Mean Girl

I had a bit of a revelation last night.  I am a mean girl.  Like full on, member of The Plastics, mean girl. 

I've always known I had a mean streak. I love to sit in judgment of the fashion and life choices of others, just as much as the next person.  I fully realize the hypocrisy in judging someone else when you don't have your own poop in a group - hello, Pot?  Meet Kettle.  But it's just so darn SATISFYING sometimes!  Why else do we watch shows like Jersey Shore and Teen Mom?  It makes you feel better about your own life! And after a while, you learn to ignore that slightly nauseated, hungover feeling you get after binging on too much trainwreck.

Anyway, back to last night's revelation.  I'm the worst kind of mean girl.  Because the person I'm meanest to?  Is me.

As you may have read in previous posts, I see a therapist.  My assignment for last night was to write a letter to my body.  This was inspired by my sharing with her the feelings of gratitude I had after yoga classes. I shared some of the same sentiments in the letter that you can find in my previous post.  I found, of course, as I was writing down all the things my body CAN do for me, and all the things I'm appreciative of, that it was so easy for my mind to say, "But what about your fat rolls?  And sure, your legs are strong, but what about the pain in your ankles from carrying around all that weight?  Oh, you like your hair?  Well, don't you think it's a little flat and limp?  And you can't say you have nice fingernails when you have fat sausage fingers, can you?"  Ouch.  

I tried to ignore the negative thoughts and stayed focused on the positive.  After writing to my body, I was to turn around and write as if my body was responding.  I felt pretty silly, but soon I found the words were flowing.  The response, in a nutshell, was that I was treating my body, who had done so much for me, like crap.  I had been feeding it crap, letting it get fat and lazy, and then, in true abusive fashion, I had been trash talking it when it wouldn't do what I wanted it to.  The thought-provoking question from my therapist?  What if your body was a person who did all these things for you, and you spoke to them and treated them like your body?  How would that person feel? 

A lot of my therapy has circled back to trying to figure out where issues stem from, which means a lot of analysis of my childhood and my family.  Now I don't have any abuse or neglect or trauma in my past, but what I do have is a long line of obesity in my family.  Is it possible I picked up on this mean treatment of my body, of myself, as a child?  Learned that the body is something to be wrestled with and despised?  Watching my family battle weight, feel bad about their own body image, I'm sure that had an impact.  And then, after years of listening to me say, "You're too fat, you're not good enough, you'll never be thin", my body finally said, "Okay, you're right.  I'm fat."  And cue the self-fulfilling prophecy. 

So here we go - a new effort to to be grateful, to appreciate my body for what it is, and to give it the recognition, the nourishment, and the exercise that it needs.  It's time to listen to what my body has to say to me and give it what it needs.