So, it has been a while since checking in. Lots has happened, but right now I would like
to address the issues currently floating through my head and that is “bikini
season”.
It has been about 9 months since I last weighed myself
and for the most part I have let go of a lot of my body image issues. The winter helped because sweaters are great
hiders of folds that never used to exist.
I have been super proud of myself.
It has also been well over a year since I’ve thought about slipping back
into my old ways of eating disorders to lose weight (even though I am the
heaviest I have ever been – which I know is still not that heavy, but eating
disorders are about self-perception not reality).
But now, it is bikini season. It is bikini season and I am working with a
lot of very fit people out in the country where I live on a beach. It’s the first year that I’ve been so acutely
aware of some of the extra flab I’ve put on.
(As a side note, my journey through hell this winter did not aid my weight
maintenance. I let the weight come as it
may.) I’ve finally reached a point in my
process where I’m able to stay largely grounded and begin to feel inclined to
move my body (I’m loathe to say “exercise”) and eat healthy. My body is no longer my enemy, but summer is.
It’s a really weird place to be in. I love my body… I love feeling present in my
body, anyway. I like moving. I like feeling things. I like touch.
I like movement and running and jumping and feeling alive. But… I wish I had a little more time to get
used to being active (and maybe shed a couple pounds) before I had to expose it
for all to see.
Alas, the universe is not one to let me off the hook that
easy. It is forcing me to be vulnerable
for the world to see. I am so
self-conscious of my rolls when I’m sitting while wearing clothes, that sitting
in a bikini is nearly incapacitating.
Though I know that this is all part of the challenge of really coming to
love myself. In the end, any worry is
just about what other people will think of me – their judgments, which should
not play into what I think of myself. It
took long enough to become comfortable in my own skin. Who knows how long it will take for me to be
comfortable with my own skin exposed to the world?!
The silly thing is that most people are just as
self-conscious of their own insecurities as I am of mine and likely spend more
time worrying about being exposed themselves than even noticing that I may have
some rolls that I’m not okay with. I’ve
spent a lot of time thinking lately about where the root of these insecurities
lay. The need to fit in is so strong,
especially in large groups. Everyone
wants to be loved and accepted, but also fears that they will be left out. I have spent my life as a chameleon, changing my colours to fit the situation. I was
so good at it, I totally lost any sort of sense of self. I didn’t know who I was without the context
of other people. I was a different
person in any given situation. This
meant completely ignoring the little voice inside that represented who I really
was.
I have spent the past couple years truly fostering that
little voice and getting to know it. But
the scary thing is that I now need to show that person to the rest of the
world. And that is where fear comes
in. It is scary to expose your true self
to the rest of the world (especially when that true self is not as fit and
tight as it was when it was the fake you).
So, this is my current challenge. I need to find my inner peace with myself as
I stand almost naked next to many thin fit ladies and ripped men. Here’s to natural beauty triumphing over
societal influence. It’s been quite the
battle to get to this point, so what’s another little skirmish to get to the
top, eh? *gulp*
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