Hi, Lisa! Always wonderful to read what you have to say! I heard Sonya Renee Taylor on We Can Do Hard Things yesterday, too (I think it was from a week or two ago but I listened to it yesterday!) I haven't read her book, but I have heard about it before (maybe on this same podcast? Or another one?) But I did get something new out of it yesterday. I have thought before, many times, about the contradiction I am holding when I believe in my head that all bodies are beautiful and that the "ladder" is wrong and harmful, and at the same time I judge myself for any deviation from that one standard of beauty; I weigh myself every day and worry about it when it goes up above a certain arbitrary number! (And I am 63!) But the thing I got that was new yesterday WAS the critique that you mention - that actually, I am contributing to oppression by even holding that expectation for myself, judging myself by that standard - it is not harmless. Easier said than done to let it go, of course. (Although, I will say, that the dance community I was immersed in when I was in Boston, and that I am still on the fringes of from far away, does a pretty good job of creating a space where all body types are seen for their beauty - although also there is at the exact same time some idolization of women with specific kinds of beauty - so - I don't know!! A work in progress.)
I am still dealing with the changes in the function of my body, and wondering if I will ever regain the energy I had pre-Covid/Long Covid. This has been a difficult week, that way. :-(
Would love to check in with you at some point!! In the meantime, I feel a little burst of pleasure when I see your name in my emails!! Thanks for writing this. Oh, and - I LOVE the image of the net!!! I will hold onto that!! <3
Candy!! It's so nice to hear from you! I'm sorry to hear that it's been a difficult week. Those energy lows can take such a toll, not just on body but also on spirit. I'm sending a hug your way!
I love how your phrased things here . . . that we are contributing to oppression by holding these rigid, unrealistic, and externally-prescribed standards for ourselves. And I think your acknowledgement that letting that go is easier said than done is an important one. Because the last thing any of us need is to start beating ourselves up for the fact that we breathe this air, swim in this water, and have internalized it along the way. Maybe a helpful reframe to avoid that sort of self-flagellation is this: instead of thinking that every single moment of self-judgment is contributing to oppression, what if we think instead that every single moment of self-acceptance is helping to dismantle oppression. Then we get to celebrate each micro rebellion that happens within us! We get to celebrate the moment when we smile warmly to our reflection in the mirror, when we run a hand across our bellies and feel tender toward the softness, when we speak kindly to our fatigued bodies, when we forget just once to step on a scale, or forget just once to care what the number says. Maybe there's no real possibility of failure here because what we think of as failure is just us doing what we've been taught our entire lives to do. But there IS the possibility of rebellion, of tiny revolutions inside of us that then spill outward and soften the effects of that wretched programming - not only for us but for everyone.
Thank you again for your comment! Sometimes I wonder if I'm just sending emails out into the ether, where they will sit unread. So it's always nice to hear that someone is happy to receive them! A check-in would be lovely. 💕
Thank you for sharing your thoughts here, Lisa. Physically, my body hasn't changed much through my extended time of illness (notable exceptions being those lymph nodes that are now perpetually swollen, and that self-hating time towards the beginning when I lost a horrifying amount of weight trying to "cure" myself through the Whole30 to prove that I was "actually trying to get better" to a crappy housemate YIKES), but my body's capacity has fluctuated drastically.
It's been really helpful for my own self-acceptance to read works by disability justice advocates and chronically ill folks. I absolutely loved Sitting Pretty, On Being Ill, and Waist-High in the World, and The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness was transcendent in the same way you're describing--I've read it twice and bought a hardback copy.
I won't be running a marathon anytime soon, but that's never been something I've wanted to do anyway. So I think a lot of my self-acceptance has been recognizing what really are my desires for my body, grieving those that can't be fulfilled, and celebrating my body as it is now.
Ugggh, being sick is hard enough without the added pressure to prove to others that it isn't your fault and that you're doing everything you possibly can to heal. I know that miserably feeling of trying to live up to outside pressure, even when my body was asking for something else. I sincerely hope that your crappy housemate now lives elsewhere!
I haven't read the first two books you mentioned (I'll go look them up!), but I LOVED The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness. I read it pretty early on in my long Covid journey, and it helped me to feel so much less alone and so much more trusting of my own experience. I think that Sonya Renee Taylor lives with chornic illness as well, and she talks about disability and illness in a really beautiful, accepting, and empowering way. I think you'll love her book if you read it, and I will enter you in the drawing!
Thank you for sharing your experiences, Grace! May your relationship with your body grow ever more celebratory (a thing I wish for myself, too)!
Hi Lisa, So glad you are doing better now! I have been over my long covid for quite some time now and am enjoying good health, and getting back to more of an active life. I've been enjoying your writings as always. I've been meaning to comment and am finally now doing it. I look forward to your e-mails, but this one really didn't resonate with me. I guess some of the things it talks about have just not been part of my experience. Just wanted to say hi, and so glad you are better, and I will continue to look forward to your e-mails. : )
Frank, it is so nice to hear from you, and I'm thrilled that you are enjoying good health again! I appreciate your honesty about what resonates with you and what doesn't. My sense is that body shaming looks and feels different depending on what sort of body you're in (black/white, male/female, thin/fat), and of course, some people just experience a lot more of it than others. I'm happy that it isn't figured into your own experiences in a big way. I hope we grow toward a place where that can be true for everyone!
Our relationship with our bodies is so important and it dictates our behavior and thoughts. So many things you wrote here rings a bell for me. Covid sent me into a real understanding of what truly loving yourself should look like. Its a struggle but I gained so many more tools in doing it better now.
Thank you for sharing this, Sue! It sounds like - in some ways, at least - the experience of illness has helped you to love your body more rather than less. Does that ring true? That's been my experience, as well . . . and not at all the experience I would have expected, given how attached I was to physical activity and fitness prior to getting sick! I've been thinking about that more lately and wondering how it is that I've come to love my body more rather than less as a result of these health challenges, and I think one piece of it is simply that I've become more embodied. I pay more attention to my body. I treat it more gently because I have to.. And in that process, I've come to marvel at all that it is and all that it can do.
Illness has definitely made me look at my body in a different way. I am kinder to it because I don't want to see what the alternative would look or feel like at this point. I am also intrigued at the science of it all so that keeps me going.
Thanks for sharing, Lisa. I didn't gain weight during the pandemic but since it's gradual end I have put on 20 lbs (which doesn't sound like a lot but I notice it everyday). The gain doesn't hinder my day to day, and my body is still capable of a lot, but I still don't like what I see in the mirror. I've recognized the thoughts for about a year now, but it's a tough journey.
Thank you for sharing so openly, Mahtaab! Any sort of change or fluctuation in the body can feel hard. When I see you, I see a warm and radiant and beautiful soul beaming outward from your entire being (as well as incredible hair), but I understand that what YOU see in the mirror is most important. I recently read Michelle Obama's new book, and she talks about a friend of hers who wakes up each morning, heads straight to the bathroom mirror, looks himself in the eyes, and in a jovial town declares "Hey, Buddy!" I love that start to the day, and in my most self-loving stretches (which are as changing and fluctuating as everything else), I find myself intuitively stopping to look into my own eyes and smile when I see my reflection in the mirror. It feels lovely. Something to try, perhaps, if you haven't already?
Thanks for this inspiring reflexion, about ladders and/or nets. It changes alltogether, so completely, when I see a net and not a ladder anymore. I am already expériencing this net these years but as you name it it helps me to see it.
Thank you, Anne-Lise! The image of the net just came to me unbidden one day while I was meditating. A couple days later, I read another author (Joanna Macey) describe the exact same image, which also came to her while meditating. It felt like the universe was trying to tell me something!
Hello Lisa, I left you a comment on the Shout Out thread but you might not have seen it. Let's chat soon—lmk what email is best (not sure if there's a way to DM each other on Substack so you're not publishing your email... ). (sorry for commandeering one of your posts to send this note!)
Inspiring and important words and work, Lisa! Shine on! Keep blazing a path for yourself and those around you!
Hi, Lisa! Always wonderful to read what you have to say! I heard Sonya Renee Taylor on We Can Do Hard Things yesterday, too (I think it was from a week or two ago but I listened to it yesterday!) I haven't read her book, but I have heard about it before (maybe on this same podcast? Or another one?) But I did get something new out of it yesterday. I have thought before, many times, about the contradiction I am holding when I believe in my head that all bodies are beautiful and that the "ladder" is wrong and harmful, and at the same time I judge myself for any deviation from that one standard of beauty; I weigh myself every day and worry about it when it goes up above a certain arbitrary number! (And I am 63!) But the thing I got that was new yesterday WAS the critique that you mention - that actually, I am contributing to oppression by even holding that expectation for myself, judging myself by that standard - it is not harmless. Easier said than done to let it go, of course. (Although, I will say, that the dance community I was immersed in when I was in Boston, and that I am still on the fringes of from far away, does a pretty good job of creating a space where all body types are seen for their beauty - although also there is at the exact same time some idolization of women with specific kinds of beauty - so - I don't know!! A work in progress.)
I am still dealing with the changes in the function of my body, and wondering if I will ever regain the energy I had pre-Covid/Long Covid. This has been a difficult week, that way. :-(
Would love to check in with you at some point!! In the meantime, I feel a little burst of pleasure when I see your name in my emails!! Thanks for writing this. Oh, and - I LOVE the image of the net!!! I will hold onto that!! <3
Candy!! It's so nice to hear from you! I'm sorry to hear that it's been a difficult week. Those energy lows can take such a toll, not just on body but also on spirit. I'm sending a hug your way!
I love how your phrased things here . . . that we are contributing to oppression by holding these rigid, unrealistic, and externally-prescribed standards for ourselves. And I think your acknowledgement that letting that go is easier said than done is an important one. Because the last thing any of us need is to start beating ourselves up for the fact that we breathe this air, swim in this water, and have internalized it along the way. Maybe a helpful reframe to avoid that sort of self-flagellation is this: instead of thinking that every single moment of self-judgment is contributing to oppression, what if we think instead that every single moment of self-acceptance is helping to dismantle oppression. Then we get to celebrate each micro rebellion that happens within us! We get to celebrate the moment when we smile warmly to our reflection in the mirror, when we run a hand across our bellies and feel tender toward the softness, when we speak kindly to our fatigued bodies, when we forget just once to step on a scale, or forget just once to care what the number says. Maybe there's no real possibility of failure here because what we think of as failure is just us doing what we've been taught our entire lives to do. But there IS the possibility of rebellion, of tiny revolutions inside of us that then spill outward and soften the effects of that wretched programming - not only for us but for everyone.
Thank you again for your comment! Sometimes I wonder if I'm just sending emails out into the ether, where they will sit unread. So it's always nice to hear that someone is happy to receive them! A check-in would be lovely. 💕
Wonderful lessons for life... Even for a white male who is getting older and whose body is progressively becoming disabled! Doodad
Awww, thanks Dad! 💖
Thank you for sharing your thoughts here, Lisa. Physically, my body hasn't changed much through my extended time of illness (notable exceptions being those lymph nodes that are now perpetually swollen, and that self-hating time towards the beginning when I lost a horrifying amount of weight trying to "cure" myself through the Whole30 to prove that I was "actually trying to get better" to a crappy housemate YIKES), but my body's capacity has fluctuated drastically.
It's been really helpful for my own self-acceptance to read works by disability justice advocates and chronically ill folks. I absolutely loved Sitting Pretty, On Being Ill, and Waist-High in the World, and The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness was transcendent in the same way you're describing--I've read it twice and bought a hardback copy.
I won't be running a marathon anytime soon, but that's never been something I've wanted to do anyway. So I think a lot of my self-acceptance has been recognizing what really are my desires for my body, grieving those that can't be fulfilled, and celebrating my body as it is now.
Ugggh, being sick is hard enough without the added pressure to prove to others that it isn't your fault and that you're doing everything you possibly can to heal. I know that miserably feeling of trying to live up to outside pressure, even when my body was asking for something else. I sincerely hope that your crappy housemate now lives elsewhere!
I haven't read the first two books you mentioned (I'll go look them up!), but I LOVED The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness. I read it pretty early on in my long Covid journey, and it helped me to feel so much less alone and so much more trusting of my own experience. I think that Sonya Renee Taylor lives with chornic illness as well, and she talks about disability and illness in a really beautiful, accepting, and empowering way. I think you'll love her book if you read it, and I will enter you in the drawing!
Thank you for sharing your experiences, Grace! May your relationship with your body grow ever more celebratory (a thing I wish for myself, too)!
Hi Lisa, So glad you are doing better now! I have been over my long covid for quite some time now and am enjoying good health, and getting back to more of an active life. I've been enjoying your writings as always. I've been meaning to comment and am finally now doing it. I look forward to your e-mails, but this one really didn't resonate with me. I guess some of the things it talks about have just not been part of my experience. Just wanted to say hi, and so glad you are better, and I will continue to look forward to your e-mails. : )
Frank, it is so nice to hear from you, and I'm thrilled that you are enjoying good health again! I appreciate your honesty about what resonates with you and what doesn't. My sense is that body shaming looks and feels different depending on what sort of body you're in (black/white, male/female, thin/fat), and of course, some people just experience a lot more of it than others. I'm happy that it isn't figured into your own experiences in a big way. I hope we grow toward a place where that can be true for everyone!
Our relationship with our bodies is so important and it dictates our behavior and thoughts. So many things you wrote here rings a bell for me. Covid sent me into a real understanding of what truly loving yourself should look like. Its a struggle but I gained so many more tools in doing it better now.
Thank you for sharing this, Sue! It sounds like - in some ways, at least - the experience of illness has helped you to love your body more rather than less. Does that ring true? That's been my experience, as well . . . and not at all the experience I would have expected, given how attached I was to physical activity and fitness prior to getting sick! I've been thinking about that more lately and wondering how it is that I've come to love my body more rather than less as a result of these health challenges, and I think one piece of it is simply that I've become more embodied. I pay more attention to my body. I treat it more gently because I have to.. And in that process, I've come to marvel at all that it is and all that it can do.
Illness has definitely made me look at my body in a different way. I am kinder to it because I don't want to see what the alternative would look or feel like at this point. I am also intrigued at the science of it all so that keeps me going.
Thanks for sharing, Lisa. I didn't gain weight during the pandemic but since it's gradual end I have put on 20 lbs (which doesn't sound like a lot but I notice it everyday). The gain doesn't hinder my day to day, and my body is still capable of a lot, but I still don't like what I see in the mirror. I've recognized the thoughts for about a year now, but it's a tough journey.
Thank you for sharing so openly, Mahtaab! Any sort of change or fluctuation in the body can feel hard. When I see you, I see a warm and radiant and beautiful soul beaming outward from your entire being (as well as incredible hair), but I understand that what YOU see in the mirror is most important. I recently read Michelle Obama's new book, and she talks about a friend of hers who wakes up each morning, heads straight to the bathroom mirror, looks himself in the eyes, and in a jovial town declares "Hey, Buddy!" I love that start to the day, and in my most self-loving stretches (which are as changing and fluctuating as everything else), I find myself intuitively stopping to look into my own eyes and smile when I see my reflection in the mirror. It feels lovely. Something to try, perhaps, if you haven't already?
I love that. I will indeed. Thank you my friend. ❤️
Thanks for this inspiring reflexion, about ladders and/or nets. It changes alltogether, so completely, when I see a net and not a ladder anymore. I am already expériencing this net these years but as you name it it helps me to see it.
Thank you, Anne-Lise! The image of the net just came to me unbidden one day while I was meditating. A couple days later, I read another author (Joanna Macey) describe the exact same image, which also came to her while meditating. It felt like the universe was trying to tell me something!
Hello Lisa, I left you a comment on the Shout Out thread but you might not have seen it. Let's chat soon—lmk what email is best (not sure if there's a way to DM each other on Substack so you're not publishing your email... ). (sorry for commandeering one of your posts to send this note!)
I’m not sure about DM or any of that on substack either, but you can email me at lisathejensen@gmail.com!