these questions. Reclaim your body now.
