Two months ago I was on a road trip from one end of Utah to the other (without my three older kids), so of course I did what I always do - call every one of my mom friends to see if anyone can talk on the phone. This time it was Anna, and we got talking about how I've still been struggling with postpartum depression. For the last five months, I've been dealing with feeling tired, sad, and overwhelmed by eating more than my body needs, and consequently, gaining weight. It's funny how you think you're a hot shot in the self-love category until you become the heaviest you've ever been and all of a sudden are not feeling so "in love with yourself" anymore. I feel like I'm usually pretty good at being able to manage my thoughts when I feel negatively about my body or other aspects of myself, but for some reason it feels impossible right now. Each little intrusive thought becomes quickly insidious, like a drop that creates a rippling effect of self deprecation. And the more I see the ripples and reach out to try and smooth them, the more my hands flounder and create waves that seem to nearly drown me. It's an endless cycle of trying to fix myself and then hide from myself again.
I didn't get this specific when Anna and I were on the phone, but I did tell her about gaining weight and feeling frustrated with myself. She told me about a book she recently read called More Than a Body - Your Body Is an Instrument, Not an Ornament by Lindsay and Lexie Kite. About a week after our phone conversation, it ended up in my mailbox (a surprise package from my sweet friend.)
It's been taking me a minute to get through the book. As I like to joke, I'm making it through about one book a year at the rate I'm reading these days. But however slow, I can tell that it's waking me up to new ways of thinking. As a woman in the world today, I sincerely feel like there are so many forces at work that have the goal of convincing us that we never look good enough. As America Ferrera's character Gloria poignantly monologued in the Barbie Movie, "It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don't think you're good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we're always doing it wrong. You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin," and on and on. And she hit the nail on the head - there will always be a company, a product, an instagram reel (is that what they're called?), another human, ready to tell you one more thing to fix so that you look better. When you're striving to look a certain perfect way, there is no winning.
This book is helping me see how consistently I objectify myself, which seems so weird to admit because when I hear the word "objectify" I usually think of the way one person sees another, but to objectify means to "degrade to the status of a mere object," and I'm definitely doing plenty of that. For however long I can remember, I've been objectifying myself every single day when I walk past a reflective surface. Every time I dance, walk down the sidewalk, or sit in church. In so many instances I'm living outside of my own body, picturing what I look like to the people around me. I hope to be an ornament, decorating my surroundings and bringing visual pleasure to the eyes that fall on me. I always hope I look fit, stylish, feminine, strong, slender and curvy in the "right" places, and sexy (depending on the setting). And this strange objectification of myself leaves me constantly living outside of myself, often paying a lot more attention to how I look than how I feel INSIDE my own body, which disconnects me from myself and leaves me desperately clinging to a fragile and highly-conditional version of self esteem.
For a long time I've thought that striving to feel beautiful and help others feel beautiful, regardless of "physical flaws," was the key to feeling confident and happy. But what I'm learning is that focusing on my looks will never lead me to the contentment I truly seek, which comes from an unconditional love for myself; TRULY believing that my value as a woman/human/daughter of God is intrinsic, and that nothing I do can or will increase or decrease that value. The Kite sisters declare that "the truth is, when we stop giving beauty the power to make us, we take away its power to break us."
In essence, the way to break free is to shift our focus from the way our bodies look to the things our bodies can do and what we're physically experiencing. How does the wind feel against my face when I'm outside on a walk? What emotions come up when I hold Violet close and smell her sweet baby hair? Do I appreciate how my strong legs can hold up an eight-year-old for another round of airplane? How beautifully connected do I feel to Truman when we're making love and all I'm thinking about is us, right there in that moment? Although it feels so hard right now, I have faith that practicing these shifts in perspective can and will eventually help me rewrite the way I'm living. I've been "overweight" and unhappy, and I've also been very "thin" and unhappy, which is evidence to me that my happiness has little to do with my perception of how I look.
I believe that another important avenue to this higher path is to disrupt the usual conversations that revolve around physical appearance. For instance, if someone says something about how good you look when you've lost weight, you can respectfully respond with something like, "I appreciate that because I believe you mean it as a compliment, but I'm actually doing a lot of work to not focus so much on my appearance. Want to join me?" There are SO many ways to compliment someone, and when we take a moment to get uncomfortable and think harder, we have the opportunity to show someone they're valued for something other than their physical appearance. (Disclaimer: I don't think complimenting someone on their looks is wrong. I feel like God has given us so many cool ways to be creative through avenues like fashion, hair, and makeup. I am coming to believe, however, that body compliments specifically may actually create more harm than good as they support objectification. Take it or leave it.)
The bummer is, at least for now, nearly every moment of every day feels like a constant obsession to lose weight. It seems like every spare thought I have is about what I eat, what I don't eat, why my body has more fat than I want it to, how most of my clothes are too tight, and just "giving in" and eating whatever I want to try to counter the obsessing. I can tell that my ability to manage these thoughts is far less effective than usual, and I'm hoping that therapy and some medication changes, along with daily effort, will help things get better.
It's almost comical because I find myself thinking "really, this again?" It seems like I gotta figure out this food and body stuff over and over and over in this life. And sometimes I just feel really annoyed about that. But in other moments I see glimmers of who I'm beautifully becoming, and I recognize that these heart-wrenching struggles are the only way to get there. There are so many times in my life where I've looked back and thought "wow, I can't believe I made it through that. I thought I actually might die." And it's amazing to see how undeniably true it was that those rough waters were the perfect setting for extraordinary growth. So for now, I'm going to faithfully follow Dory's advice and just keep swimming.
