Overwhelmed by world events?

Body-shaming will not help.

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

I caught myself feeling shame about my body…again!  Recognizing the voice of my inner body bully, I wrestled internally for a while trying to dispel or change the narrative.  Daily now, I work to consciously deprogram myself from my diet-culture beliefs and thin obsession, but after all these years of focusing energy on shaming myself into thinness, it’s a tough pattern to bust.

As I was recognizing this all-to-familiar body-bullying, I decided to try a different tactic. Rather than trying to force the bully to say something different, I floated above the dialogue and chose to be curious. What was going on here?  What did that self-shaming serve? And why was I focusing on this at this particular moment?

Aha!  I was (and am) really stressed and upset about horrific world events happening in Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, my own country, and elsewhere! I feel powerless to do anything but watch in horror. So many are suffering. So many are screaming their opinions online and in video…so much conflict and so many feeding on the conflict.  And yet, what can I really do about any of this stuff?  I can’t elect a speaker of the house or figure out the best strategies to stabilize the dangerous international posturing or prevent the real outbreak of wider, more horrible wars. I’m not an historian, or politician, or statesperson, or someone who truly understands how complex, dangerous, and complex negotiations work. The conflicts - including our current debacle with U.S. Congress being unable to function - have origins centuries old, with deep, invisible undercurrents. I try to inform myself, but that, too, is difficult given the plethora of purposeful disinformation, propaganda, and spontaneous unfiltered digital reactivity. The reactivity is infectious and spills over into physical life with more people acting out in horrible ways such as killing children, or rabbis, or defacing mosques and synagogues. Most people have electronic devices and many feel uninhibited to freely blurt their reactions, often without any supporting data, knowledge, or thought, often forwarding and amplifying whatever is most outrageous. It’s tough to process and people are stressed. Given all this, how can one know what is real? 

What I realized in that moment of curiosity, as I watched my body-shaming voice yammer on, was this.  I’m stressed and scared about something I have no control over.  But my body, well, I have control over it…at least, that’s what the body-bully says.  I can stop eating, restrict or change my eating, or eat a box of donuts or cookies if they’re available.  I can make myself sweat with unpleasant exercise. That’ll take care of things, now, won’t it?   My body-bully taunts me into action, into food restriction, calorie counting, or some other form of body manipulation and behold! I feel like I’m doing something.  See, I’m making a difference!  I’m making my body behave so the world can be a better place!

 I had no idea I did this. This is crazy programming.

Body dysmorphia is a distorted mental construct that gets activated when my feelings of powerlessness intersect with my everyday body discomfort and then the body shame narrative takes off. I’m struggled with this all my life, no matter my size. For me, being in a body is often uncomfortable. There are so many weird sensations to perceive and filter - itching, feeling something crawling, irritating fabric, clothes that bind, two areas of skin touch that feel weird. Of course, feeling pain when stepping on something sharp or when touching a hot stove is important to quickly reduce injury and I’m grateful for those. But why feel something crawling on one’s skin when nothing is there or itch when there’s no irritant? Irritating sensations conspire together and are then turned into words of body criticism by my brain.  This triggers thought cascades about how a female body is supposed to appear, how mine falls short, and how that is my fault.  If I would only ___ then my body would be right and there would be one less problem in the world.  Perhaps you have some version of this ugly thought loop.

My new realization is that this line of thinking is actually a signal about power and control.  I can’t control war and suffering.  I can’t control deforestation.  I see suffering people, plants, animals, ecosystems, and I experience feelings of grief, of care, of concern.  I have deep desires to help, to change the systems toward peace and healing.  Yet, little I can do will fix any of these problems.  So, I attempt to control my body. 

Our culture is awash with this remedy.  The world will be better if only you exercise more in the latest way, if you take on the latest food restriction regimen, or take the latest supplement combination.  If you just get your body under control, well then…!

Well then, what? What I do with my body, or you do with yours will have absolutely no effect on war, or on impending famine, drought, deforestation, or melting ice sheets.  But focusing on controlling our bodies does use up huge amounts of human potential and creativity.

Focusing on what is wrong with my body and what I must do to address that uses a tremendous amount of my energy.  The calls to action - to diet, to purchase more wellness products, adopt new exercise regimens, use new beauty products - take energy that could be used for truly healthy, creative actions¹. That energy, then, is not available for true problem solving or creativity.  Thus, body dysmorphia and body shaming are distractions from seeing real problems I can address, real actions I can take. And they are distractions from truly attending to my body’s health.   

Inflicting self-harm in the form of body shame will not cure suffering in the world.  Suffering begets more suffering.  If I inflict suffering on myself because someone else is suffering, that’s crazy, ineffectual action.

When the narrative begins, criticizing my body fat amounts, the shape of my torso, the roundness of my face, and activates my urge to control my body in some way, I now know something else is going on. That something is not my body.  My body is just fine.  It’s simply a very sensitive sensory array. It’s sending me information that I’m uncomfortable and I have choice in how I respond to that information.  How will I respond to feeling powerless?

When I’m feeling this discomfort in my body, then, what do I need?  Control is illusory, so that’s not the answer.  No, I want to deeply understand so I can respond in integrity, with compassion, with care. Body dysmorphia, then, is a signal for me to reconnect with my power and my caring.  Awareness of this opens the possibility to choose differently, and from that choice emerges energy for change with creativity for different, more inspired action.

My power is always present, my caring is always present.  My body is my home, my refuge, my instrument of action in the world.  So is yours.  Your inner body critic may be trying to give you a different message than mine.  What might that message be?

I am quite excited about this new awareness. It’s like discovering something that seemed disgusting is actually a very useful tool. I love new tools! I intend to learn to use this one well.

As I treat my body with more kindness, I find it a bit more pleasant to inhabit. As I disconnect from the cultural story of what my body is ‘supposed’ to look like, I have more room for pleasant sensations. When body dysmorphia wells up, I know it’s a signal. That may not make my body more fun to be in, but the awareness lessens the mental and emotional anguish. As I receive the signal I can ask, “What is this really about?” I can then consider what I can control, or can influence, or how I can express my care.  I can more usefully problem solve and potentially act.

So, let’s catch that inner body-bully and reinterpret the message it brings. Let’s free up the human potential trapped in this body-bullying narrative and diet-culture reactivity.  

Why not treat our bodies kindly? Why not speak gently to ourselves? What might we create; what problems might we get able to solve from the energy freed by this awareness, from this kindness?

1. Be sure and attend appropriately to your diet, exercise, and health care. I’m not saying we should not care for our bodies and their health. I am suggesting that diet and wellness culture have led us astray and consumed our energy for profit.