She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not

There is a scene in Julius Caesar where Cassius says to Brutus, "You love me not," and Brutus responds, "I do not like your faults." Though I am aware of the fact that they were not referring to anything so shallow as body image and self esteem, I took it to heart. The metaphor was good enough for me.

I am just so tired of being told that the only way to heal body hatred is through nurturing feelings and thoughts of love and only love. I know, on the face of it that this pop wisdom seems like a good idea, and an obvious solution. But is it realistic? Can we really command or will ourselves into feelings of love? For me, hard as I have tried, this has not been the case. And God knows I've tried.

Two years ago when I started working on Big M, I was forced to crawl into the dank dark musty hole of history with my body issues. But thanks to the artistic constraints I placed on myself, I was also given a way out. Along that pathway I discovered that, as in most aspects of real life, feelings of love can be quite fleeting. So to expect that I would immediately transition from feeling miserable about my body to feelings of pure unadulterated love is, in my experience, absurd and unrealistic. On the other hand I am well aware that to continue to live with body hatred is not only destructive but misguided. For me the solution is far more basic and approachable than that. It's about gratitude, appreciation, and acceptance. This means when all of those self loathing tapes start to play, I stop, notice, feel the pain, and make a choice about how I want to proceed. If I'm lucky, I may even find a way to have a good laugh on my own behalf. Then when it creeps up 5 minutes or 5 days later, which you know it does, I do it again, and again, and again.

But if my only choice it to love myself, what does it mean when I can't feel it, can't do it? Or what if I do feel it for a day, a week, a month, or even a year and then the big ugly beast of self loathing rears its ugly head again. Have I now failed more than ever? NO!! I refuse to fall in to that nasty trap. No way. Been there, done that. When that nasty beast knocks at my door wearing her mask of hatred, singing her sour song, I let her know that I hear her loud and clear. I even take a nice deep breath and let her in for a moment seeing her, hearing her, certainly feeling the pit of disgust in my belly that she brings with her. Then the moment comes when I thank her and send her on her way and go on with my day. For a little while I even allow myself to not feel too great. Fact is, her dense stink lingers on my skin for a little while. That's OK . . Its just a feeling. A fleeting, sometimes terribly annoying, and repetitive feeling. But like everything else, it too passes.

Love, means I commit to doing whatever is takes to recover. Recovering means that I make sure to remind myself that I am enormously grateful for this body that I inhabit and for all of the miracles it performs for me minute by minute. I remind myself that I am a constantly changing organism. I grow and shrink, widen and narrow, lengthen and shorten in mind and body on an ongoing basis. Some of it I can control, some of it is not up to me. In either case, let there be no doubt that I do love and appreciate my spectacular body. That includes the harder moments when I feel the burn of dissatisfaction with my physical and/or emotional presence. I love my body, but there are many times when I do not like its faults, and I never will.