Respect Your Earthsuit
SWIPE THROUGH
Perhaps your body experience is like that of so many others.
Always wishing for the updated version, & often wishing that the updated version was a past version of you. I hear this all the time. From folks who look at photographs of their younger selves, adoringly. Wondering why they didn’t see what they can see so clearly, now. From folks who went through normal developmental stages & were made to feel shame for the ways their bodies completed these processes.
Perhaps the humans who raised you, the people who witnessed your development & aging, never normalized the process. Perhaps they never spoke about their own experiences, or, made you feel as though you & your body we’re going through a stage incorrectly.
Perhaps you are substantially influenced by what you see reflected in the media. And you remain perplexed because you never see you.
You take that on as though it is a YOU problem.
How many of us have spent time wishing for our younger bodies? Elevating them in our minds as though if we could re-experience life in them, we would do it so very differently. I appreciate the human call for a do-over.
Because that is not how life or bodies work, I wonder what it might be like to look at your body, right now, today, & welcome it, in whatever stage it is in.
Your body is good. It is resilient, it has been shaped by your experiences, it has brought you to today. I am grateful for your body. Because that Earthsuit? That’s your carrying case.
That is what brought you here, today, to read this. I have endless respect for you & your Earthsuit.
Writing prompts:
1. What are the factors that influenced the way I experienced my body as it went through life stages? If I could do it again, what would I like more of? Less of?
2. What would it be like to practice accepting the body I live in today? Not loving it or hating it, but accepting it in the same way that we accept gravity as the reason that we are not floating.
3. How might my experience of being in this body change if I were to have compassion for its history, and curiosity about its future?
4. Make a list of five things that make your body uniquely yours.
Exhaustion is Not a Badge of Honor
Zero points awarded for being the first person to hit the wall.
The fatigue that we are feeling right now is a new and very different kind of fatigue. The new normal that is happening around us is exhausting. And because we don’t know when this new normal is going to shift, we need to stay for the long-haul.
Please rest.
Really, It's Okay
Really, it’s okay.
It’s okay if you have a memory of an earlier version of your body that felt easier to live in. It’s okay if part of you believes that your life would be happier and sunnier and brighter if your body were different. It’s okay if part of that is true.
This is what diet and wellness culture screams from the sidelines. “Encouraging“ us to do the next extreme thing. To follow the next diet trend, or exercise craze, for the sake of finding body peace.
Body peace is not found in endlessly pushing to change a body.
It’s okay if you wish that living in your skin were easier. I wish that for you, too.
And if being in your body does not feel comfortable today, know that you can still take care of it just the same. And that self-care, alone, can improve the experience of being in your body.
You Are Allowed
SHAME (noun)
a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.
GUILT (noun)
Feeling responsible or regretful for a perceived offense, real or imaginary.
We’ve all likely felt guilty and shameful in the context of being human. They are real experiences. But they have NO place in your experiences with food.
It is never morally wrong or foolish to eat.
What you eat is not offensive. Period.
When I hear the words guilt and shame related to food, I get very curious. I’d encourage you to be similarly inquisitive.
Is the feeling of guilt/shame your own? Or based on someone else’s story?
Is it coming from a diet culture message that places moral judgement on food choices?
How does the feeding of guilt or shame effect your eating experience? (It does. and only negatively.) this is not up for debate.
How would giving yourself permission to eat change your experiences of shame? Of guilt?
Would you suggest that someone else feel shame/guilt for eating in the same way?
You are allowed to eat.
You are allowed to enjoy.
You are allowed to celebrate with food.
You are allowed to use food to support you in coping.
You are allowed.
This May Feel Like A Lot
This may feel like a lot, so please hang with me.
I grew up with the knowledge that my mother developed skin cancer related to tanning her body, with baby oil, on Virginia Beach.
I grew up in safe communities where it was possible for me to lay in the sun, with or without sunscreen, with the desire of acquiring a tan.
For many years, I visited tanning booths.
I felt better, bronzed. I never considered the fact that I was looking to acquire the hue of a human who lived a more challenging experience than I did, based simply on the color of my skin.
I am not telling you that you are wrong for liking your skin when it is bronzed. I too, prefer a sun kissed glow. I admit that not because it’s right or wrong, but because I’m human.
AND
As a grown person, I wear sunscreen when I go outside, because I don’t wish to follow in my mom‘s footsteps. At least in a dermatological sense.
This is a responsibility that I take seriously, because it is one way that I can stack the health odds in my favor.
Sunscreen has been demonstrated to reduce the risk of skin cancer. So, because I don’t want skin cancer, I will wear it.
I know that it is summertime. And I know that beaches are open. And pools are open. And folks want to have backyard parties as though this were a regular year. I want that, too.
But this is not a regular year. We are living through a pandemic. And making a choice to gather in groups, without masks, is a dangerous one. Even if you get COVID-19, and are fine afterward, humans at higher risk, around you, may not experience your positive outcome.
We also do not know about the long-term ramifications of acquisition of this disease. You could be fine now, and very not fine later. Please be thoughtful.
This is like wearing sunscreen.
And at the end of the day, the humans who were the most vulnerable at the beginning of this pandemic, the ones whose skin tones are desirable right now, will be the ones that will suffer most significantly as this pandemic continues.
Masks have been demonstrated to reduce rates of transmission of COVID-19. So because I don’t want to spread it, I wear one.
I love you and want you to be safe.
We all need to care right now.
I Call Bullsh*t
First things first, I hope that your relationship with food is not dictated by a black and white label.
If you are stuck in this pattern, please know that your body has your back and that there is another way. Secondly, this is not a debate about caloric specificity. I don’t ask my clients to think in terms of calories, and I certainly do not.
I’m not here to debate whether or not short humans or humans with less muscularity require less fuel.
That is not the point of this post.
AND
I am fired up about this.
Forever and ever and ever, health recommendations, celebrity menus in magazines (for those of us who remember those!), and pop marketing, particularly to womxm, have suggested that caloric restriction to some number that begins with the integer ONE is adequate. This happens in eating disorder treatment, too. If that is part of your story, I hear you and I see you.
.
.
.
A few weeks ago, someone notified me about an influencer here, suggesting something similarly.
I call bullshit.
Your body needs a lot of food to function. Often it needs more than that to function optimally.
Almost always, this is more food than you’d expect.
If you’re old enough to read this, please let yourself eat. And instead of giving your favorite Instagram promoter of underfeeding props, perhaps unfollow instead. ✌️
I Am the Student
I have letters after my name that denote expertise. I have had the privilege of obtaining advanced certifications. I have relied on peer-reviewed research and clinical supervision and operated in ways that has been supported by industry standards.
And none of my schooling included acknowledgment of the whitewashing of education. None of my education, not even the courses designed to increase cultural competency spoke at all about cultural empathy. None of my education encouraged me to challenge the dramatically oversimplified, racist metrics in which we ascertain or categorize “health.” Zero parts of my clinical experience working in eating disorder treatment facilities challenged me to think beyond the Eurocentric methods in which I was providing nutrition care.
My clients are my teachers. I don’t, nor do I need, to have all the answers.
Healing is not a top-down process.
It is a collective experience.
My operating as an expert does nothing to serve the humans with whom I am privileged to engage in work with. My listening and reflecting what I hear is endlessly more important than anything I’ve been conventionally taught.
I’m busy unlearning most of that, anyway.
A big thank you to you, to my clients, for being my ultimate teachers. It is my honor that you have chosen to join me here.
You Deserve Better
This is one of the many ways that eating disorders manipulate the humans who live with them. Suggestion that because one is still functioning, and perhaps, from the outside, thriving, that things are f-i-n-e, fine.
I promise you that things can be easier than this. That the amount of effort that is required to live with an eating disorder, while also being a human on the planet, is endless. I also promise that the recovery effort will require a ton of energy. And persistence and patience and self-compassion and community and grit. And, often, this still requires less energy than living in two separate worlds.
This is not diagnostically specific.
This is not dependent on body size.
This is not racially or ethnically or religiously or gender or age-specific.
This message applies to anyone, and everyone.
You deserve better.
And that you are worth the effort.
Carbs are Awesome
Carbohydrates are awesome. Cutting carbs or following a low carb diet is a fabulous predictor of feeling out of control with or addicted to them.
Because carbs are your brain and body's primary fuel source, ALL foods, barring meat and fat, contain them.
This is very much on purpose.
The brain is wired to seek out carbohydrates if they’re in low supply. Carbs are essential for preventing blood sugar from dropping too low. When that occurs, the brain secretes messengers that drive us to consume high-carbohydrate foods, without discretion.
Food addiction research is based exclusively on starved rodents.
That’s it.
Am I saying that you might not experience a particular call for high carb foods? Particularly if they’ve been limited or have had rules built around them?
Of course not.
That’s normal.
That’s expected.
And that doesn’t need to be the end of the story. Permission to experiment with incorporation of carbohydrates, regularly, many times per day, daily, forever, granted. It’s likely that you’ll feel that you’ve messed up, that you’re doing something wrong, at the start.
This means you’re in it. Stay.
Not All Disabilities are Visible
Reminder: not all disabilities are visible.
Reminder: not all disabilities are stagnant.
Reminder: not all disabilities are present at birth.
Reminder: not all disabilities are physical.
Reminder: not all disabilities are talked about.
Reminder: 1 in 4 Americans are disabled.
When I was first moving into this disabled body, people around me would tell me not to refer to myself as “disabled.” As though naming my acquired disability, before it significantly impacted my get around, I was putting myself into a universally undesirable category.
Disabled folx can describe themselves however they wish to. I can describe myself, my body; however, I want to. You can’t offer new language for disabled folx. That is for us to define. 🤟