HEALTH IS AN EPIC NOVEL NOT A SHORT STORY

One of my favorite parts about the movie Inside Out is the idea of core memories. You might be thinking, what do core memories have to do with physical health or maybe you’re on the other side of that coin, and you know exactly how they can be connected. In my life, they are deeply connected, for those of you who know me, you likely know that body image, weight, and fitness have been a struggle for pretty much my entire life. But here’s the catch: I remember being a little kid with no shame and running around all over the place without a care in the world and in total freedom, so what changed? I fully believe that, to some extent, it’s natural for us to be less free in our own skin as we age due to living in a broken world. Still, I started to wonder what changed, where my beliefs about myself came from, and how they are connected to my core memories.

My childhood and adolescence were full of negative messages about my body. Some of them were seemingly benign, things like regularly being asked how tall I was, but others cut to the deepest part of who I was. I will never forget the car ride to Wednesday night church during middle school when my mom, without bad intentions, started talking to me about her concern for my weight and that if I didn’t get better exercise and eat better portions, I would be fat. She expressed concern that my clothing size was bigger than it should be for a girl my age and that I wasn’t just “big-boned.” At the time, I remember being hurt by the words, but I also remember feeling like I knew she was right, and it was only confirmation that something was not okay with my body. As I look back, around that time was when I started to hide. I hid how much I ate, how much soda I drank, I hid my ability to be excellent behind inaction and apathy, and I hid how much it all hurt with more food.

Fast forward to the present day. The struggle is still real, but there has been so much healing in the midst of it. I am happy to say that my mom and I have been able to talk about the critical comments she has made about my body and habits and that a lot of healing has occurred in this area, but I still fight the expectations that were placed on me by myself, family, friends, and society at large. The fight is almost subconscious. Until about a year ago, I didn’t even realize that I was incredibly mean to myself or that I was steeped in shame about my size. I would think things about myself that I would never say to another person in a million years, and it didn’t even phase me, or so I thought. In reality, though, my desire to suppress the disgust I had for myself came out in overeating, watching way too much TV, and avoiding emotions in general. The life of avoiding my inner self took its toll on my mental and physical body.

Earlier this year, I was the heaviest I’ve ever been, had zero energy, and had a general lack of desire to do anything; I wasn’t depressed but was perpetually exhausted. I knew something had to give, and I knew a huge part of it was going to have to be what I chose to eat. I also knew that without work on the internal, the external would never be free. I continued to do the internal work, becoming more attuned to my emotions and their origins. I, as weird as it might sound, worked on nurturing the little girl who longed to be loved for who she was, not what size she was, and let her know that she is safe and loved. Then, finally, I started to feel a freedom about my physical body’s appearance, size, and level of health that was totally new. The most profound thing I did during this process was make a timeline of important messages, stages, and phases I went through with regard to my body image. As I wrote out the timeline, I started to see how shame had ruled over me and how freeing it is to let that out into the light. Just putting my feelings down on paper brought recognition to the hidden parts of me that desperately wanted to be visible and still loved. The process is not quick, and it is still very much a work in progress, but stepping into the light rather than hiding in the shame has, piece by piece allowed me to begin working on the outside too!