Now last week I explained how indoctrinated I was with shame for my body and for self-expression in terms of my wardrobe and moving my body in terms of dance. If you haven’t read that post yet, I’d encourage you to do so before reading this one. Just click here to open it in a new tab. It got to such a fever pitch that I became unable to feed myself sufficiently and avoided looking beautiful out of fear and shame, but I had started to try to pull out of this miserable place, for my own good. And this is where we pick up today. I had started recovery from my eating disorder, and therapy to try to help me make new mental connections and progress toward my goal of self-acceptance.
Building a new life
Therapy helped me make new connections, but I did a lot of it on my own time. You have to, if you want to see real results. Now that I was faced with how much I hated my body in bright bold font, I knew it had to change. At first, my approach was very simple. If I wanted to do something to hurt my body, I would replace it with something that would soothe and nourish it instead. And I kept to a relatively healthy body care routine consistently. Eating three meals, plus the odd snack or two, getting consistent sleep and drinking water throughout the day became my utmost priorities, with anything else falling to the wayside for a while.
And yes, this simple foundation took all of my time and effort to put into motion. I had ignored and punished my body for its basic needs for so long that trying to take care of it consistently was foreign to me. Not only foreign but stressful and frustrating. In fact, at times I absolutely hated it and ended up breaking down in tears because “how could it possibly be time to eat again?!”. But I couldn’t trust my mind, not at this time.
As I began to get more accustomed to taking care of my physical self on a regular basis, I could afford for more flexibility in my schedule. Now I was better able to understand my base needs and pay attention to my body’s signals like hunger, thirst, and exhaustion without having such emotional reactions to them. And that was when it was time to dig in to my underlying feelings about my body (and the topics surrounding it).
New Fashionista
I started experimenting again, sort of like a little kid does, with fashion and style. I began wearing clothes I liked and putting on jewelry, trying new hairstyles. This was a big step for me, because I was afraid to look beautiful. So I did it in private first. By doing so, I got myself more comfortable with the feeling of liking how I did myself up. And feeling that over time helped me realize that I deserve to feel good about how I present myself. It brings me a certain level of confidence that helps me go after the things that I want to experience and feel good about it along the way. It brings a certain dimension to my life that adds a level of fulfillment to all of my endeavors. And all this time I have been shying away from it because I felt like I didn’t deserve it. But I do, and it’s not hurting anyone to have me liking the way I look.
But giving myself makeovers wasn’t the full story. Once I tackled the fear of being noticed, I had to address my shame. I wanted to express myself through my style, and I wanted to express my love physically. I think this is something a lot of people hold within them, if they come from a historically puritanical culture, or one that looks down upon physical displays of affection.
Breaking down mental blocks
I remember many times growing up that I had got ridiculed for being too physically affectionate with my friends and my sister. As if the world would crumble from too much hugging. And I definitely took it to heart. I grew embarrassed of what I would consider to be my true nature, and closed off all forms of physical expression of love, joy, and intimacy. It hurt too much to be reminded of how annoying (or evil, broken, insert other judgements here) that I was. I figured if I just shut it down, nobody could harass me for it.
And I was right, nobody could. But what I didn’t realize was that by shutting down that part of myself, I was closing off a major source of joy and connection, and basically dooming myself to live disconnected and lonely. I didn’t understand that by keeping myself from expressing my love and affection for the ones I cared about most, I was keeping myself from feeling their love and support in other ways. I was also keeping myself from being able to feel like I was reciprocating which gave me a hangup too, since I felt like I wasn’t loving them enough. (Which easily led me to the conclusion that I was a horrible person because of all the other bad conclusions I believed at the time.) I felt so alone and ashamed, and because of that, I kept myself from expressing my love and care for others, which in turn got me feeling more alone and ashamed. If you’ve never been there before, believe me, it’s tough.
I think crawling out was just a series of deciding that I wasn’t going to tolerate that shaming anymore, and filling my life with those who felt the same. I began to hug again. Not with everyone. But with those I really cared for and trusted (emphasis on the trust). And eventually I realized that my feelings of wanting to have physical contact with my loved ones were totally valid and healthy. I became more willing to give affection and confident being what I previously considered “vulnerable”. It became increasingly clear that the people who chastised me for all these years were the ones with a problem. But there was a final frontier. What about dancing?
Loving to dance, again
When I finally rediscovered dancing, it was only a few years ago. Now, I’m not talking about the stuffy waltzes that I pursued all these years. Not that there’s anything wrong with waltzes, it’s just that was all I had access to, so that was what I got. No, I’m talking about expressive dancing, with heart. Dancing with the depths of your soul, through the power of your emotion. That kind of dancing has the power to save lives.
I saw a group of belly dancers performing and felt this sort of embarrassed magnetism to the art. I wanted to look down at my shoes, but I couldn’t bring myself to look away, not even for a moment. I was hooked. I began practicing belly dancing, learning things from free online instructions and trying to fill in the gaps the best I could. In belly dancing, you use your whole body unapologetically, and that sort of radical acceptance just astounded me. I thought, “what could be more beautiful than that?” And conceptually, I still don’t know.
Now, the belly dancing craze died down eventually, though I think I may pick it back up someday. What took its place, however, was something more authentically mine. I began dancing on my own. As I did dishes. As I swept the floor. To music when I was home alone. I began allowing my emotions to flow through my body to be processed in addition to my mind. I felt a complete rush of relief and assurance through this, that this was what I was meant to be pursuing in this moment, similar to what I felt when singing or drawing. (If you’re interested in hearing about my past with singing, you can read all about it here.) I realized that I had been cutting off a full and vibrant channel of healthy self-expression all these years through dancing. And I was done. I wanted no more of that.
Re-imagining self-expression
And lately, dancing has been my release of choice. I wouldn’t say I’m a good dancer, or even a dancer for that matter. But what I am is an expressive person who is enthralled with the passion of dance. I don’t dance in public often, or really even in front of anyone at all. Yet for now, this is enough for me. One day maybe I will show my dancing off to the world, but most of all, what I hope you can learn from my part in all of this is just to dance. Let it flow through you even if you think it won’t look good. Dancing has healed me, finally, of my need to consider my body “right”. It has brought me a new way to understand, express, and process my emotions. Another channel through which to release my frustrations. And a new perspective with which to live out my daily life.
Maybe it’s not dance for you. But don’t hold yourself off from doing something to express yourself just because you’re not good enough at it or you think you might look silly. Just crank up the tunes and go at it. Explore your world, explore yourself. There will always be something new to find.
