Releasing the Pressure to be Perfect
CW: negative body image, dieting
One night during the summer of 2014 I found myself sitting in my parked car after a night out, sobbing my eyes out over my body, as I had countless times before. But this time there was something different; I wasn’t sobbing because I hated my body and all of the misfortune that I believed it brought me (although I did still feel that was true). This time I was sobbing because I was so exhausted. At the age of 31, after about 20 years of trying to “fix” my body and “figure out” how to have the “right” body, I just couldn’t believe that I was still in the same place of despair.
The previous summer was the last time I had gone on an official diet, and I lost a lot of weight in a short period of time. The following winter, I went to a nutritionist when the weight started coming back on, who, when I asked her how to deal with cravings and binges, told me that she could tell me what to eat, but that I had to “figure out and deal with my demons” on my own.
Looking back at pictures of myself from that time, of course I am shocked that I could have possibly felt that way…but I did. I was reaching a breaking point. I suspected that I wouldn’t be able to continue repeating this pattern for much longer, but I also couldn’t conceive of a way out of it.
Me at 31
A moment of confidence (yet glued to the mirror) in April 2014, amidst an emotionally tumultuous year of frustration with my body and myself.
A month or so later, I had a big revelation: I realized that I believed I was only worthy of love when I was on the smaller end of my weight spectrum. This felt really sad to me. Logically, I knew that it wasn’t true, but I truly, deeply felt it. And I knew that if I ever wanted to find love, I had to do something to change it. From there, things started to become more clear: I decided that I would rather be bigger than what I wanted to be than to continue torturing myself. I decided that I had to get rid of all my old clothes that were too small, but which I kept around for when I lost weight, and I decided that I had to stop dieting.
But how? Everyone I talked to about this stuff seemed to constantly be complaining about their bodies and obsessing over what they ate. I knew that I would need to find other people who were choosing this alternate path for support if I really wanted to go for it.
So I turned to the internet.
I googled “body positive support group” and scrolled past a few HIV+ websites until I found thebodypositive.org. When I saw that it was a non-profit founded in 1996 “to create a lively, healing community that offers freedom from suffocating societal messages that keep people in a perpetual struggle with their bodies” my heart stopped. This was far beyond what I could have imagined I’d find. I nearly fainted when I saw that they were based in Berkeley, CA because I was set to move to the area from Chicago in exactly two weeks (really!) And when I saw that there was a daylong workshop being offered two weeks after my arrival date, I didn’t hesitate to sign up for it. I had no idea what to expect, but I absolutely knew that I had to check it out.
To say the workshop changed my life would be an understatement. I learned so much that day that was at once shocking, comforting, inspiring, and groundbreaking. When the day came to a close, I didn’t want to leave. I helped to clean up, and the next week I started volunteering. I knew without a doubt that these were the people I needed to be around as I explored a new way of relating to food and my body.
Eight years have passed, and my relationships with my body and food are now completely different. I still haven’t left The Body Positive - after a year or two of volunteering, they started paying me for part-time work, which then grew into a full-time job. I went back to part time when I moved back to Chicago in 2019.
The Body Positive in Action
Co-facilitating a Be Body Positive Facilitator Training in 2017 with Executive Director and Founder Connie Sobczak.
The Body Positive teaches five competencies, or skills, that people can practice throughout their lifetime to have a better relationship with their body. I’ve been actively practicing these competencies since I learned them in 2014 and when I was doing my Yoga Therapy training, I was struck by how well The 5 Competencies complement Yoga philosophy. It was clear to me that a Yoga program focused on improving body image would make a whole lot of sense. Between the power of the practice for connecting with our bodies and the philosophy that helps us to guide our thoughts, it’s a natural match.
Perfectly Imperfect: A Yoga Community for Better Body Image is a three-month program where you'll find a community of like-minded people who will support you as you work to build loving, sustainable habits to help you feel stronger, more energized, and most importantly, more at peace with your body. This is a space free of triggering diet and weight loss talk, led by an experienced, large-bodied Yoga Therapist and body image expert (that’s me!)
This program offers you a chance to dive into an accessible Yoga practice for a significant period of time so that you can get support moving through the initial challenges and discomfort, and toward a more easeful, vibrant experience of increased strength and comfort with your body.
Me Today
Feeling at home and free in my natural body this fall.
I know what it’s like to restart a Yoga practice in a body that feels unrecognizable. I know how emotionally painful and physically challenging it can be to have to come face to face with what your body can’t do and how different it might feel. I also know that it’s possible to get to the other side and it is so very worth it.
There are three options for participation in Perfectly Imperfect and multiple payment tiers. You can learn all about it by clicking the button below. What if 2023 could be the year you finally release the pressure to be perfect and embrace your beautifully flawed, divine Self?
