Body Image and how I healed an unhealthy relationship with food.
We are all born into this world without any prejudices, loving ourselves completely and seeing the beauty in ourselves and all that is around us. Depending on your environment and experiences, we observe, listen and shape our way of thinking which also includes our self-image.
If you are blessed with a healthy home environment and two loving parents, who focus on who you are as a person and not on your achievements or appearance, the higher the chances are that you have a loving body image and healthy relationship to food and to yourself. Although, external factors out of your home life can also have an impact. Especially for women, which society often puts immense pressure on having the “perfect slim body”, we are shown images of how we think we should look like in magazines and on television.
In reality, these photos are photo shopped and so here begins the struggle. Of course when we were young, we were not educated at school on healthy eating and healthy choices, we start following extreme diets, look for quick fixes and in extreme cases we unfortunately develop eating disorders or an unhealthy relationship to food. We shut down all our feelings and no longer listen to our bodies until the connection between what your body actually needs and your mind is completely disconnected.
When I was a little girl, my father seemed to always comment on my body and how I looked, this always made me feel very uncomfortable. At the time, I did not understand his comments, I could feel a certain expectation and I think this planted the unhealthy tendency of developing the mindset, “I am only loved, when I look a certain way” This inner child of mine continued on her path as a diver, where I was extremely judged on my appearance and how I looked. I then went to college and my coaches also put pressure on all of us in being thin and having less body fat. I remember having to sit in this machine with a bathing cap and bathing suit as it calculated my body fat. This made me feel so ashamed and I felt so much pressure to be skinnier, but I was not given any information on how to do this.
I started eating very little, I would eat three meals a day consisting of one protein bar at each meal. I was starving myself, I could barely sleep, I became extremely skinny, and my coaches applauded me for being so thin. Of course, this encouraged me to continue, I became scared of eating real food, I developed a fear of food, a fear of being fat, of gaining weight, I lost all contact to myself and I had no idea what my body needed.
I felt so alone.
Unfortunately, this is not a story that only I have experienced. Many of my teammates had eating disorders and most women I have met throughout my life have had some sort of disordered eating. I was living in constant fear, disconnected from love.
How did I heal?
It was definitely a long journey. I think that many factors went it to this healing process. Yoga, self-love, education on health and nutrition and finding time to reconnect to myself to re-establish this broken connection between what my body needed and my thoughts and decisions.
It was to the point where I could not even look in a mirror, I felt ashamed of my body. It didn’t matter how I actually looked, how many times people told me how beautiful I was, how great my body looked. I did not love myself and the healing had to happen from within.
I started by looking into the mirror and repeating to myself how beautiful I was; I would complement myself even if I didn’t believe it at the beginning. Taking baby steps in to falling in love again with myself and seeing the beauty in all my imperfections.
Yoga was a path to be able to feel myself again, to step away from all outside distractions, small moments of self-care connected to breath. One breath at a time.
I had put so many rules on what I was allowed to eat and when I was permitted to eat and how much I was allowed to eat. It was exhausting, so much wasted energy on these obsessive thoughts. I WANTED so badly to heal, so the first thing I did, was to REMOVE all rules, all diet ideas of what people had told me was good for me. I decided to start the journey to get to know myself again, what did I enjoy eating? What made me feel nurtured? When was I hungry?
I started experimenting, and slowly step by step, day by day, I got to know myself again, and I slowly started to love myself again.
I ate when I was hungry, I ate what I felt like my body needed and I no longer tried to fit in to anyone´s schedule or preference. This also strengthened my belief that we are all individuals and it is so important to look at what you need, not what your partner eats, not what your mother told you was right, but what nurtures you as an individual at this time in your life at this very moment.
I slowly day by day fell in love with myself again. I appreciated my body for what it could do, my temple that so gracefully carried my soul. My soul who has always seen the beauty in others, in all beings, to finally also see that beauty in myself.
I am now someone who eats at odd times of the day, who sometimes can go weeks at a time eating sweet potatoes for dinner. But this nurtures me, this makes me feel whole, energized, alive!
I stepped away from the pressure of society to fit in, to be like everyone else, I am different and I can now finally see the beauty in that.