𝐂𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 (𝐚𝐥𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭) 𝟒𝟏 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝟏𝟓 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐬//

(𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠: the energy of this post will be intense at times, but if I try to soften it to make it more palatable, I will be doing both of us a disservice)

I read a post by Mike Harrigan yesterday morning (that I’ll share in a minute) and one line in particular stood out to me:

“𝐀𝐧 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐞𝐱𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲”

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

I knew in an instant that is something I still had to work on.

Because for months now I’ve been trying to use external sources as validation that I don’t look disgusting.

Men in the street’s passing interest, other people’s compliments, people’s acceptance or lack thereof, the way people treated me, the way people I trust to be honest communicate their perception of me etc.

I’ve been hoping that eventually enough people would say enough kind things that it would just click into place, and I’d believe it.

Rather than what 𝑤𝑎𝑠 happening. An internal eye roll, believing the person to either be delusional or pandering.

My relationship with my body has been barely tolerant at best, and downright hateful at worst. Yesterday was the day I decided that would change for good.

First, I had to find the part of me that was rejecting myself.

I did an exercise from our new modality and found the first kernel of hate.

“𝑀𝑦 𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑦 obviously ℎ𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑠 𝑚𝑒 𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑒”

But I felt like it went deeper. When I dug into that, inside of it was actually

“𝐼 ℎ𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑚𝑦 𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑦 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑒”

And inside of that, was the deepest truth:

“𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒎𝒚𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒅𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒎𝒚 𝒃𝒐𝒅𝒚”

In that moment, I wept in sorrow for how I’ve treated my body over the years.

Next, came the clearing. I had so many layers of body judgment to clear.

First feeling broken, because of my childhood; I was the smelly foster kid that no one wanted.

Then for being too fat (even when I was 110 lbs - I was still too fat)

Then being fat and bald, the ugliest kind of combo I could be.

I cleared anger at my mother for giving this to me.

Anger at my feminine lineage. Mother after mother after mother had coached each new generation to feel this shame, self-loathing and disrespect for centuries, with no one stopping to do anything about it!

Anger at my masculine lineage, for their comments, shaming tactics, abuse and mistreatment. Anger at my ex-husband for his looks of disgust when my hair started falling out and his comments about my beauty. Anger at my ex-boyfriends who had accepted me and thought I was beautiful as I was. (I had believed they shouldn’t have loved me as I was)

Anger at society for perpetuating this conversation around what is considered beautiful.

Anger at God for giving us brains that could judge so harshly in this way.

Anger at the darkness for using our body hate so effectively to distract us from our missions.

My Higher Self wept at humanity’s suffering around body image and health.

And finally, my former self wept at being so seen by my Higher Self. Relief & peace!

She said to my Higher Self:

Thank you for seeing me. Thank you for witnessing my pain. Thank you for not just telling me to get over it. Thank you for not telling me to love myself as I am. Reinforcing my shame at my lack of self-acceptance and thinking I should be better than I am at this. Thank you for acknowledging my experience.

And then, when I was ready, I let it all go and blended with my Higher Self who asked me a question that led me to the truth. 

“What if you don’t get your worth from anywhere? What if you don’t need worth? What if you just be?”

And I realized that even worth itself is a kind of comparison.

To be worthy of something implies that there’s an equal and opposite: that you can also 𝑛𝑜𝑡 be worthy of something. And there’s some kind of a measurement between the two. And some judge deciding which side of the line you fall on.

And it’s not about being worthy. It’s not about being pretty. It’s 𝑑𝑒𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑦 not about other people thinking you’re pretty.

It’s just about being.

And then it was all gone. All the parts of me that still carried shame and judgement. Every reinforcing event. Every moment. Gone. In less than 15 minutes. Miraculous

It is 𝐬𝐨 𝐠𝐨𝐧𝐞 that I’m writing this post from notes I made right after the clearing and I don’t remember what it feels like.

It feels so far away, and so foreign to me… I almost don’t believe that was just yesterday morning. I can’t feel it anywhere.

Bottom line: If you are carrying body shame, and you have a tumultuous relationship with your body still, just know… there’s hope.

You need your body and your body needs your love & acceptance. Don’t avoid it.

You can tackle this!

Don’t give up. If I can do it, so can you