even though it's a very personal story, i'm sharing it because it might help other people to hear my own struggle with weight and body image issues. since writing this story i've lost over 70 pounds -- without actually being on a "diet". i've given up dieting for good. balancing my life has been the best remedy for just about everything that ails me.
i hope you enjoy the story....
my post-baby body transformation is a slow moving one. i still feel like hell when i look in the mirror. i still need the miraculous shift in perception, so i'm praying for it.
"Lord, thank you for helping me see my body through your eyes. thank you for helping me accept my body the way it is. thank you for helping me have confidence even though i know i'm not looking my best. thank you for transforming my mind about my body." (i've been learning to speak it like it's already happened as a measure of faith.)
like i've said before, some miracles take time. and this problem of mine isn't really a "post-baby" one. it's more of a longstanding one... my body image issues have been a source of anxiety, inhibition, and frustration for me as far back as i can recall.
i was the girl who was told she's beautiful, who was always fairly thin, but who pretty much always felt ugly and deformed. that's partly why i wasn't exactly what you'd call "hard to get" in high school... for some reason i interpreted the attention toward me as proof that i must not be that ugly. "i must be kind of beautiful if they want to be with me, right?" wrong. i learned later that most teenage boys' criteria is not usually too high. so in the end, that false confirmation of beauty made me feel even more ugly than i did in the first place.
i've pretty much always felt this way. about three years back i reached a turning point, though, where i actually was feeling much more confident and not nearly as self conscious as i used to feel. i didn't mind my body, and i had learned to accept my other various quirky imperfect features. of course, i was very thin, as i've been most of my life. almost gangly actually.
i had no idea at the time how much confidence i was gaining from being thin.
these days you'd be hard pressed to find any "gangly" part of me. i started getting pudgy after i kicked the cig. i didn't start snacking instead of smoking like you may think (actually i used puppetry to keep my hands busy, and punched a pillow when cravings attacked). but still, i got pretty fat. and then i got pregnant... and then i got huge.
i finally gave birth, but instead of shrinking back down, that belly stayed big and blubbery. it's been more than 6 months, and despite my walks and crunches and stuff, i'm still huge. i've been working at it, i've been praying, and i've been sure that the light is just around the corner.
one day, after accumulating a load of toxic emotional angst from a weekend at my mom's "wall to wall mirror" house, i was rocking my baby girl to sleep, and i looked down to see her belly on my belly. her cheek was comfortably cushioned on one of my new bouncy 38-D's. her long arms were wrapped around me. her fingers clutched my lovehandles . we kept rocking, and i thought,"she looks so much like a little happy comfy peaceful baby monkey. thank you God for this sweet little monkey."
then i remembered harry harlow and his baby monkey research. harlow took these teeny newborn monkeys (yes, it would be unethical these days) and put them with two inanimate surrogate "mothers." one "mother" was made of wood, with a soft cushy bit of terrycloth around it's body, and the other "mother" was made of hard cold wire. harlow learned that the babies spent more time hugging and clutching onto the soft terrycloth monkey, even when the wire one was the only source of food.
so with this new girth, i guess i'm more like one of those soft terry cloth monkeys. and i should be glad about that. i wouldn't want to be a cold bony wirey monkey (not that there aren't awesome thin mom's out there, but come on, give me something here...)
...so i get it. i'm cuddly and cushiony and huggable, and that's a great way for a mom to be. that's an empowering new perspective ....a real miracle in the making.
now when i start to fret about my body, i think about that wire monkey, and i am at peace again.
ok, not totally, but it's a start.
(thank you Lord)
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