Why we're bad at self-care

I hope you had a pleasant Valentine's day and President's day weekend. Self-care is important. Self-care, self-love. Whatever you want to call it. 

A lot of people (like yoga instructors and crystal enthusiasts) talk about self-care. 

It always sounds like meditating in your kimono after a luxurious bubble bath. I should say that I am terrible at self-care. I think most Americans are too. 

That's the reason this post came late. Last week, I hadn't gotten enough sleep. I was hungry and promised to hang out with a few people. Having gotten up at 5 AM, I felt I wasn't honoring the tradition of self-care if I sat down and wrote on a Friday night, even if it was about self-care. How could I write a blog post about it?

Today, I am pushing past the pain to write.

Because that's what we do. The reason that most of us struggle with self-care is that we feel like our bodies are thwarting our productivity. 

This is otherwise known as "protestant work ethic." American culture highly values productivity at all costs. The "protestant" piece of this definition alludes to morality. We work hard because we want the American Dream (which is promised to those of us who are willing). We also work hard because it is MORAL. We feel like we aren't good people if we're not working hard. 

We are always supposed to be working. But, let's just say, for the sake of argument, that you need rest.

For example, we all know, that sleep is necessary. Not getting enough sleep is equivalent to being intoxicated.

How many times do you find yourself giving up sleep in the service of some big pay-off? Whether it was making a diorama in 3rd grade or answering emails at midnight, you've likely given up a lot of sleep for school, your career, or relationships. 

We have been conditioned to DENY our bodies for the greater good. 

Many believe that our bodies are impure. If we left it up to our bodies, we think there'd be nothing but looting, pillaging, and cookie dough binges. 

This belief prevents us from loving our bodies. 

Love is, after all, about trust. This is at the crux of intuitive eating. We need to re-learn trust and respect for our bodies. 

If you want to feel better about your body and food, the first and most important step is LISTENING. 

Next week, I'll talk more about what self-care has to do with intuitive eating. Sign up below to get the post emailed to you directly!

Musings on Tess Holliday

Today I had a great conversation with my friend @DrGhavami about what my options are to work on some of the things the ☀️ & mothering two children has done to my body. These aren't "flaws" - but they are things that have taken away from what makes me feel sexy in my own skin. Part of what I aim to do with #effyourbeautystandards is to let people feel like they are allowed to make choices for their own body. Whether that is shaving or not, getting tattooed or pierced, working out to change your body or choosing to undergo plastic surgery - you are allowed to love your body and still want to change things about yourself. As long as YOU are in charge of your body, and are doing it to make YOU happy, then what you do with your body is your business! @drghavami is ethical, kind & his passion for what he does really shines through. Proud to call him a friend🙌🏼💕 #effyourbeautystandards #drghavami

A photo posted by Plus Model✖️ Mom ✖️ Feminist🌹 (@tessholliday) on Aug 23, 2016 at 8:46pm PDT

Tess Holliday is considering plastic surgery and I'm feeling all the feels about it. 

Before I ruffle any feathers about my opinion on this, I want to say a couple things: 

1) The patriarchy does not own all aesthetic decisions that women make. 

This is the crux of the point that Tess Holliday is making. She is specifically saying that she does not view her body as "flawed." She just wants to make some changes to it. 

 I don't think that the patriarchy influences my aesthetic choices always. For example, when I choose to wear a sweater, it's usually because it's cold outside. It's not because "the man" is telling me to wear a sweater. 

It's important to acknowledge that Tess Holliday sees herself having agency in this decision. There's no gun pointed at her head or an abusive husband demanding that she change her body. This is something that I've talked about before. It is possible to have agency in the patriarchy. 

2) This post is helpfully vague in what she is planning on changing. 

 It's hard to know what her decision is based on when we don't know what's going on. Maybe she is getting scars or stretch marks removed. Maybe she is adding scars and stretch marks. She could be getting a mastectomy or another medical procedure and still wants to keep her modeling career. 

We just don't know. And it probably is none of our damn business. It's her Instagram page not her medical record, even if she's a public figure.

3) Tess Holliday's body positivity is palatable. That is what makes her a successful activist. 

When I first starting trying to look at larger bodies and see them as beautiful, I went on Pinterest. I looked up plus size models in bikinis. 

Tess Holliday, Kate Upton,  and Ashley Graham look like the runway models we usually see. Their frames are hourglass. Their skin is clear. Their makeup is on point. They are predominantly white and upper class. They generally are trying look like Cindy Crawford. 

Seeing women who are bigger who look beautiful really really really helps. 

In a big way (pun intended), Tess Holliday is helping women. She's showing people bigger women can be attractive in a way that allows them to see it. She uses these markers of traditional attractiveness to make people comfortable. 

 Having scars or stretch marks or parts of her body that prevent her from making this appeal are "off brand." They might be taking away from her work as an activist in a pivotal way. 

4) And, yes, absolutely, Tess, "what you do with your body is your business."  

That is at the heart of the pro-choice movement. Whatever you decide, you still own your body. Nobody else does. 

But... I'm still a little disappointed. 

 Her choices affect other women because she is a public figure. 

I've talked about Anita Sarkeesian's talk about choice feminism. The choices we make have an impact on other women. 

Not all choices, just for being choices, are feminist choices. My choice to wear a sweater is not a feminist choice if I'm making it based on the weather. 

 I think what she's saying is CONFUSING. 

How can she explain to women looking up to her how she decided what she didn't like isn't a "flaw?" 

It's just confusing. She's saying, "Yeah yeah yeah. I'm perfect. I don't need to change but I'm going to and I want to." 

 The exercise and diet obsessed, who were on the path to recovery, now have this Instagram post to point to. They can say, "But I don't like my body. It's my body. I get to decide. I can decide to keep doing (insert unhealthy behavior)."

 The "man" could appropriate this to convince women that body hate is "empowerment."

I did a lot of work in therapy on being able to hold two things at once. I can love my body and I can want to change it. You can certainly love your body. You can certainly change your body as an act of love. 

My concern is how companies appropriate the language of body positivity to sell products. I fear we won't allow women to feel like they can just be in their bodies as they are. We will use the language of body positivity and feminism to "empower" women to hate their bodies. 

This has already happened around dieting and health. These days we mask disdain for fat people with "concern for their health." 

 It makes me sad that even my heroes can feel like they want to change.

I'm disappointed because women like her are the women I look to on my bad body image days. When I dislike how my body looks, I want to see women who are unabashedly proud of how their body looks every damn day. 

I want Instagram posts about jiggly thighs and stretch marks and scars and saggy boobs. I want to see belly rolls and wrinkles and birth marks. Instead, I'm seeing a "body positive" advertisement for cosmetic surgery. 

But, here's my deus ex machina. 

I appreciate that Tess Holliday is being honest. I appreciate that she's being vulnerable. I appreciate that she is tackling this complex concept of how she chooses to live in her body. 

After all, the rest of us make choices everyday about what we're going to change and what we won't. 

For example, I shave my legs but I don't shave other parts. I sometimes wear makeup and braid my hair and care about what clothes I'm wearing. It would be too exhausting to be perfectly feminist or perfectly body positive. 

I don't think you have to walk around in a paper bag and demand that society accept you as you are.

 BUT.... society should accept us unchanged, naked, make-up free, belly rolls, stretch marks, saggy boobs and all. 

We're all human beings, right? 

Love Your Body

The 8th principle of Intuitive Eating is "Respect Your Body."

It sounds simple enough but I have to tell you that it's not easy. This one principle is CRITICAL to becoming an intuitive eater. 

I'm probably going to write about 10 million more blog posts about this because believing your body is good enough is really hard. It's especially hard when there's tons of magazines, advertisements, and pictures everywhere reminding us that we need to buy wrinkle cream, botox, a fast car, or McDonalds to be good enough or in order to love life. 

In fact, they made a whole documentary about it. Our culture very much values appearance. This is especially true for women.  When we don't meet the standards, it can be hard to feel good enough. Even if you don't have a diagnosable eating disorder, managing food can be one way to cope with this very human and very normal feeling. 

For me, the process of coming to love my body came from learning to recognize that my body weight was NOT somehow an indicator of my worth or my health.

The idea that your body should look like the cover of some magazine is not only unattainable but not necessarily healthy for your body.  I would argue that the fallacy that we can all fit into one size is one of the worst myths out there. 

Here's the big thing: 

Weight doesn't really matter the most when it comes to your health. 

Socially, we  have conflated the two. And GURRRRRRRRRRRL, (or BOOOOOOOOOOIIIII) do I have some youtube videos for you to watch:

1.  You can be healthy at every size: http://www.bodylovewellness.com/speaking/ 

This video unpacks one of the largest nutrition studies in the world and shows how weight is not a significant factor in health and longevity when people exercise regularly, eat fruits and vegetables, don't smoke, and drink minimally. 

Stop stepping on the scale to measure your "health."  Focus instead on healthy habits. 

2.  BMI is bologna: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlXxoG98urc&noredirect=1

 BMI, or Body Mass Index, is a formula that takes your weight and divides it by your height squared. In this video, Laci Green unpacks how it evolved from a simple formula that was explicitly not to be used as an indicator for health to being co-opted by life insurance companies and the dieting industry. Now, BMI is the rallying cry of people fighting the "obesity epidemic."

I give you these videos because the conversation around weight has bled into the conversation about health and part of learning to love your body is learning to know the difference. Taking care of your body is about listening to it, not berating yourself for being "overweight." 

Because, c'mon, how well has hating your body worked so far?