Loving every imperfect and blemished inch

(Me first thing in the morning without make up or getting done up)

Most would never know that I’ve struggled with weight and self-image my whole life.  I don’t tend to come off that way to most people.  In fact, the other day while teaching a class with my mentor she said, “DeAnza, is always so well put together”. This is the first time I’ve talked about this in public.

Growing up in a mixed race family with a poor Filipina mother who always navigated the world like a force to be reckoned with and a white grandmother who adored high- end fashion from Nordstrom I definitely acquired identity confusion.

Let me give you the backdrop:

In Filipino culture there is a strong matriarchal presence.  Although, there is an adherence to traditional gender roles (males=bread winner, females=home maker) the underlying power and leadership is on the matriarchal side of the family.  Women are the driving force.  Women are the ones that keep their families going.  They are the leaders behind the scene.

We were poor so we shopped at Goodwill and Kmart for our clothing.  I usually was made fun of at school and excluded from the ‘cool’ circle of girls.

On the other hand, my grandmother (my father’s mother) who helped raise me had a taste for quality.  Upon arriving at her house, she would arrange for me to go to Nordstrom to pick out a wardrobe that was acceptable to her qualifications and most of my peers’ standards.

I very much enjoyed these shopping excursions—who wouldn’t?

But growing up I continued to feel conflicted about myself.

An addition to this confliction is the fact that I have always been slender and petite.  This seemed to bring quite a bit of attention to me (still does).  People were either very complimentary or completely concerned about it.

In high school I had a group of women tell me that they were praying for me—in hopes that I did not have anorexia or ‘get’ anorexia.

Upon arriving home, I’d hear my own mother discuss her concern with weight.  This seems to be a preoccupation of Filipino culture—the idea of weight is very much tied to worth.

All of these (and many more) experiences in conjunction with our Western standards of beauty that are practically intravenously fed to us from the time we are born created an inner conflict.

In the sandwich of these messages I developed some real anxiety and concern over my presentation.  This tends to escalate over the holidays.  As we enter into this season I feel the ramp up of the eating-restricting dance that so many of us women know.  It goes something like this:

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Soon we will take pleasure in delightful, mouth- watering tastes that we swear off all year round and now make glorious exceptions.  We eat and we feel round.  We may even feel glory.

We participate in one holiday meal after the next.  And for a short time it feels good, warm and filling.  The buzz of tryptophan rocks us mellow and sedated.

The following day when we wake from our coma we swear ourselves off for the previous night’s binge on mashed potatoes and pumpkin pies.  We are feeling our roundness as regret when we say, “we are bloated—something must be done”.  We take to a quickie resolution plan—only water and salad for the next five days.

We convince ourselves that to get back on track is to restrict, i.e. starve ourselves back into acceptability.

Sound familiar?

The trouble with the food hangover and then the food starvation plan is the self-loathing and self-hatred that we find ourselves entwined in.

We mistake this feeling of restlessness for a lack of peace with food, but really what it is a lack of peace with ourselves.

We are doing our damndest to mold ourselves into an acceptable configuration of beauty, which may not be our norm but someone else’s.

We stop listening to ourselves.

We lose sight of who we are.

We place everyone else’s standard before our own.

We reject our voices and our needs.

Is there hope for change?

Here are a couple of ideas to consider:

1)   Change the Narrative

2)   Face Reality

3)   Radically Accept

Change the Narrative:

The holiday season is a time of celebration—no matter what you believe this time of year brings us together with friends and family for a time of celebrating life, the year’s triumph’s, successes and victories, blessing and relationships.

Across all traditions and cultures food is a primary platform for celebration.  Food gathers and unites people.  Food ushers us into the season with its smells and textures.  It prepares us for the season at hand.

Changing the narrative is saying, “I deserve a time to be celebrated and to celebrate”.  It’s changing the dialogue that has previously said you are unworthy and unwelcome.  Instead it is embracing the idea that you are a part of this community and, as is the case for every-single-person in community—there is space for you to partake in this celebration feast.

You may decide that there are still boundaries or parameters that you wish to employ in celebration, but you walk yourself through that process by asking:

How do I want to celebrate?

What does that look like practically?  Where do I want to eat?  With whom do I want to eat?  What do I want to eat?

What foods will be nourishing to my celebration process?

How will my soul be filled, as well as my belly?

Face Reality:

You are imperfect.  You are imperfect in body, soul, heart and mind.  The enticing dance of binging and restriction is a dynamic that seeks to control the chaos of imperfection and the fear that other’s will find out just how imperfect you really are.  It is a rage against your body’s futility and inability to invoke any real change.

I think we all have to get a little honest with ourselves here.  I can hear folks saying, “I know… I know… I’m not perfect, duh”!

But the thing is you desire perfection.  You may desire perfection more then you desire authenticity.  If you’ve said anything even remotely close to this then you know the perfection dance:

• Last night at the Christmas party I couldn’t stop eating!  There goes last year’s resolution!!  No more carbs.   No more alcohol.  No more sweets for me!
• Ugh!  I looked in the mirror and what happened?!?!  I couldn’t even button up my favorite jeans.  I am so bloated—it’s disgusting!

Your path has been one of either 1) attaining perfection or 2) hiding the imperfect.

It is slowly killing you—your passions, your joy, your delight in life.

The first step to breaking the cycle is to be honest with yourself.

Radical Acceptance:

Marsha Linehan developed the Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) for people who suffer with self-harm tendencies.  A component of this model is the technique and term: Radical Acceptance.

It makes all the more sense when you hear Dr. Linehan’s story.  When she was in her teenage years she was hospitalized for suicidal ideation and self-harm tendencies.  Every therapy model used, including electroshock therapy, did nothing to improve her condition.  She spiraled into deeper despair.  It wasn’t until a pivotal moment when she recognized that the only way that she could heal was if she looked honestly at herself and then take the incremental steps to accept herself radically.  The radical nature of this is that not only did she learn to accept her strengths, but she also learned to accept her weaknesses.  All of these aspects made her uniquely who she was.

Unfortunately, this isn’t an easy step.  There are no magic pills or formula to make this happen—much of it has to do with will and choice.  It’s a willful embrace on the individual’s part.

When I talk to people about the idea of self- love—it happens so often that people confuse self- love to be a feeling rather then an active embrace.

Becoming loving and accepting of oneself is not just a warm and fuzzy feeling that washes over us and makes us think that we’re just swell, rather loving self is active.

So…  a loving thing to do for yourself is to check in with yourself regularly to ask what you need.

You don’t have to wait for the emotion… No, instead you create space to assess your needs and then respond to the need.  This is a loving act.

It’s what we do for people we love…  So why not do it for ourselves?

What do you need? –> What can you do to meet that need? –> Choose not to reprimand yourself for your needs –> Make the space to nourish that need

This is an active way of loving yourself.  It’s not based on emotion instead it’s a way to lovingly treat yourself and nourish your body, mind, heart and soul.  Taking the steps to act in loving ways toward ourselves allows us to shift our perceptions of ourselves, which lead to an opportunity to feel genuine love toward self.