Body Talk – Stories from the Inner Critic
Looking in the mirror has for many, become one of the most uncomfortable things we do. Uncomfortable because the minute we do the inner critic hammers away. It’s universal. You’re not alone. Criticizing the physical form we each inhabit is a rampant and pervasive story no matter where you live or who you are. Keep listening for a discussion on body talk, recrafting body stories, and why we’re all in this together.
Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. Story power serves you best when you know how to use it.
Now, I love my body – it’s taken me up mountains, down mountains, across lakes, across deserts, down canyons, across dance floors, into incredible intimacy, and anywhere I directed it to go. It’s strong and healthy and with the exception of accidents that left me broken, it always has been strong and healthy. I’ve been blessed beyond measure. I’ve been able to see the world, loved ones, trees, scenic views and blooming flowers in all their colors, sunsets and sunrises, the depth in another person’s eyes, and all the amazing things we take for granted every day. I’ve been able to hug people I care about. I’ve been able to feel the music and let my body respond, I’ve been able to hear people express ideas, teach, complain. I’ve heard dogs bark, music play. I’ve been able to taste and enjoy delicious foods, and smell pine needles and Christmas candles, cookies and a steak on the BBQ. Confession: There have been times when I’ve been down enough that the idea of leaving this life was something I toyed with. But during one of those times of considering the viability of living, I realized that if I left I’d have to leave my body behind and I couldn’t bear to do that.
Now, that being said, I have a nice little entourage of body critiques that play over and over when I’m around a mirror. Lots of them have to do with aging, there’s one about weight, that my eyes are beady, or my forehead is too big, or my nose is too long, or … a bunch of stuff that I get to learn how to recognize as body assault chatter, and then remember that it’s the love and energy that we put out into the world, not the details of our wonderful bodies that determine our beauty and attractive natures.
One of the difficulties of changing our body-image mindsets is that living in a culture of body perfection expectation there will always be negative feedback – real or felt that comes at us. We have to become so full of acceptance and love of our own bodies that the negative societal feedback or expectation that gets flung around has less chance of sticking. I KNOW. Easier said than done, but we are discussing the whole picture here. Let me share a personal story about negative body image feedback.
When I was in 7th grade, a very formative age of social awareness and self-awareness, I had a geography teacher who thought he was a funny fellow and liked to tease the girls in the class that were his class favorites. He was the coach for the boys’ basketball team, and my friend and I were starters on the girls’ basketball team, so we often received the brunt of his jokes. He teased us daily, but one day, in front of all our peers, he told us we had elephant noses. He thought that was awesome fun, and proceeded to throw that out. “Hey elephant nose,” he’d yell across the classroom when he wanted our attention. We were little girls who hadn’t grown into all our features, but having an adult, in front of all the peers for whom we hoped to be extremely cool, disparage how we looked was embarrassing. Humiliating,...
