Love the Body You're in

Even Though Capitalism Doesn't Want You to

About two years ago, I read Sonya Renee Taylor’s shake-you-up, break-you-open, and build-you-anew The Body is Not an Apology. Actually, I read it twice. And gifted it to someone. Because it is just that important of a book. This week, I had the pleasure of hearing an interview with the author on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast, and it’s clear to me that I need to read her book a third time.

The foundational message—your body is not an apology—is one we all need. We live in societies built on the premise that white bodies are better than black or brown ones, able bodies are better than disabled ones, young bodies are better than old ones, thin bodies are better than fat ones, straight bodies are better than gay ones, cis bodies are better than trans ones, and men’s bodies are better than women’s. Few of us stand at the tippy top of this ladder, and all of us are taught to fear the possibility of slipping down a rung. Entire industries are built on this fear. Buy this, and you’ll be thinner. Buy that, and you’ll look younger. Advertisers typically don’t tack on further justifications, like “and that will make you better and more powerful than other people”—because they don’t need to. We have already absorbed the message: that power means power over. That worth is comparative rather than absolute. That our only safety lies in control. That scarcity, not abundance, is at the heart of existence.       

For the past few years, I have begun to feel something inside of my body that I’ve struggled to articulate, but Sonya Renee Taylor’s repeated reminders that everyone’s liberation is tied together—that none of us are free if we live on a ladder—come close to capturing it. I guess the feeling is this: that in moments when I struggle to love my body for myself, then I can and must love it for others, because no one is truly free until all of us are free. Some days, my love for others is an easy outgrowth of my love for myself. And on the other days? Well, truly loving you means that I have to love me, too.

In my early teens, I went through a period in which I starved myself. My first act upon arriving to school each morning was to drop my paper-bag lunch into the trash can so that I wouldn’t be tempted to eat it. When I could manage the deception, I would tell my parents I’d had dinner at a friend’s house (while telling my friend’s parents that I’d be eating once I got home). I didn’t begin to get better until I hit a point of such deep self-loathing that—while hanging over a toilet to purge—I found myself loathing myself for my self-loathing more than I loathed myself for not (I thought) being thin enough. Hating yourself for hating yourself is an awful place to be, but the combustibility of it is sometimes enough to catalyze meaningful change. I didn’t start loving myself right away, but I did stop starving myself.

Love came on more gradually, and loving myself completely and fully and deeply in every situation—well, that’s still a work in progress. But it’s joyful work. Most days, when I look in the mirror, what I see is my dearest friend. And this takes me back to the piece about our liberation being inextricably bound together. . . .

Body shame is an inheritance. We learn it from our families and our cultures and the media. We learn it from advertisers, politicians, playground bullies, and well-meaning friends. I have my own painful stories of how I first learned to hate my body. Most of us do. But as my love for myself and my body grows, I’m beginning to feel this: that in healing my own relationship with my body, I can heal something bigger, too. By loving my body as it is, I give permission to those around me to do the same. I give that permission even to those who have shamed me. Haven’t we all been guilty here at some point, knowingly or not? Body shame and body hierarchy are simply the waters we swim in. But by loving my body as it is, I grow beyond that brainwashed bit of me inclined to cast judgment on any body.

I think of the lineage that lives inside my own body—of mother and grandmothers and great-grandmothers, who perched on ladders even more rigid than the one I currently inhabit. I think of their burdens of self-judgment or loathing. And I imagine that just as they might have given me my blue-green eyes or wavy hair, I can pass something back to them. Their genes live inside me, and if I can love this body with this genetic make-up, then I am offering love not only to myself but to the pieces of them that live inside of me. Even if I have been wounded by a legacy handed down to me (we all have), I can choose to hand back healing in return.

We live as if on a ladder, but at the heart of things, I suspect our interconnectedness is more like a net. I imagine us all, arms and legs outstretched, holding each other by wrists and ankles, together forming a lattice. Each one of us is needed in this net. Each one of us helps to hold the abundance that is at the heart of existence. Every body is beautiful, worthy, and needed, and no body requires an apology.

I haven’t articulated any of this as well as I’d like to. Most of it lives inside me as a wordless energy or power—as the power of self-love, which is never power over. Sonya Renee Taylor’s gift for translating the liberating power of self-love into speech outstrips mine. So stop reading me, and go hear what she has to say!

Also, because I love her and because I love you, let’s do our first ever giveaway! If you comment on this post (I really value hearing about your personal experiences and reflections, but a simple “hi” is great, too), I’ll enter your name in a drawing for a free copy of The Body is Not an Apology. I hope to hear from you!