Your Body is NOT to Blame

In the throes of an eating disorder, the body gets both the blame and the abuse. Body becomes the scapegoat. Sometimes this happens at a level you’re not even aware of. If your body boundaries were violated at some point, through abuse or objectification, you can fall into the trap of thinking your body itself was to blame for the abuse or attack. On top of this, our bodies take much longer to process and heal than our minds. So when the body shows the aftereffects (startling easily, panic attacks, etc.), it can deepen the belief that the body is to blame. To try to “fix” this, you may try to control your body through any means available, including disordered eating, cutting, substance abuse, relentless work, excessive exercise, and more. These efforts, in effect, tell your body to “just get over it.” The thing is, your body can’t get over it. At least not like that.

Your body needs time to process what it’s been through. It’s on this journey with you. To do this, you need to find ways to integrate your experience, your consciousness, your insights with your body. Otherwise, you will remain in battle with your body instead of letting it guide your healing.

What if you struggle with a chronic ailment or illness? Does that mean you won’t find healing? Not at all! Health and healing are not the absence of illness, but a way of being in relationship with your body. None of the therapy in the world can free you from feeling, just like restricting didn’t free you from feeling. Binging didn’t free you from feeling. Drinking didn’t free you feeling. Becoming a marathon runner didn’t free you from feeling. Get my drift?

You will begin to heal when you begin to show your body the respect and care it deserves. When you allow it to be imperfect and respond with love anyway.

We tend to have this expectation that therapy or self-help will lead to insights that will then give the healing we need to change our behavior toward our bodies. I’m guessing you already have some insights about why you treat yourself the way you do. Did those epiphanies change your behavior? Maybe for a little while. Then you find yourself falling back into harmful patterns, now armed with the guilt that comes with the awareness of why you are doing it, the harm it will cause, and doing it anyway. The issue that knowledge not embodied is not yet learned. When you start serving your body, tending to your body, and caring for your body, healing will follow.

Are you ready to start?

In Praise of Despair

Bear with me here. When I look back on the changes that have helped me become a better person (still a work in progress), nearly every period of growth was preceded by a period of despair. I'm using despair here as an umbrella term to cover a range from unpleasantness to utter destruction. That despair can manifest in a myriad of ways: a gnawing loneliness, existential anxiety, destructive relationships, disordered eating, overspending, or other self-harmful behaviors. These are the symptoms of despair, the ways it demands to be seen or, more often, attempts to relieve it. It was only in eventually turning to face the despair, to explore it, to excavate it that I was able to change. This is why one of my favorite quotes is from Carl Rogers, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself as just I am, then I can change.”

The trick here is not to confuse acceptance with affinity. I can accept things I don’t like. When I accept my role in creating some sources of that despair as well as my role in rising above it (or at least learning to live with it more peacefully), then I can make steps toward change. I see this play out in big and small ways in my life and in the lives of the brave souls I have the privilege to explore this with. Despair, like pain in the body, is a signal, a helper, telling us things are not right. If we listen, we have an opportunity to give ourselves what we need to heal. Like knee pain can drive us to the couch to rest and avoid further injury, emotional pain can drive us to retreat, reduce stress, reevaluate, and repair.

As we surrender, whether willingly or kicking and screaming, to this process, despair can somewhat be welcomed as a friend, a signal to pause, to take stock, and empowers us to change. After all, if something caused me no distress or despair whatsoever, why would I be motivated to change? In this way, despair is a catalyst for growth and healing, a part of the process. Now, that’s not to say you will magically start loving being in despair or the unexpected destruction that befalls us all from time to time, but it can provide it some much needed balance. If in the midst of my lament I remember that I can grow grit, self knowledge, or have a chance to treat myself more kindly through it, then it is not all destruction. 

In what ways have your struggles made you more resilient?