The Path from Body Shame to Self-Compassion

The first time I remember feeling that my body was unacceptable was when I was 13. It was when my best friend’s dad saw me for the first time in a while and casually said to me, “you’ve put on some weight.”

I still can’t believe how much of an effect this comment had on the rest of my life. It’s as if that’s all I needed to conclude that if only I lost some weight all my problems would disappear and everything would be ok. I started my first diet. What an addictive feeling it was. I couldn’t get enough of it! I start restricting more and more. It was the beginning of decades of suffering, controlling, planning, loathing, shaming myself. 

The first time I realized I had an eating disorder was when I came back to Israel after a summer visiting my dad in Venezuela. Although I’d been eating very little, I figured out how to eat even less. My period stopped. I remember my dietitian standing speechless and colorless at her door as I came in for a follow up appointment. She told me I had to stop, but it was too late. Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t stop. I had boarded a fast moving train and there was no getting off. I couldn’t make myself eat beyond what I had rationed myself. I constantly checked my metrics: scale, clothing size, measurements, but no matter how low the numbers, the reflection in the mirror, the storefront, the window always said “not enough.”

There were big fights at home. I didn’t want to let go of my control. I wanted to stay so thin no one could ever think of me as too big, too much, not fitting in. It took a long time before I made the decision to get help. I asked my mom to see a therapist. It was the first moment I realized that most of my thoughts about food and my body were not actually about either. 

They were about my sense of belonging, of worth. 

They were about wanting to feel less helpless, less judged. 

They were about wanting to have structure at a moment when it felt as though I had no control over so many things in my life. 

This went on for years. It stole so much of my adult life. Planning, organizing, controlling, restricting, then not being able to keep it going, gaining some weight, feeling drowned by shame, and starting over again, and again, and again. I still felt ruled by shame, fear, and self-hate around my body image.

I was a mover, a somatic practitioner, a healer, and yet I was still imprisoned in this cage of my own design. I knew I was a victim of social conditioning and internalized sexism. I knew I was still putting all kinds of other emotional weight on the scale, every time I stepped on it. 

But how could I free myself? 

I realized healing this was central to so many things I wanted to be, to do, to create in the world. My body was utterly confused from decades of food restriction, and ignoring my hunger and satiety cues. My body had stopped speaking to me. In order to give my body back its innate power, I had to slow down and start listening. That meant my body got to decide when I ate, and how much, and even what. I was terrified I’d gain back weight I’d worked so hard to lose. 

But I could not go another day living under the rule of an unkind authoritarian. I committed to treating myself more kindly, to believing that self-love is more important than the image in the mirror. 

I decided to let my body change if that’s what it took to become more intuitive with my eating. The result of that was that my body changed. I gained weight. I knew that there was no way back. I had closed the door on dieting. I needed to figure out how to live in the body I had, how to accept it. I needed to learn how to breathe, dance, parent, teach, dress, flirt inside this body, as it is.

I realized that when I engaged in mindful movement and body explorations, I was so absorbed, there was no room for me to think about how my body looked. It was all about sensing, feeling, deriving pleasure from my body moving, and becoming more in touch with how miraculously my body works. 

Being engaged in mindful, awake movement not only took my mind away from disliking my body, it also centered what the body can do, rather than how it looks. It diffused the shame I’d been carrying. I realized I could share this accepting, loving, grateful space with others, that my journey to somatic awareness had led me to my life’s purpose: to help myself and others shed our body shame, insecurity, and judgment, illuminating, in its place, freedom, pleasure, appreciation, and acceptance.

That’s why I created the Body Story Workshop where we show you how to use mindful movement along with other tools to let go of shame and walk down the path to personal acceptance. 

Join us via Zoom for my Body Story Workshop on Sunday, March 27 from 4-5:30 pm Eastern Time.

Get more information and register HERE.