A mother’s truce with her body
Your body is tired, weak and no longer in the same form as it used to be. It doesn’t move the same, feel the same, look the same, love the same.
Nurturing and birthing your babies changed your physical body but also your perceptions of your body. It shone a light on your insecurities and then gave you some more to deal with. The home that so beautifully nurtured your babies, suddenly doesn’t feel like home to you anymore.
I’ve spent far too many years in my life worrying about my appearance. I remember being self-conscious about my body throughout all stages of my life, my first memory of this begun when I was just 10 years old.
Before we had kids I loved exercise and eating well and thrived on feeling good. But to say I had a healthy relationship with my body couldn’t be further from the truth. Sure, I had days when I loved what I saw in the mirror and I felt confident and good about myself. But most days, despite how I actually looked I would find something to pick at. Something wasn’t perfect enough, I’d be happier if my legs were thinner or if I just lost a little weight around my bum. I walked into my first pregnancy like we all do… with some emotional body baggage.
I’ve spent years yo-yoing between having confidence no matter what my body looked like, to feeling so depressed and down about it I binge eat and literally give in. A vicious cycle, from one high to the next low in a heartbeat. I’ve envied my husband for his ability to train, feel strong or just capable of doing anything he likes and not be battling birth recoveries, breastfeeding, time constraints, emotional highs and lows and severe exhaustion. I’ve tried countless different routines – getting up early, training with the kids (this was not much fun), walking at night… all somehow with no lasting success. And then comes in the guilt.
But here’s the issue… that mean, judgemental, paranoid and competitive voice in our head that will tell us anything other than the true value and worth of our bodies – it’s a loud and unrelenting voice. It can be hard to quell in the midst of mummy-land when there is very little time for self-reflection and self-love. We all have this voice and we all pay more attention to it that it deserves. It’s much easier for us to make excuses, to listen to that voice and deny what we so rightfully deserve – to be loved! When in reality we should be making a truce with ourselves.
A truce that says we will stop fighting with ourselves about never feeling good enough. That we will learn to appreciate our body and the absolutely inspiring and incredible journey it has been on in child bearing. That we will forgive ourselves when we fall into our old traps of binge eating or calorie cutting, not exercising and feeding the negative thoughts with negative behaviours. But most of all… this truce means that we will be understanding. We will understand that our bodies have changed since having children and that it’s normal to struggle with the balance of making things happen post-kids. We will understand that true beauty comes from within and that our worth is not measured by our bodies or comparisons to social media and celebrities. We will understand that now, everything we say, do and believe is being modelled for our children.
But this truce won’t come easily. There is an idea that just because we should love our bodies because they gave us our amazing babies, that its easy. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Yes I am so grateful to my amazing body for nurturing and birthing my babies, yes I am in awe of what this body has done, but no that doesn’t mean all the other experiences I have had disappear. It doesn’t stop the voice in my head that tells me I’m not enough because of how I look. This is a deep current for many women, and saying we should simply love our bodies because they gave us our children doesn’t work. It’s not a switch you turn on or off.
Body image, self awareness and self love are a deeply intricate dance between any given moment, our past experiences, the words we have heard and the images we see. It’s not simple at all, it’s ridiculously complex.
This is a process. It takes time. This truce we want to so desperately make with our bodies requires us to be prepared that we will fall in and out of love with our physical bodies every single day. But slowly, the more we love our inner selves, the more we love our outer selves.
Don’t let that voice in your head tell you are unworthy. Don’t compare yourself to your old self or even worse, to others. Don’t spend another moment wasting your time stuck in a negative cycle. Invest in re-loving yourself. Re-loving yourself takes work. Take moments to compliment yourself instead of berating yourself. Wear clothes that make you feel good, not just what is convenient. Do your hair or wear the fancy special occasion underwear. Move your body in a way that feels good with no expectation on how many calories you are burning. Look in the mirror and tell yourself one thing every day that is beautiful and wonderful about you.
From this moment on I make a truce with my body. Every day I will remind myself that we are on the same team and there is no longer any space for self-sabotage. I will be forgiving when I fall into the trap of self judgement and comparison. I will be appreciative of the beautiful body that carried my babies. I will always look upon myself with respect and admiration. This is my truce and I will work on this each and every day.