Healing from Diet Culture: Diving Deeper
Here I am again at the keyboard with Lord knows how much time before my baby angel wakes up from his celestial slumber.
I like this challenge: write a blog post before he wakes up. Unfiltered. Unedited. Transparent mind dump.
This is quite different from how I used to write blog posts pre-baby. Usually I set myself up at the dining room table after dinner with a glass of wine or tea or decaf coffee. The house was filled with the warm glow of the setting sun and sounds of John Mayer. I contemplated my experience, word-smithed my thoughts, and edited the final project with all the time in the world.
Something that means more to me than my body…being a good mother to this sweetie.
Not anymore!
Fast forward to today. I sit at the kitchen island with a cup of (very) caffeinated coffee directly in front of me. Baby monitor sits to the left of my laptop, blasting the comforting sound of static…a sound that is much preferred to baby cries that could break through the silence at any moment. (Parents out there - you get this, right? If ya know, you know.)
Okay - onto the real reason I was inspired to write this morning.
Y’all. I’ve been struggling lately. Hard. I’m five years into healing from disordered eating/exercise and severe body dysmorphia, and it feels like I’m back at the beginning again. Recently I’ve had a couple bad body image days (weeks…months…). Even though I can rationally understand why I’m having a hard time, I’m needing to work on how to process through it from an emotional, deeper level. I don’t want to just be able to think myself out of my struggles. I need to move my healing from my brain to my body. To embody my healing (stealing this from my very good friend/colleague, Katie, who inspires me every day!).
When I was driving to work a couple days ago, I had a couple realizations that helped me shift this funkkkkkkk I’ve been in. I hope they’re helpful for you.
Who am I trying to impress?
I hate getting dressed. I don’t know my style. I don’t fit into my clothes. It’s a struggle every day as I stand in my closet, gazing at my much-too-limited selection (especially because 3/4 of what I own currently needs to be washed and is in a pile next to my laundry basket). My style feels boring and bland and not cool. But here’s the realization I had: WHO AM I TRYING TO IMPRESS?! Who needs me to look “cool?” And even beyond that - who needs me to be thin? Who do I think is going to be judging me? The answer: No one. NO ONE. (And if someone does look at my outfit/body and judge me for it, well that’s on them.)
Living true to one of my main values: family. Front-porch-rocking with my husband. No make-up. Not a trace of “cool-ness.” Just us.
No longer disordered
I was talking to my sister about all of this a couple days ago, and she asked me a simple question: Is your eating disordered anymore? The answer: No. Do you know how profound that is? To realize that even though I’m probably not eating as balanced as I should be (thanks to the pandemic and life stress), my eating is NO LONGER DISORDERED. There is a very big difference between not eating enough vegetables (now) and binging/purging/obsessing over nutrition (then). Sure, I’m not where I want to be with my eating…I’m sure I could have more energy if I was more intentional with what I ate. And I’m sure I’ll have seasons of my life where I do eat more salads and sautéed spinach and quinoa than I do now. But I am no longer engaging in disordered eating…and that is huge. That was a huge realization for me.
Need to dig deeper
Listening to anti-diet podcasts or following anti-diet Instagram accounts or reading anti-diet books aren’t as helpful as they used to be. When I first started my healing, I clung to every message. Christy Harrison, anti-diet dietician, was my goddess. I learned new information every day.
But now, I get it. I’ve absorbed the messages and have shifted my mentality. I see societal beauty standards and the thin ideal and fatphobia for what it is: diet culture is misogyny embodied. It keeps women preoccupied with their bodies and makeup and hair and clothes and accessories so that we don’t have time to overthrow the patriarchy, pursue our passions, and live our lives. We are shackled to superficiality. Women are better controlled when we are small, literally and figuratively. I get all of this.
I’ve gotten mad. Sad. I’ve grieved. I’ve fought back. But now…after five years of recovery…and being able to quote Isabel Foxen Duke and Jes Baker and Summer Innanen…and reading every book…and listening to every podcast (multiple times)…and blogging…and going to therapy…and sizing up over and over again in my clothes…and learning to eat intuitively…and healing my relationship with exercise/movement…why am I still struggling harder than ever before? It’s because…
(Baby woke up at 7:15 AM. Insert changing his diaper x 3, making/eating/cleaning up breakfast, getting dressed, emptying the dishwasher, showering, and a play date with our neighbors. Now’s it’s 12:25 PM and baby is asleep. Back to the post!)
It’s because my issue is deeper than diet-culture and my body. My issue is (and has always been) the thing we all struggle with so profoundly - paying attention to our deepest values and living from that place intentionally, so that our thoughts, words, behaviors, and decisions all reflect what matters most.
Rumi wrote, “You set out to find God, but then you keep stopping for long periods at mean-spirited roadhouses.” Because of living in survival mode, I stray away from living from this authentic place and end up in “mean-spirited roadhouses.”
Tara Brach, psychologist and Buddhist teacher, says that “we start noticing our habitual ways of leaving. And in the midst of that, we ask what is my intention?” We leave when we stop paying attention, lose our intention, and enter into fight-flight-freeze. For me, that looks like obsessive thoughts about my body. When I stop focusing my attention intentionally, my attention is focused unconsciously and automatically on the superficial, low-hanging-fruit like dissatisfaction with my body. It’s easy to focus on my body because my too-tight clothes remind me of it all day long. It’s right there…in my face…and easy to pay attention to if I lose my intentional attention. (Also I just need to buy new pants. And I did. So that should be better!).
Hand on heart
Tara Brach (can you tell I love her?!) then continues to offer something we can do when we notice that our attention to what matters has strayed. She suggests putting your hand on your heart and saying, “I’m sorry. I care about this suffering.” Offer kindness to yourself in those moments. And then ask the deeper question, “What really matters here? What do I want with this body? What is my intention?”
What is my intention?
My intention is to live with kindness, towards myself and others. To live authentically, for others to see the true me so that they may be their true selves with me. To be a present, loving mother so that my son grows up feeling seen and heard and valued for his intrinsic Goodness. To be goofy and light-hearted, so that I can live my brief days on this planet with a smile on my face.
Take-aways for myself
I don’t have to impress anyone. It’s not my job to be cool. Being “cool” is not something I value or need to be.
My eating isn’t perfect, but at least it’s no longer disordered. This is something to celebrate!
Offer kindness to myself in moments that I’m suffering. Hand on heart as I walk into the closet every morning to get dressed. Hand on heart as I notice myself comparing what I’m wearing to my more-stylish coworkers. Hand on heart as I look at my naked body in the mirror.
And with my hand on my heart, pause to pay attention to my intention…so that I may live from an awake, enlightened place. So that I think, speak, and act based on my deepest values.
“If you want to stop to be kind, you must swerve often from your path. When our path is left up to our survival brain, we have a lot of controlling and judging and selfing. It means pausing a lot. To become aware of the intention driving us and trace back to our most awake intention. We have habits and lots are from our survival brain. If we want to change that, we have to pause a lot and ask this question, “What is going on? What’ is driving me? Can I bring kindness here? What is my intention? Where attention goes, energy flows.”
