Radical Self Love: Jackie’s Story
To begin, here are some of my delusional beliefs and feelings:
I don’t identify with how I look now (referring to my weight).
I feel overweight, ugly, and fat.
I feel that no one will find me attractive at this weight.
I associate less weight with being healthy.
It’s been extremely difficult for me to think otherwise. These thoughts have been embedded in me for a long time. I remember having these thoughts throughout the years starting in high school. I look back at photos where I’m 110, 120, 130, 140, up to 180 (as pictured) and my thoughts never changed, just worsened. It’s effed up.
I think I have a beautiful face, but not a beautiful body. I feel more confident when I do my hair and makeup. I feel more confident when I dress up (covering the parts of my body I don’t feel good about). I don’t really date. When I did, I would feel super insecure showing my body. There are a couple guys I felt comfortable around, but I still didn’t feel great about myself. And when I say I don’t identify with how I look…I mean I don’t feel like myself. It feels like I’m in another person’s body.
When I don’t have a reflection to look at I don’t have negative thoughts about my body. I don’t have positive ones, but at least I don’t have negative thoughts. When I look in the mirror sometimes I feel good and sometimes I feel horrible about myself. It depends on my clothes, my hair, my makeup, angle, and overall how I’m feeling.When I look at photos—showing my whole body or candid shots—it’s not good. The thoughts that come into my head are horrendous. Writing this part makes me want to cry.
Ironically the photoshoot itself was fine. I felt safe, comfortable—maybe a little awkward. When I looked at the photos I felt a mix. The photos where I was posed a certain way I felt okay. My head wasn’t swarming with positive self loving thoughts, but I didn’t hate it. Some photos I felt pretty good about myself. Then…I saw the candid shots. I had to take a deep breath. I hated myself.
On the car ride home, my mind went immediately to, “I need to be stricter on my diet”, “I need to workout more”, “Who would ever find me attractive”, and overall I just felt a sense of sadness. I’ve been working on self compassion and self love. So the good news is the intensity of those thoughts and feelings lasted about a day or two. Then I got back to focusing on the steps I’m taking to be healthy—body and mind—and to live a happier life.
I try to focus on how my body physically feels. This is where I don’t always feel like myself. When I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis (hypothyroidism) I gained a lot of weight and have never been able to lose it. Some of the side effects are my body physically feels heavier and feels difficult to move.
I’m typically fatigued, which makes my body feel weak and sluggish. I squeeze my hands sometimes during the day to see how much grip strength I have. This is a good indicator for me if my body is rundown and weak or feeling strong.
I’ve been working a lot on my fitness and nutrition to improve how my body feels. I move on a regular basis, I eat a healthy diet (loaded with vegetables, healthy fat, protein, and some complex carbs), I don’t drink, smoke, or use drugs. I keep a low stress and low anxiety lifestyle. FYI–this is a major change from a year ago. Basically a complete 180. Even though my weight hasn’t dropped, I feel stronger, more flexible, more energetic, and in general feel like I can move. I have gotten rid of my digestion issues too. My goal is to gain more strength and endurance to do all the activities I love to do—muay thai, dancing, and hiking. I can do these now, but I feel like I hit a brick wall afterwards. I am proud of myself for the progress I have made. I continue to improve. Small steps and long process, but I prefer that over depression and physically feeling shitty.
To close, I’m applying cognitive behavioral therapy to the negative thoughts I have:
I don’t identify with how I look now. >> This is me. I’m still the same beautiful, creative, fun, sweet and sour patch kid, but evolved into a wiser, new and improved loving self.
I feel overweight, ugly, and fat. >> I feel beautiful, sexy, and free.
I feel that no one would find me attractive at this weight. >> I am beautiful, attractive, talented, caring, and pretty damn smart. Others will see that. And if they don’t, their eyes must be closed.
I associate less weight with being healthy. >> News flash: weight is not an accurate indicator of health. Surprise! >> I am and will be healthy and fit at any weight with movement and strength based exercise, a nutritious diet, and positive mental stimulation.
I may not 100% believe all of my positive thoughts yet or all the time, but the more I think them the more powerful they become.
-Jackie
Note: Jackie has been training with Gillian for almost 5 years, she was a participant in DCM’s official Radical Self Love shoot at Sarvodaya Farms, and is currently developing a program to change the infrastructure of health education in schools and beyond to reflect Radical Self Love principles.
