Do you feel truly happy in your skin?
Maybe you never feel that way.
Maybe you think you do, but you’re not sure…perhaps you are wondering if the times you have felt happy in your skin are the times when you are valued in the eyes of others rather than yourself.
Perhaps you do feel this sometimes – what is it about these moments? Are you alone or with others? What brings that special feeling to you?
Or perhaps you usually do feel at home in your own body and skin.
I posted the picture of me on Instagram because I really felt happy in myself that day. I was well-slept, at work – feeling a sense of energy and purpose, I also loved what I was wearing – things I probably wouldn’t have worn even a few years ago but which bring me such a simple pleasure to put on now. Joyful colours. It was a moment but I wanted to capture it.
That Friday morning was notable to me because for a long time in my life, I never felt like this. I was always viewing myself from the outside; picking apart my body and face, always through the lens of what was not good enough or what could be improved. The gaze of others was a measure of me; positively or negatively or perhaps even worse, no gaze at all – without value, not even registering. But on this Friday morning at work, I felt good inside myself. The word which fits this experience for me is “aligned” – there was no war going on inside me, no part being observed and judged. I felt as one. Just me (and me). And it felt good.
I know that this sense of self-monitoring and criticism is something that so many people struggle with and self-worth and feelings of shame around body, are common themes in therapy and with clients I work with. There are so many reasons why this can happen (sexual trauma, bullying, racism, cultural stereotypes, dysphoria…) but today I want to talk about being split from ourselves and when we start to “other” ourselves.
When did we first feel separated from our bodies? When did we first observe ourselves and judge our own bodies lacking or less than?
I wrote the piece which follows a while back (last Spring maybe) when I was reading and completing the writing exercises in Rupi Kaur’s book, “Healing Through Words.” It describes the first time I realised that women’s bodies were objects to be looked at and how, as a child of perhaps six years old, I began to feel uncomfortable in my skin for the first time. I offer it here to you – so you can consider when you first felt separated in yourself. And, perhaps, to see the joy of standing in your own skin.
The writing exercise was to visit your younger self – to free write but to include some random words provided in the book including: lion, laugh, fork, cloud…And to begin with the sentence:
If I could visit my younger self I would go back to the day when…
…I was playing in my bedroom and was going through a pile of old magazines and newspapers, cutting out pictures to make a collage or to go in a scrapbook. Flicking through a newspaper I came to the back pages and there I saw adverts for sex lines. There were pictures of women with their breasts bare. If I could go back, I’d tell that child me to laugh. To laugh away the sick and uneasy feeling which rolled over me. I’d tickle her, tell her it was silly and together we would make light of things and help the discomfort in her body fade away.
If I had laughed, maybe I wouldn’t have felt the split. The split which started that day and divided the me of inside (the real me) with the me on the outside - the part open to be viewed and judged by others. How lovely to laugh it off and stay feeling joined up – solid, shiny and strong in myself. A shiny gem that I owned; just me. No eyes needed to validate my worth. So much pain and vulnerability grew from that split and now I long to feel like a lion inside – powerful and prowling in my life – not small or lean or small or pretty, not the ways I have been taught. But muscular proudness; taking up my space with no fear.
Animals aren’t checking for back fat. Lions don’t give a shit.
Some days it hurts to be in my head – what I mean is, I have, through my life as a girl, a teen, a young woman and now aged a middle-aged woman had thoughts about myself which hurt me. It’s been easy to list the ways I am disgusting or not good enough. My mind patrols the zones of my body, my thoughts viciously stab at what is no good.
I’m lucky. It has changed. And these bad days come less and less now but they do still come. And it’s exhausting working on self-acceptance.
I’d like to be away on a cloud, how lovely! Drifting away to calm and blue. Not having to keep arriving at the same familiar fork in the road – left turn; continuing to believe in my unworthiness, letting the train of meanness just keep chugging. Or turning right, and (somehow this is actually harder) stopping the venom and practising the thought, “I ok just as I am. I am beautiful and worthy being me.”
That’s why I would go back and make little me laugh. To save us both from pain of the split.
Maybe you never feel that way.
Maybe you think you do, but you’re not sure…perhaps you are wondering if the times you have felt happy in your skin are the times when you are valued in the eyes of others rather than yourself.
Perhaps you do feel this sometimes – what is it about these moments? Are you alone or with others? What brings that special feeling to you?
Or perhaps you usually do feel at home in your own body and skin.
I posted the picture of me on Instagram because I really felt happy in myself that day. I was well-slept, at work – feeling a sense of energy and purpose, I also loved what I was wearing – things I probably wouldn’t have worn even a few years ago but which bring me such a simple pleasure to put on now. Joyful colours. It was a moment but I wanted to capture it.
That Friday morning was notable to me because for a long time in my life, I never felt like this. I was always viewing myself from the outside; picking apart my body and face, always through the lens of what was not good enough or what could be improved. The gaze of others was a measure of me; positively or negatively or perhaps even worse, no gaze at all – without value, not even registering. But on this Friday morning at work, I felt good inside myself. The word which fits this experience for me is “aligned” – there was no war going on inside me, no part being observed and judged. I felt as one. Just me (and me). And it felt good.
I know that this sense of self-monitoring and criticism is something that so many people struggle with and self-worth and feelings of shame around body, are common themes in therapy and with clients I work with. There are so many reasons why this can happen (sexual trauma, bullying, racism, cultural stereotypes, dysphoria…) but today I want to talk about being split from ourselves and when we start to “other” ourselves.
When did we first feel separated from our bodies? When did we first observe ourselves and judge our own bodies lacking or less than?
I wrote the piece which follows a while back (last Spring maybe) when I was reading and completing the writing exercises in Rupi Kaur’s book, “Healing Through Words.” It describes the first time I realised that women’s bodies were objects to be looked at and how, as a child of perhaps six years old, I began to feel uncomfortable in my skin for the first time. I offer it here to you – so you can consider when you first felt separated in yourself. And, perhaps, to see the joy of standing in your own skin.
The writing exercise was to visit your younger self – to free write but to include some random words provided in the book including: lion, laugh, fork, cloud…And to begin with the sentence:
If I could visit my younger self I would go back to the day when…
…I was playing in my bedroom and was going through a pile of old magazines and newspapers, cutting out pictures to make a collage or to go in a scrapbook. Flicking through a newspaper I came to the back pages and there I saw adverts for sex lines. There were pictures of women with their breasts bare. If I could go back, I’d tell that child me to laugh. To laugh away the sick and uneasy feeling which rolled over me. I’d tickle her, tell her it was silly and together we would make light of things and help the discomfort in her body fade away.
If I had laughed, maybe I wouldn’t have felt the split. The split which started that day and divided the me of inside (the real me) with the me on the outside - the part open to be viewed and judged by others. How lovely to laugh it off and stay feeling joined up – solid, shiny and strong in myself. A shiny gem that I owned; just me. No eyes needed to validate my worth. So much pain and vulnerability grew from that split and now I long to feel like a lion inside – powerful and prowling in my life – not small or lean or small or pretty, not the ways I have been taught. But muscular proudness; taking up my space with no fear.
Animals aren’t checking for back fat. Lions don’t give a shit.
Some days it hurts to be in my head – what I mean is, I have, through my life as a girl, a teen, a young woman and now aged a middle-aged woman had thoughts about myself which hurt me. It’s been easy to list the ways I am disgusting or not good enough. My mind patrols the zones of my body, my thoughts viciously stab at what is no good.
I’m lucky. It has changed. And these bad days come less and less now but they do still come. And it’s exhausting working on self-acceptance.
I’d like to be away on a cloud, how lovely! Drifting away to calm and blue. Not having to keep arriving at the same familiar fork in the road – left turn; continuing to believe in my unworthiness, letting the train of meanness just keep chugging. Or turning right, and (somehow this is actually harder) stopping the venom and practising the thought, “I ok just as I am. I am beautiful and worthy being me.”
That’s why I would go back and make little me laugh. To save us both from pain of the split.
RSS Feed