I’m not gonna lie. I’ve been pouting on the couch for the past week watching RuPaul’s Drag Race. A mere ten days ago I was JUST telling my husband that I think I feel better in my body than ever before. And the next day I woke up with a blood clot in my leg.
I couldn’t stand. I could barely walk. I went to the doctor and there was talk of surgery and medications and life altering autoimmune disorders. I was scared, mad and depressed. I felt like my body was a backstabbing bitch.
As a trainer working with the pre/postnatal community I have seen varying degrees of exactly how I’m feeling reflected in the people I work with. Pregnancy and postpartum bring big changes. And sometimes we have to stop doing some of the things we love because our bodies just...can’t. Sometimes our bodies look, feel and move in ways that feel foriegn.
It can be hard to love our bodies through these changes, especially if these changes feel like our bodies are failing us. So, here are the steps I’m taking to love my body right now...even though I don’t feel like she’s loving me back.
Stay Neutral
Maybe love is too much to ask for when we are deep into the depths of physical change or injury. It has helped to remember that nothing about my body so far in life has ever stayed the same...ever. I grew. I went through puberty. I have been bigger and smaller. I’ve been pregnant and postpartum. I have grown older. I have been sick and injured. I am always changing. So, even though I have been laid up, it is probably not permanent. I will move through this the way I have all the other stages of my body.
Practice Gratitude
A few weeks ago as I was teaching a client the Core Breath she exclaimed, “I’m a bad breather!” I remember thinking, no you’re not! You are breathing, aren’t you? Just because you are learning a new strategy doesn’t mean that you are bad. So we discussed it and broke it down in a way that showed her body gratitude. I was trying to get her to breath into her belly, but she was breathing up into her neck and shoulders. I noted that this was because she had just been pregnant and there was no room in her belly to breathe for months! And how cool is her body to grow a human and adjust to a new strategy that allowed her to do that!?!
Ugh...so here I go on myself (it’s always easier to do on other people than myself!). I got varicose veins when I was pregnant with my first son. Even though I haven’t loved the way they look, these veins have helped me square up with my body image. I have decided to rock swim suits and other outfits that show my legs even though my veins are showing. I have actively chosen to see my strong muscles instead of just the lumpy veins. But now these veins are getting clots in them. I had a lot of years of being really active with these veins. It might be time for a surgery, but I’m glad that I was able to work with them for as long as I could.
(How did I do?)
Leave Comparisons Behind
Comparison steals our joy. Most often when we compare ourselves to others we end up feeling worse about ourselves even though we don’t really know the whole story about the other person. What we see of other people (especially on social media) isn’t always the whole story. We all have our own unique light to shine in this world. Someone else’s success doesn’t take away from our own. So, maybe someone else ran through their whole pregnancy, but you felt like a rhino trying to sprint a marathon by your second trimester...that’s your story and it’s ok that you are having that experience. Maybe someone slipped right back into their pre-pregnancy jeans at 2 months postpartum and you are a year out and still wearing leggings.That’s ok. You’re journey is different than theirs. Maybe someone has varicose veins and has been able to manage them for a lifetime...that’s not my story. And it’s ok.
How have you struggled to love your body? We’d love to hear about your journey.