“Do mindfulness”, they said. “Meditate and exercise and do yoga. Write a journal. Feel your feelings and let them go”, counseled the therapists and body workers I visited. “It’s all about empathy, compassion and forgiveness.” Explained articles that I’d read in waiting room magazines or self help books about overcoming anxiety and healing trauma. “Live in the present!”a post reminded me in big bold font every few weeks on my Instagram feed.
Great advice. But it didn’t really help. How? How did I do that? I knew what I had to do, but I just couldn’t get myself to do it. I was the queen of self sabotage, the master of avoidance; stuck in an endless loop of self recrimination, self-hate, and regret. I was rarely in my body, and when I was, the last thing I wanted to do was feel anything.
Even now, despite all my years of personal growth work and emotional overhaul, some days, especially when it is dark and grey outside, I still have remnants of imposter syndrome, perfectionism and crippling self doubt. Thankfully they are rare, but in those moments, I look at myself in the mirror, see my greying hair, flaccid stomach, saggy arms and chubby thighs; and think myself a failure. My body is not what I perceive to be perfect. What I was told was the definition of perfect.
Or sometimes, when I read back through my writing, all I can see are the words that don’t fit, or where they stilt the flow. Other times, I simply catalog all my embarrassing transgressions and social faux pas. Am I in trouble? Am I still safe? For in those moments, I have fallen back into my old, default mode of thinking and feeling.
But thanks to my healing journey, I’ve learned that instead of being trapped there, helpless and victimized, I can be in the present; and I know the first step is to move my body.
So I stand in the bathroom and swing my arms, shake my hips and jiggle all that fat and quivering flesh. I watch it ripple and shimmy as I sway back and forth, and a new thought takes over my mind. This isn’t me. This is how I was taught to think about me. The true me (body, soul and mind) is beautiful and perfect, whole and complete. Every day I am doing the best I can, with the resources I have, to fully live my life.
With that realization my whole attitude shifts. All my physical shaking dislodges the detrimental thought like an errant pebble from the toe of my shoe. I take a deep breath, and with the exhale, expel from my sense of self any echos of the derogatory and self-deprecating thoughts still rattling around the old, well-worn grooves of my mind.
I am safe.
I am safe.
I am safe.
I remind myself yet again as I feel my nervous system relax. I’m doing the best I can with the resources I have. I might not be anyone else’s concept of perfection, and that is ok!
Sometimes, in those moments when I forget, I trip over my guilt or self-loathing and get bowled over by shame. But each time it is faster and easier to get back up again and on my feet, grounded and powerful. Now, more often than not, I catch myself before I fall, and stick the landing instead.