Decoding Body Shame

I recently watched a Kickstarter video for a documentary called Embrace, which intends to unite women across the world to love their bodies. I thought it was great, and I encourage you to check it out here. (They are fully funded, and this is not a pitch to get you to donate.) What struck me about the video was the number of women who said that they think their bodies are disgusting, or some variation of the word disgusting. I remember once feeling this way myself, and it saddens me greatly to hear other women suffering in this way. I don’t think this phenomenon of body hatred is limited to women, either; I think men suffer as well, maybe just a bit quieter than women. So let’s talk about this.

One of the things that I loved about this video is that the creator, Taryn Brumfitt, decided to fix her body shame by fixing her body…and discovered that it did not work. The shape of your body does not correlate to the amount of shame you have. Nor do we seem to get a break from shame at any point in our lives – I have a relative who has been a Catholic nun her whole life, is in her 70’s, and makes depreciating comments about needing to lose weight.

It feels like a cultural disease.

One of the best theories I’ve ever heard for this phenomenon comes from the book When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies by Jane Hirschmann and Carol Munter. They call this cultural disease “Bad Body Fever” and suggest dealing with it by looking closely at “bad body thoughts.” We all know what these thoughts sound like:

My stomach is huge.
I look so fat.
My arms jiggle.
I have to suck in my stomach or people will see it.
{Fill in your own here.}

The authors suggest that we are using language about our bodies as metaphor for something much deeper. They recommend a four step process for dealing with these types of thoughts:

Step #1: Apologize
Let’s use the example of ‘My body is disgusting’ for this post. Say you get a glimpse of yourself in a mirror, don’t like the way your stomach protrudes over your waistband, and you have this thought. The first step – apologize. You would never say this to your friend, your father, or even your pet. Your body deserves an apology.

Step #2: Question the Authority of the Thought
That authors recommend the fantastic question, “Who says?” As in, “Who says being able to see stomach muscles is the beauty ideal?” “Who says my stomach is too big?” “Who says I’m disgusting even if my stomach is not the culturally accepted ideal?”

Step #3: Set the Thought Aside
We can easily look at this one from a Law of Attraction standpoint – as we think thoughts, it’s easier for us to think more thoughts that are similar. So, not paying any mind to ‘My body is disgusting’ lets it move quickly through our psyches, instead of lingering and attracting friends like, “my stomach is repulsive” or “I can’t believe I left the house like this.”

Step #4: Decode the Thought
This is where I think the authors are completely brilliant. They suggest that we are using body shame and loathing as a mask to cover other worries. In this step, they ask us to investigate the real cause of our discomfort. The fact is, our stomachs don’t change much from day to day – but certain days we hate them and they feel huge.

The question, then, is what triggered the shame and self-loathing? Were you contemplating increasing your rates when you were attacked with the idea that your stomach protrudes too much? Were you debating asking someone interesting out for coffee? Sometimes the circumstances will give us clues, and sometimes the words themselves will.

A “disgusting” body might mean a core sense of worthlessness for one person, or a fear of sexuality for another, or something completely different than we can imagine. We’re unique and our thoughts and their decoding is very individual.

My invitation for you this week – just see if you have any of these ‘bad body thoughts’ and if so, try out this process. I’d love to hear how it goes for you – please leave a comment if you’re willing to share!