Body and Body Image

[WRITE]

this is probably the last bit of my 'healing puzzle' and maybe in some ways the most difficult to write about and access.

My body has aged so much and ravaged somewhat with the years of drinking, not eating properly, the weight gain and weight loss.

I'm not quite sure where to start working on it and I'll talk to my therapist later this week, but what is other people's relationship with their body?

I feel somewhat like it isn't mine at all sometimes, I spot myself in the mirror and think 'who is that'.

I've been working out and I feel well, just not the same as I used to feel about it last time I was happy, oh about a million years ago!

[Ami]

When the body goes bad -- that's what they invented clothes for                           Love  Ami

[Overcomer]

This is a major issue with me.  In my mind I am a tall young thing but also in my mind I consider myself fat and ugly.  That is one reason for the Lap Band.  I need to get this weight under control.

[WRITE]

that's funny Ami, someone else said i need to try nudism, and get rid of the body-facism for once and all!

I do love clothes, and I have quite an eye for a bargain too.
My work means I can buy sparkly and outrageous stuff sometimes too, and play dress-up, which is fun.

I went to a belly-dancing place with friends a few weeks ago, this really beautiful girl was rude to me, she looked so ugly and inhuman in that moment.
The belly dancers seemed so at ease with their bodies which weren't like the thin young girls, but very muscular and curvy. I'd love to look like that.

I looked in Louise Hay, she says overweight is tryign to protect yourself and fat belly is being angry for not having been nourished.

I was undernourished as a young child, my mother had this compulsion thing about controlling what everyone ate and about buying as little food as possible. My friend had a mother who was the opposite and I loved it there, always spare food and pies and cakes and stuff.

Occasionally my mother would have a fit of cooking and it made us all deliriously happy, but usually it was a weird response to someone, like the time she argued with the neighbours and refused to let us go to the jubilee street party, so we had our own, with piles of food but the atmosphere was unhappy because our mother was so angry with the neighbours who hadn't consulted her about some aspect of the arrangements. She argued with everyone, I think that's why I hate arguing to this day.

I saw Lap Band being advertised, will it cost a lot of money?

Louise Hay says I should be saying positive affirmations and loving myself anyway and then I'll make peace with my body and it will be what I want it to.

Actually though I don't think  it can be, because I've not considered it for 25 years-I think now I am looking for my young self, and that's gone 

[lighter]

I just loved the Bubbies from Witches of Eastwick.  Loved the book too.

In fact, I wish everyone would run around the beach naked...... esp the round wonderfully full bodied peopel who look comfortable in their skin.  I don't think everyone was born to be stick thin..... one of my dd's was born to be wonderfully round.  I adore her curves and her spirit.

 

[isittoolate]

Izzy also can say : You should be saying positive affirmations and loving yourself anyway and then you'll make peace with your body and it will be what you want it to. (be)

Does it matter who says it?

(Never mind me--I don't care for Louise Hay.)
and
Granted we all look better dressed than undressed after a certain age, but it isn't the answer you want, right WRITE?

I don't kinow your 'diet' but I love food. However one time in my life I was totally against certain foods (illish)....grease/butter,meat, whatever.

What I ate was coffee w/milk and sugar---caesar salad for lunch and I had all kinds of fresh veggies on hand and chomped all day on mushrooms, cauliflower, broccolli, NATCHOS (no dip) zuccihini, Lipton's cup o' soup Spring vegetable and in about 6 months, or less, I had really dropped off the pounds. It was not my intention. I was just depressed and couldn't abide certain foods.

Belly fat, I read, comes from stress.

I was once, at 5'10", 130# ( an ironing board with 2 peas glued on it.) I will never have a 24" waist again and that happens with childbirth, I expect.

My height gives me up to 150# and still be in the healthy but not overweight range. I am in that range but not happy about it, but am grateful that after sitting for 38 years, I don't weigh 1000#. My arms must lift my weight so I must keep it down----but I cannot stand on scales, so have no idea what I weigh. So I sit and all my upper body weight can't get to my legs, so they are slim and no one sees my ass when I sit all the time.

Metabolism has much to do with one's weight. I've always had good metabolism.

From all the people I have talked with, losding weight is a 'personal' thing, i.e one must find what will work the best.

Love & Luck

Izzy

[changing]

Hi!

I was very athletic prior to my accident-now I am a Frankenstein with grafts,plates,canes,etc and I am the prettiest Frankenstein I know! At first I was ashamed,couldn't fit into my clothes,couldn't wear my good shoes,etc- My NH made a point of telling me how old and hideous I am but GUESS WHAT!!!! I feel great now, and pretty now that that jackal is gone! Getting some lovely exercise ( do something that feels good, don't punish yourself) lots of water and herbal tea really tones up the skin. Moisturize your face and body, get your hair shiny, eat fish and vegetables, sleep. Whatever you are, be the prettiest one you can be! Oh yes, and stay away from jackals!

Love,

Changing

[Bella_French]

Thanks for posting this write; I can definately relate. My mother hates my body, and its like this annoying script running  in my head that I'm always trying to shut off.

Someone who  helped me a while back with this, was a co-d therapist who made me really see that our attraction to people has much more to do with emotional dynamics than our appearances. For some reason, learning about that for the first time helped me to put things into perspective and to stop shaking with fear at every pound gained, and every imperfection on my body.

I was seeing that therapist because I was 21 and I was having troubles with a boyfriend. Because things were going wrong,  I was really down about my looks and felt pretty worthless (even though I was I only 21 and looked beautiful) . The therapist made me realise that my looks had nothing to do with it. The problem was that I had chosen a man who craved intimacy and yet was terrified of it at the same time. The therapist made me see that it wouldn't have mattered what I looked like; he would have behaved that way anyway, because of who I was and because of who he was.

For some reason, I have been a  lot more relaxed about the way I look after that. But man, i'd love to look like Angelina Jolie. I just don't think it would improve my life in any way, and then I'd have to spend 4 hours in the gym each day tryng to stay so thin. No thanks, lol.









 

 

[dandylife]

Write,
It seems that every part of my body has changed in some way from when I was young. And it seems that every scar, gray hair, fleck or blemish is somehow related to LIVING, enduring, transforming, birthing. And so every part of me, including the stretch marks and all I cherish. Each thing reminds me of joy, or hardship, but everything reminds of growth, stretching, LIVING.

The closer the "camera" gets to your body, the uglier that piece of your body probably looks. But as you pan out, and see the whole picture, the more beautiful, and put-together you are.

Dandylife

[Ami]

Dear WRITE,
   I want to give an honest answer. For me. I am a size 6. Clothes look good on me. I am 5' 6' and 115.
   I feel good when I get dressed up.but it does very,very little for my inner sense of self.
  I can feel like I "look good",but my heart,soul and physical stomach hurt b/c I do not own myself and my own power.
  I am this thin simply b/c my emotional pain took the form of not letting me digest foods.I disowned my emotional gut and my physical gut disowned me.
  My goal is to get my own power(gut,core) back.
  I am happy that I look thin.. I enjoy wearing clothes. HOWEVER it in NO,NO,NO way heals the inside. It is as empty, empty, empty as ever.                                            Love  Ami

[Certain Hope]

Dear Write,

Just a thought about the "belly", mentioned in a message I heard yesterday.
In the Bible, references to the belly often refer to the innermost being of a person.

In the gospel of John, chapter 7, King James Version
37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying,
If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.
38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive:
for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)

Wonderful picture there... rivers of living water, the Holy Spirit, flowing from the innermost being of the one indwelt by Christ.

As I grow older, I often get glimpses of my own vanity in the startling discovery of new flaps and folds
I've been the same size for 25 years, apart from 4 pregnancies and my several year lapse into frequent drinking, which added 15#.
I used to take no small measure of pride in that consistency, but I know it's nothing I've done, simply genetic.
Like Izzy said,  " an ironing board with 2 peas glued on it "
Now, with various parts flapping and folding, that pride suffers a regular reality shock, but I'm determined to take those little hurts as an opportunity to focus on what's flowing out of the belly, not what it looks like on the exterior.
It's a struggle, heavy or thin, well-toned or not, if what's inside is dammed up or corrupted.

Anyhow, I don't need to gain or lose, but I do need to eat more balanced meals and more regularly, and to keep moving, so as not to stiffen up.
And I need to ensure that I'm taking in the proper spiritual diet, so that the river keeps a'flowing.

Love,
Hope

[lighter]

Ami.... did you get beaten up on the playground, a lot, when you were a child, lol?

[Ami]

Dear Lighter,
  I don't get it?

[lighter]

Write:

I notice that when I'm in touch with my body.... I'm doing better emotionally.... it's sort of one little gage I can check.

When I haven't got a clue as to what's going on with my body..... it's time to pull back and observe my self care ritual.

I wonder if I'll forever be pulling back and starting again.... or if it'll just become me?

Self care and being in touch with myself, spiritual, physical and emotional.

It sounds like you need to do something physical that nurtures you in all ways. 

Got any ideas? 

[JanetLG]

I feel better now than when I had anorexia (bleedin' obvious, that one  )

I still have trouble with issues of 'femininity'.

I weigh 8 stone, 5 foot 4 tall. However slim I get, I've still got a little 'belly' that won't shift, which I hate with all my being!!!

My hair went grey very quickly, four years ago, so I colour it now, and that makes me feel a lot better, because people in shops have stopped asking me if I've got my 'Discount Card' (i.e. they realise now I'm not a pensioner!)

I tackle my body image issues by making all my own clothes, now. So much of what is in the shops is badly made, badly fitting, nothing made properly for people under 5 feet eleventy-ten (tall, anyway). So, if I make things that suit my body shape, in fabrics that I like, I know I look better, so I feel better.

Janet