How do you talk to your body?
“You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful.” Amy Bloom
When it comes to the influence of the media and social constructs on our life path, as well as our self-perception, it seems that we have never been in a time that is more suited to our narcissistic tendencies and trends that deepen our sense of inadequacy. On social networks, we are regularly exposed to unrealistic depictions of seemingly “perfect” lives with which we compare ourselves. There are variety of user friendly apps available in case we wish to change our personal description in a few seconds in order to be closer to some version of the currently desirable ideal. To quote MIT social psychologist Sherry Turkle (author of “Alone Together”): “I think we have something even more pernicious – we look at the lives we have constructed online in which we only show the best of ourselves, and we feel a fear of missing out in relation to our own lives. We don’t measure up to the lives we tell others we are living, and we look at the self as though it were an other, and feel envious of it.” This creates an alienating sense of “self-envy” inside us, she says. “We feel inauthentic, curiously envious of our own avatars.”
One of the areas in which this is particularly pronounced is our relationship to the body. Summer brings waves of objectification of the body from all sides, therefore our vulnerabilities on this subject may come to the fore. As the media traditionally deals with our body seasonally, we get a lot of guidance and advice on how to fix it and lots of noise that flows into our internal self-talk on those topics. The unwritten social consensus dictates that with the beginning of summer we are additionally bombarded with photoshopped women in bikinis on magazine covers, advertisements for aesthetic procedures, suggestions for the best diet and preparations for a “beach body”. This calls for a healthy counterforce.
At the same time, from the point of view of psychotherapy practice and the examples I meet, I wonder if the ways in which we deal with the body really help us to listen to it better and hear it more clearly, or rather to establish the idea of the body as an eternally unfinished project? How much do the ways we deal with our bodies help us to realize that our relationship with the body reflects our relationship with ourselves?
When the relationship with the body is difficult
Although the body is part of our inner world and psychological functioning from birth, our first insights about physicality are often colored by messages about how it should look, how well it should achieve certain results, what state of our body is considered “desirable” (eg. the child’s illness causing frustration for the parents), what we can and can’t do with it. If, by chance, we were born with some characteristic that deviated from the norm, it was in many cases the object of ridicule or condemnation. As a result, our first memories of body awareness are often colored by the realization that we are somehow physically deviating from what the environment has declared as desirable and the accompanying feelings of fear, shame or insecurity.
Objectification of the body means treating our own and other people’s bodily selves as objects that we own that should satisfy certain characteristics or instruments that should serve some purpose that we have determined. Starting with the way in which children’s attention is drawn to healthier eating habits by referring to caring for their physical appearance (instead of the good feeling that comes from self-care), through advertisements that regularly focus on a part of someone’s body that should trigger a certain emotion in us, and finally – the film industry, in which only a few actresses (like Kate Winslet in the series “Mare of Easttown”) manage to insist on keeping the scenes where their imperfections are visible – one can notice that objectification of the body is deeply socially rooted and reinforced.
Internalized objectification always includes some degree of alienation from one’s own body – that is, the tendency to view the body as if it is not part of ourselves and speak of it as some foreign element and our sensations as some unusual phenomena that have little to do with us.
In addition, this phenomenon can also mean seeing one’s body through the lens of others or an “object” that should serve others (for example, “male gaze”). When self-objectifying, we get out of touch with ourselves and focus on whether our body helps us achieve what we envisioned or what we believe would gain us more “likes” (whether it’s a beach body, a workout accomplishment, weight loss etc.).
If we see the body as separate from our experience of ourselves, we focus on its assessment and ignore the signals it sends us, the sensations and conditions it experiences, there is a high probability that we will ignore or interpret feelings such as fatigue, tension, pain or some other unpleasant sensations as if the body “is failing” us. At the same time, we are more likely to be impatient, controlling, critical and unforgiving towards the bodily part of ourselves, instead of learning to enter into a caring relationship with it and learn to interpret what it is telling us. Understanding how we have adopted these tendencies is a process that for many people only begins in the psychotherapy relationship.
Some of the indicators that we tend to self-objectify include:
– presence of a critical inner voice that comments on our body using external criteria from the society, media and social networks,
– deriving a sense of self-worth from perception that others have of our physical appearance,
– the habit of imagining how others see / evaluate our physical appearance in society,
– difficulty in discerning which beliefs about our own body we want to keep and which we don’t,
– focusing on the question “how does my body look” and neglecting to check “how is my body” or “how does my body feel”.
Finally, sometimes the way we deal with the body is a reflection of our attempt to modify certain psychological processes or regulate raw emotions through investing in physical transformation. For example, we try to eliminate certain emotional pain by imposing a diet regime on the body, we punish the body because some part cannot cope with feelings of inadequacy, or we try to manage anxiety through rigid exercise. Treating the body like this helps our defence mechanisms more than healthy self-regulation, so it’s worth paying attention to.
A challenging relationship with the body can be more complex than self-objectification – it can be a space to play out internal dynamics from important relationships or the scripts of some relational traumas. If we notice that the internal dialogue we have with the body reflects a certain kind of impatience or judgement, it may be useful to think about whether this dynamic feels / sounds familiar. If we expect some unattainable ideal from our body – we can ask ourselves if someone put expectations before us that were impossible to reach? If we reject or despise our body, we can ask ourselves, what part of ourselves that perceive as “unacceptable” do we project onto our own body? If we treat the body with a list of requirements, we can ask ourselves what relationship is played out between the part of us that creates the list and the part that is obliged to fulfil it. If we find it difficult to connect with rest or pleasure in the body, there is probably a story about how those states became associated with guilt.
If these questions trigger answers that are challenging, it may be important to seek the support of a therapist who can help build a safer and more constructive relationship with the parts of us that we project into the bodily self.
How can we “talk” with the body?
“If you listen to your body when it whispers… you won’t have to hear it scream.”
(supposedly a saying of the Cherokee Indians)
We can understand the bodily self as a part of us that experiences ourselves and the world around us on a non-verbal level, contains numerous somatic memories and communicates through sensations. Therefore, as my colleague Slađana Đorđević would say in the podcast episode “U raljama osećanja”: “We cannot get rid of our bodily experience without getting rid of a part of ourselves.” Forming a relationship with a bodily part of yourself is somewhat similar to creating other close relationships except that, unlike relationships with other people, this relationship cannot be broken or escaped from. We can, on the other hand, cultivate a more or less functional relationship in which we lay the foundations that lead in the direction of control or in the direction of respect, trust and learning about this part of ourselves.
The belief that we need to feel good about our body all the time in order to have a good relationship with it is at the very least a misconception (somewhat implicitly spread within the body positivity movement). Although there is nothing wrong with loving the body, body neutrality seems like a more realistic approach to the complexity of our experiences. Although it is desirable to seek and cultivate a good enough feeling in our body, it is not possible to always feel good about it, love the way it looks and want to celebrate our appearance all the time.
A safe relationship with the body also implies an implicit promise to ourselves that we will pay attention to this part of us, that we will not neglect, punish or silence it. Any attempt to impose one approach for all situations or maintain one feeling in the body is an exhausting and often a cruel endeavour.
The relationship with the body as a subject begins with an effort to be curious, listen to it, talk to the body patiently and carefully, try to connect and learn to read the pleasant and unpleasant signals that the sensations in the body send us. Try to notice what happens inside of you if you pause at the end of my previous sentence – especially the part where we give the body benevolent and interested attention. Maybe a part of you relaxes, you might notice how you breathe or your facial expression changes. The opposite will happen to someone – some part will react with spasms and tension to the suggestion that we approach the body with compassion. Stay with your sensations for a moment, breathe and just let them be. The beginning is always in paying attention.
Body and summer – alternatives to (self-)objectification
This summer, therefore, as perhaps a certain form of rebellion or an emancipatory attempt or a gentle gesture of self-care, we can try to be more aware when we accept our body conditionally and pay a little more attention to what helps us monitor our body awareness. This season, as in other, with a patient and caring approach, we can begin to develop our own definition of body love. So summer, apart from the source of anxiety, can be an opportunity to explore what we would do if we controlled our body less, checked in on the signals it sends us and try to respond compassionately to them?
What would we do if we asked the body what it needs and met those needs (to the extent possible)?
How about exploring our own nudity in a safe environment, trying to get used to the exposure to our own bodies?
Maybe even allowing ourselves to explore questions like: What does it mean for me to feel sexy in my body? How much does it match the media images of it, and how much does it not? How can I freely explore my own sexuality and define myself in some more desirable alternatives? What would those alternatives be? What connects me to life energy and what gives my body permission to feel comfortable and happy?
Let’s imagine that we can gradually start to build love for the body as a sense of deep respect, gratitude for everything it does for us, appreciation and acceptance of its existence and everything that happens in it – even when what we experience is challenging. Such love would not depend on how much we like our body, nor how well it serves us for personal goals. It would certainly not depend on whether it is healthy, or partly not.
Such love would remember what our body has put forth, how many strengths and resources are in it. In such a relationship, we would choose to stay on the side of our body, as a precious companion, both when existence in it is frustrating, unpleasant or difficult, as well as when it is full of pleasure and ease. Imagine if we could give it the attention and presence it deserves since it enables and enriches our lives every day.
How would we then talk to our body?
Published in the summer double issue of Plezir magazine, July 2023