BY LETTING GO OF OUTER BULLSHIT
Hello there and happy Tuesday! I hope this week finds you planting your feet in the knowledge that you are an excellent human being, and you are doing your best. I'm drinking Irish Breakfast tea this morning (so predictable) and thinking about turning down the outer noise.
It's been one heck of a time for the fat positive movement lately. With weight loss drugs and "leggings legs" being hot topics on social media and beyond, I feel like I've hopped back to the nightmare that was the 1990's. Oh my god, I gave the Snackwells corporation so much of my money back then. Why?!
Personally, I've been feeling a bit underwater. So yesterday I signed up for an online community designed to help in creating daily habits for well being. As is common when I'm not feeling my best, I've been sliding on my meditation, water drinking and the general habits that help me to feel good, and I thought a community would be a nice and helpful thing. Moments into it, they started talking about being "overweight" in conjunction with bad habits and shitty health, which led to me feeling uncomfortable and unwelcome. Frustrated, I cancelled my membership.
In moments like these, the world can feel exhausting, confusing and depleting. And I'm not going to lie, there are times when I look around and ask myself if I'm crazy for wanting to swim against the tide of popular opinion. Because when the noise gets so loud, sometimes it's hard to know what's right. It's hard to hear your own thoughts and feelings above the cacophony of marketing creeps and general ass holes.
But here's the thing, the vehemence with which these trends are rolling in is a reminder that something is changing. If we weren't making headway and bringing more people around to treating themselves and their glorious bodies with love, respect and kindness, we wouldn't have this kind of backlash. If we didn't have more people saying "fuck you!" to the diet culture industry, we wouldn't have people feeling so furious with fat positive activists and influencers.
There will always be the pendulum swing as a reaction to this kind of momentum, so what do we do to weather the storm? How do we protect our peace while still fighting for our right to exist in our bodies as they are?
Well, I certainly haven't perfected this, but my little foray into that online community yesterday offered a few wonderful reminders. The first one being my tendency to look for outward approval before I seek my own wisdom. For decades, I looked to other people and society at large to tell me what I was doing wrong and how I could fix it. This led to all kinds of terrible advice and only deepened my hatred for my body. It also doubled down on me feeling like the solution was somewhere outside of myself.
Which brings us to the second reminder. I don't need to ask a bunch of people because I already know how to take care of myself and what's best for me. I know what I need to do to get my habits back on track. I know that I feel a thousand times better physically and mentally when I'm not chasing fad diets and listening to fat hate. I know that staying off socials and taking down time helps me to come back to myself. I also know that when I'm ready to be online again, I'm empowered and inspired by the wonderful people doing this work, and I'm blocking the hell out of anyone who wants to police bodies and shame women (especially youth) for being anything other than thin.
Don't get me wrong, I love a sense of community and it's so important in this work and in life. We need each other. But we also need to be able to sit quietly with ourselves and let the noise and nonsense fade away. We need to be able to ask ourselves and our bodies what is right for us.
Your body is all yours to do with as you please. But how can you know what that is when all you hear is one loud and toxic message? How can you know what is right for you, when people are so furiously telling you that your body is wrong?
Well, how about we start with a new message? Let's flip the script and see where that takes us! Spoiler...it's somewhere better.
You and your body are most excellent! You are not a before picture or a project. You are lovely. You are doing your best and that is enough. You deserve peace. Let yourself embody that knowledge and sit in the freedom of it. Quiet the outer noise and from that place, check in with what you need. Trust yourself and go from there.
It's tough out there right now. But the pendulum will swing again, and until then, you deserve to protect your peace. Whatever that means for you.
As always, I'd love to hear about it! How are you doing? How do you support yourself when you feel bombarded with negative messaging about your body? How can you silence the outer noise for at least a few minutes every day, and offer time to connect with yourself and your body? Let me know in the comments below!
As you move through this week, remember to treat yourself and your body with love, respect and kindness.
Much love,
Helen xo