There is a little girl in my life, she 7 years old and she thinks she's fat. She's not, but that's not the issue, the issue is body image in a child, at any age it is not cool, but it seems to be starting younger now than ever.
I'm not going to go into details about the child's experience because I did not ask her permission to post about intimate details in her life.
Every so often this precious girl springs life issues on me that I only realize in the moment that I am so utterly unequipped to support her through. I do my best in the moment, and then think of all the brilliant things I could have said days after the incident.
I only have these fleeting moments of opportunity when she opens up to me to help guide her to be able to face these issues on her own within herself as she lives and grows.
But how can I guide her if I haven't faced the issue within myself in my own life. Words are basically empty when you speak without having actually walked the process in awareness and made a change within yourself, because children are too perceptive and they see the truth.
The truth is that I am not completely comfortable in my own skin. I fear very much to become overweight and to not be seen as attractive. I have worshiped my sexuality as a top asset since a very young age, and used it to develop my self-image, my value and my worth in so many ways. This has been disastrous in my life, my relationships, and most of all: My relationship with myself.
It reminds me of a quote from the commencement address by David Foster Wallace Kenyan College: "Worship beauty and you will die a million deaths before they ever put you in the ground."
So, how can I humbly support this brilliant bundle of innocence to face one of the most challenging aspects in a woman's life? The answer is that I have to do it for myself first. If I can do it for me, get to know the details of the experience, walk a process of change in complete awareness of what I am doing, then I will be more prepared to speak in those candid moments that I am never expecting.
"If you don't know what the fuck you are doing, how can you possibly teach anyone else?" - Bernard Poolman.
How do you walk a process in complete awareness? Writing and practical application. Trial and error. Self-introspection and living experience.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge my body in any way whatsoever.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge my body as beautiful and sexy, looking at it in the mirror and fueling my ego, imagining others thinking about my body in admiration and jealousy, creating a misplaced value and worth on body-judgement, wherein I set myself up for insecurity within myself because in not getting the attention or reactions/compliments from others, I begin to fear that my body is not good enough, is too fat, too imperfect, instead of developing a supportive relationship with my body, based in common sense and practicality, focusing on nutrition and exercise as the basis of the relationship.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear becoming fat within the belief that I would lose my value and worth in society and be seen as less-than, less important, less worthy.
I forgive myself for NOT accepting and allowing myself to accept and love myself unconditionally.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become brainwashed by media, television and advertisements selling me an image of what a woman should be, to the degree that I have believed it is my own value system, my own judgment and my own thought.
I will continue to walk this process to see how I have misguided my relationship with my physical body over the years, not only for me, but also for a young girl that I may have the opportunity to plant some seed so that she doesn't repeat the same mistake most women make in terms of less then optimal body image.