Thoughts on Body Image

I would not be surprised if almost everyone didn't battle with their body image. Most of the time, we're not even in our own bodies and only pay attention to it when there's something to criticize. I have to admit, after I had a child, I didn't consider my body mine anymore and a lot of the comments I received after I had a kid was a version of, "Wow! You really snapped back!" instead of my actual newborn.

Of course, it's a compliment, but a part of me hated that it's the first thing people look for postpartum. It's not their fault either; our society constantly connects our worth with our weight. My body did change though and wasn't the same. On top of not feeling like myself due to hormones, I didn't see the same person in the mirror. It's very disorienting, especially during the 10 months you ARE pregnant and growing in that way (also, why do we say 9 months? It's practically 10 months in weeks). It is absolutely a reason to be grateful for your body and how it can adapt. It IS badass to be able to grow and push out life, but it doesn't mean it isn't hard on us mentally.

I don't personally think I had postpartum depression, but I completely understand why some ladies do. Physically and emotionally, pregnancy is kind of traumatic and a major shock to your system, and I'm a bit tired of hearing that if it's not all sunshine and roses that something is wrong with you or you're not connecting properly with your child. No one can prep you for the most transformative event in your life no matter how many classes, breathing techniques, creams or lotions for stretch marks that you use. You are not the same on the other side.

So while I did look similar with my clothes on after having my son, I started really becoming critical of myself. My boobs BALLOONED when I was pregnant, and in the years to come, they lost their shape, their firmness, and the nipples look downward rather than at the horizon. Thanks a lot gravity. Because my chest became so large, my posture started to suffer. Every time I pass by a mirror or a window, I see my shoulders rounded over and I scold myself. Also, while my belly didn't have any stretch marks, I could tell it's elasticity wasn't what it used to be. It wasn't loose, but I had many more rolls. Especially after the pandemic where most of us were sedentary, love handles standard to form on me and whatever ass I had was now flat from sitting around, doing nothing.

That's when I turned to yoga. It helped me firm up and shed weight I had gained, even getting me back to where I was in high school! But then, I got on Lexapro which made me gain all the weight back within a matter of 6 months. It felt like shit. All the hard work I had put into looking and feeling like myself again seemed wasted. I tried to work out even harder and more frequently, but it didn't make a difference. It's a big reason why I ended up getting off of Lexapro, although I do want to emphasize that I felt emotionally stable enough at that point with the self-study and regulation techniques I had acquired and practiced regularly.

While on Lexapro, I also kept my rule of having sugar on only Fridays (more about that later in a separate post), and stayed conscious of healthy foods that are organic and non-processed with simple ingredients. I rarely ate meat unless it was cooked for me by my partner or at a restaurant (partially for ethical reasons and partially because I will overcook any good slab of meat).

The thing that really pushed me over the edge was when I discussed my weight concerns with my psychiatrist who said, "Are you sure you're not just eating more because the holidays just passed?" I'm sorry, but 1-2 days of extra cheating in November and December is not going to make you gain 10-15 extra pounds as I did. Since I'm 5'5" as well, a few pounds really shows!

Now, I have been off Lexapro for about 3 months and have started to see the weight decrease little by little, but it's still a work in progress. When I try on outfits, I would scorn how much I felt set back and looked so much more... blubber-esque. It would spill out over the top of my pants, my boobs grew even BIGGER and the clothes I bought to celebrate the progress I was making before Lexapro no longer fit. For a medication that is supposed to calm your anxieties, you would think it wouldn't give you a whole new set of discouragements.

What's so crazy is that I would never criticize another person for their weight and ridicule how they look. It's just me being hard on myself, which lead to me coming to terms with the possibility that I have self-worth issues. Why did I feel so bad about myself for having some extra meat on me? It was no longer about being healthy, it was about how I thought other people would view me and society's beauty standards. I then started to embrace the clothes I DID look good in: dresses, flowy and breathable pants, jumpsuits, skirts and combinations that really felt good. I looked at my jeans that clung to my shape and realized... why am I shoving myself into these? Maybe I don't need them at all. I started understanding the clothes could work for me and that I didn't need to work for the clothes by starving myself or exercising to exhaustion.

It's true that we are all different shapes and sizes, but I know for me, that fact is hard to accept. I see skinny ladies and think to myself, I wonder how they get that way, what do I need to do in order to achieve that? But I know in my heart that maybe they too have an unhealthy way they treat themselves with restrictions and pushing their bodies more than they should. I also knew I have NEVER had their shape and I wasn't physically built that way. And it's true that everything we don't have, we want. I know some of my friends want knockers like mine and I'm begging them to trade for a chest that doesn't weigh me down. I sometimes seriously wonder how much weight I would lose by just removing these two sandbags. I've even considered getting a breast reduction.

Then, I watched an episode of botched and swore that idea away. Any risk of a surgery going south scares me far more than the way my body is. Honestly, that show really made me realize how many people are desperate to change their bodies. Now, I don't have anything against cosmetic surgery. If there's something that will make you confident, go for it. However, the people who revise and go under the knife multiple times without satisfaction, there's a deeper internal issue going on that needs to be addressed. Of course, no judgment when I say that, all compassion. Our societal expectations, especially for women, are brutal and inflexible.

I also have a partner that is really supportive. He tells it like it is, I do have rolls and large fun-bags, but he reminds me that I'm perfect and that he wouldn't want to change anything about how I look. It certainly helps to hear I'm desirable, but it doesn't fully take away the root problem of low self-worth and self-acceptance. Validation of who you are shouldn't come from anyone else but yourself. So I started recognizing the things I did, truly, love about myself:

• My beautiful green eyes, and a nice set of eyelashes to go with it.

• The freckles on my face that are starting to pop up with age (P.S. shout out to Lindsay Lohan who made freckles cool.)

• My weirdly straight teeth without ever having to have braces.

• My tiny, nimble hands.

• My graceful neck with a single mole on it.

• My eyebrows, that would be a Frida Khalo situation if I didn't shape them, but I'm always happy with the results.

• The profile of my nose. It reminds me of a shark.

Here is also how I'm turning my criticisms into positive things:

• Butt acne: I have a lot of scarring and dark spots after years of butt acne. I've tried multiple remedies, but being insecure about my bottom lead me to deduce that it wasn't a cleanliness issue; it was a breathable issue. The sanitary pads I was using was quite literally suffocating the area during my time of the month and keeping the bacteria trapped on my skin. I started using tampons more often, but especially during a heavy flow, tampons sometimes don't cut it. I now use Always' Flexfoam pads which has helped immensely! I still get a pimple here and there, but it is not as frequent or cystic as it used to be with this new product.

• My nails: I have a major problem with biting my nails and the skin around them. It's partially anxiety, boredom, and just a plain bad habit even when I'm not anxious or bored. When I see ladies with perfectly manicured nails, I wonder "wow, that must be nice. I wonder how it is to not have a nasty habit everyone can see." It has cause me to try to catch myself when I do resort to biting them, however. My goal is when my nails have finally grown out, I can reward myself with a manicure! The problem is that my nails end up breaking before I get out to the salon, most likely because they're weak from all the picking. I am doing better at maintaining their shape and filing down rough edges before it becomes a "chipping point". Get it? We love puns here.

• My chubby feet: I know it sounds weird, but I have feet that I feel are larger than what my frame probably requires. They're wide and just have a lot of meat on them. My big toe, especially, hits the tops of my flats all the time to the point of indentations in the fabric of my shoes and nail pain. I will say, yoga has helped them shrink a bit which is funny. I even went down a whole shoe size, but I feel like a lot of us just don't pay attention to our feet or even stay mindful of how we walk. Yoga has taught me that taking care of your feet is so important to staying balanced throughout your whole posture. My feet were stiff without much articulation throughout the bones and tendons. Now I've made it a mission to really warm up my feet, massage them, and stay aware of how they can help me in each pose and how I present myself from the ground up out in the world.

• My T-Rex arms: I've always known my arms were disproportionate to the rest of my body. I really started to become aware of it when I practiced yoga and my arms couldn't reach to certain places my instructor or other people could. I usually need to use the tip of my fingers if I don't want lose the integrity of the pose. I remember in PE back in elementary school, I was so self conscious for not being able to claps my hands behind my back like everyone else. I actually find it nice to know that it's not a flexibility thing and just how I am. It only upholds the truth that we come in all shapes and sizes. It's completely normal. The only other thing is that with my large chest, it visually dwarfs my arms. My arms aren't skinny per se, but the girth of limbs has a sharp decline around my forearms. I can wrap my thumb and point finger around my wrist and my hands are quite small.

• My cheeks: I have some massive chipmunk cheeks (along with my sister). I've tried contouring. It doesn't work. However, I do like to think that the amount of fat I have in my cheeks will have me age quite gracefully like my mother.

• My tummy: Tale as old as time, right? I've always had a little pudge. I remember being self-conscious about my stomach back in elementary school compared to all the other girls who didn't have an ounce of fat on them. Nothing much has changed but what I will say is that I'm proud of how far I've come when connecting to my core. There are so many things I can do now, for longer, that I wasn't able to do before. I may not be ripped, but the strength I have built at my center has really had an impact, not only for my work outs, but for my back too. The muscles that hug around my skeleton and spine has been reinforced so that my position during exercise will not injure my back. That's HUGE and I'm grateful for the power my stomach has generated to ensure minimal wear and tear on the rest of my body.

• My hips: My hips are quite pear shaped for my body. They go far out and come back far in. Think Elasta-girl... but if Elasta-girl was 5'5". I also have a lot of pain in my hips so I'm constantly working on stretching them and targeting the nooks and crannies that need soothing. Honestly, I'm incredibly thankful for my hips because they're what has made me really listen to my body and what it needs in other areas as well.

  
  

Accepting yourself and your body is an uphill battle. While we've been told we're never enough by societal messages as an external force, that gets into our psyche for how we think we should treat ourselves too. Even though we know these expectations are unrealistic, many of us just want to excel and find our place in the society that works against us. I really do believe that much of what's wrong in the world is that we feel we simply cannot be ourselves. Once we have everything we asked for, many of us still feel something is missing and usually it's the parts of ourselves that we have ignored and shaped to be something else. We need to make society work for us just as we incorporate yoga that makes us feel good and our own personal style that compliments our figure.

That's why I love shows like Queer Eye because they work with what you already have. Tanny does a fantastic job of finding pieces of clothing that suits people with curves, no matter how wide or how big. There is something out there for you. Definitely check out some of their episodes on Netflix to be inspired by their styling tips and advice on building confidence (or just to have a good cry!). What makes a truly happy life is being grateful for the things you already have and not what you're lacking. Greed leads to needing more even though you have everything... which only spurs further dissatisfaction and tension!

Don't fall into that trap. You are smart and worthy just as you are right now <3

Spend time on the things that make you feel good. It will only bring you closer to yourself and to contentment. Emotions attract more of the same thing, so build up that positivity for yourself rather than negativity. This is the only beautiful body you have and treating it with kindness will only make it flourish more. We need to stop ignoring and avoiding our bodies. Your body wants is to be heard and treated with love and care, like we all want in life and from each other. It's important to take that first step for yourself so that you will be open to those similar opportunities in life.

Take care,

Tedders

(Owner/Contributor)