The Realization That Allowed Me To Stop Hating My Body For The First Time Ever

I’ve always drawn a clear line:

I can help with nearly any mind/thinking/mindset challenge you have… UNLESS IT’S RELATED TO THE BODY. If you’ve got a body challenge, I send you elsewhere. I’ve never understood body stuff.

Then, I had a hit-me-over-the-head-and-knock-me-down realization about my body that looks like it’ll change the direction of the rest of my life.

HERE’S THE QUICK BULLET-POINT BACKSTORY:
(maybe you can related to some of it…?)

• As a young kid, I was chubby.
• My babysitter in the 80s tried to show me how to throw up after meals so I could be thinner. Luckily, I never got the hang of it.
• I grew up with Cosmo and Teen magazines (idolizing rail-thin models) along with a mom who focused on her thinness.
• At 15 I thought I was fat. (I wasn’t.) I told my parents, hoping they’d say, “You’re fine,” but instead, they confirmed my fear by sending me to a nutritionist who made brilliant suggestions like, “Eat one apple for lunch to keep your calories down.” My relationship with food got warped, quick.
• By my early 20s, I’d gone through nutrition plans and serious training regimes after playing college soccer. I learned to keep sprinting when I got tired, and play through pain until I dropped, all for the good of the team.
• By my late 20s, I lived in snowboard parks most days of the week. My life consisted of falling down onto hard snow as I worked on tricks and rails and large jumps, day after day after day, crash after impact after fall, jarring hit on my body after hit after hit.
• In my 30s, I got into endurance mountain biking. I trained for 100-mile mountain bike races and learned how to not eat when my body was hungry, have my training schedule tell me what to do next regardless of how I felt, and keep pushing pedals through hour 6, 7, 8, 9+ even if I was exhausted.
• In my 30s, I also went through a series of four surgeries on my knees and 10+ surgeries on my right ankle. Each surgery needed another surgery to fix it, and it just wouldn’t heal.
• In my later 30s, I experienced a 3-year period of chronic pain that no doctor and no routine and no therapist could alleviate.
• When I turned 40, I found myself staring down a barely-managed addiction to sugar and carbs.
• Throughout my life, my body weight fluctuated up and down by 30 lbs. I was okay with it when I was thinner, HATED it when I was heavier.

During my life, I’ve HATED my body…

for being heavy.
for failing me.
for not healing.
for hurting.
for breaking.
for looking ugly.

And then… something happened.

I was reflecting on an acquaintance who was using a copious amount of projection to make herself feel better — INSISTING with passion that her spouse was being manipulative and controlling… when it was actually HER being those very things to him. She wasn’t owning it in herself. She was blind to her own blindspots, as we all are.

I found myself wondering where I might have major blind spots. Where might I myself be projecting a part of me I don’t want to own onto someone else…?

And then out of nowhere, it hit me.

Ton of bricks.

I’ve been engaged in a life-long form of projection ONTO MY OWN BODY.

All these years my mind was convinced it’s been disgusted with my body.

In reality though,my mind has been disgusted with what IT has done and what IT has put my body through.

Whoa.

All these years my body has been trying to keep up, to heal, to renew, to do what my mind has demanded.

Meanwhile, my mind has been forcing it to…

• eat when not hungry
• not eat when hungry
• exercise when exhausted
• push through pain
• crash and crash and crash onto concrete and hard snow
• keep going after concussions
• eat junk that made it inflamed
• diet
• come back more rapidly than recommended after injuries
• slouch at computers for days
• perform when I’ve not been stretching

….and yet my mind would have the nerve to HATE my body when it hurt, “slowed me down”, gained 15 pounds, or wouldn’t move the way I wanted it to.

My body’s been doing it’s best, my mind’s been abusing it, and yet my mind’s been shouting “It’s YOUR FAULT, body, you’re holding me back!!” all these years.

This realization stung.
I’ve been incredibly cruel to my body.
It’s a wonder my body’s made it this far.
It’s really done its best.

Thank you, body.
I see how hard you’ve been trying all these years.
I’m so sorry for hating you.
I can love you now.

With this realization, everything changed.

I now feel empathy and compassion for my body. How could I possibly hate it when it’s done its best and tried to support me in every endeavor I’ve pushed through?

I’m now deeply motivated to treat it kindly and help it feel and perform better than ever.

I’m motivated, for the first time in my life, to care for my body out of LOVE instead of HATE.

And love, my friends, is the switch that can change everything.

I feel different. My body pain has massively disappeared and my eating compulsions have waned.

Most importantly, I will no longer treat my body from HATE.

My body can FINALLY align with my mind.

What an incredible, new lease on life I now have.

I’m still in kindergarten when it comes to understanding body issues, yet my hope is that my simple realization helps some of you out there who’ve struggled for years with similar challenges.