Bodies
There was once a man who loved his dog. Each morning he walked her, fed her, and gave her a treat before he left for work. When he came home in the late afternoon he walked her again, threw her a ball, called her a “sweet girl,” and scratched her furry ears. What a great dog! He loved everything about her—her coarse fur, her mismatched eyes, and even her crooked tail.
The same man hated himself. Each morning, when he looked in the mirror, ugly words slipped out of his mouth. At work, he thought he heard other people laughing at him. When he remembered being teased as a kid for his big ears, crooked teeth, and skinny legs, he felt so bad that he stuffed himself with junk food and drank too much just to push the feelings away. Nothing eased the ache of unworthiness. Meanwhile, his dog adored him.
The point of this story is not that everybody needs to get a dog. It’s that a lot of us have a poor, even abusive relationship with our physical selves, our bodies. Many of us enjoy our animals for their uniqueness and love them for their imperfections. But with our own bodies it’s different. We compare them to impossible standards. We berate them. We push them to extremes and use them for destructive pleasure. And since we are these unloved bodies, we hear the unworthiness and shame call back like a lonely child: “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I be as good as other people?”
What about you? As you’re looking out of your body right now—past your nose, over the ridge of your cheekbones, down at your stomach and hands and legs—what feelings arise? Are there any parts of your body you like? Are there parts you’d rather not think about? Are there parts you reject?
When I ask some of my clients how they feel about their bodies, they have mostly negative things to say. This comes up a lot with female clients, and it’s no surprise. Popular culture and advertising have always targeted women’s insecurities about their appearance. Most of the teenage girls I knew growing up were obsessed with perfecting their bodies—which meant conforming to unrealistic media standards. A lot of us survived on lettuce and diet drinks and talked about nothing except how to get skinnier. Now, with the rise of the influencer movement and whole new industries dedicated to trends like “looksmaxxing,” young men have become as prone to body insecurity as young women. Yay equality.
But the problem isn’t only cultural pressure, unhealthy as that is. When I dig down with clients, I learn that there’s often something else going on. Shame about our bodies—and ourselves as a whole—can start very early in childhood. We may feel anxious or sad, but we’re not sure why. Then we arrive at adolescence, and those feelings bloom into rejection of what we see in the mirror. It’s as if childhood has been writing us a defining story—a story of unworthiness--and adolescence has given it a voice. “There’s something wrong with me.”
But what is the story? Where does all this self-rejection come from? It probably has many causes, but when counselors speak to people who struggle intensely, we often hear stories of early loss and rejection. Clients tell me about losing people who loved them (sometimes due to divorce or death) and feeling unwanted and vulnerable. They tell me about intense bullying that made them anxious and hyper-vigilant. Some talk about physical and sexual abuse that traumatized them and left them completely alienated from their bodies.
The common word for such wounding experience is “trauma,” but these are also stories of lost inheritance. Each human being is a unique creature, formed in the image of God, capable of loving and enjoying, but also thinking and creating in a way that no animal can. Each of us is heir to all the wealth of nature and all the joy of earthly experience. But because of the pain that touches us, we can’t accept that inheritance. We look in the mirror and see only a thing that’s imperfect and unlovable. We see a body that’s so hard to accept as it is that it needs to be maxxed, shredded, filled, sculpted, dieted away, or disguised. It’s a lonely creature we struggle to be friends with.
Is this you? It might be. Maybe you grew up comparing your body to bodies on a TV screen or in social media. Maybe you felt rejected in school and tried to change yourself to fit in. Or maybe your feeling of being unworthy came from early experiences that wounded you at your core. Befriending yourself and loving your body feel impossible. You would rather numb out, or
soothe your pain with momentary pleasure.
Recently I was at a friend’s house, and she was keeping a 9-month-old baby. The baby was tired and fussy. My friend was doing a great (and exhausting) job of distracting him. At last, the baby’s mom came to pick him up. When she entered the room, he immediately stopped crying and squealed with joy. His whole body wriggled. He threw out his arms and legs and smiled
with every ripple in his dimpled cheeks as he greeted the person he loved most in the world. The experience reminded me of the most transcendent thing our bodies were made for—worship. Worship is love in motion. It’s a mix of self-abandon and joy in another person (ultimately God) who gives meaning to our lives. It comes so naturally to a child reunited with his mom. He’s just happy! But for many of us grown-ups, our shame and self-conscious criticism make it hard for us to feel positive at all, let alone jump for joy. Still, there’s an encouraging reminder here. Our bodies were made for that. Not for comparison or for abuse, but for active joy in relationship with God, with people, and the created world. Here are a few things that our bodies were divinely designed to be (which bring joy) and a few things they are not designed to be (which bring shame and self-rejection):
Bodies ARE
instruments that perform the music of the soul (like a little boy jumping for love)
explorers of the natural world
healers and nurturers and lovers and friends of other bodies
defenders of good things
laughers and sleepers
talkers and tasters and baby-rockers
artists and builders and thinkers and scientists
lovable even for our frailties (like dogs with crooked tails)
physical reminders of the ministry of Jesus here on earth
Bodies are NOT
disposable, replaceable, forgettable
objects to possess and compare
machine parts designed to function uniformly and efficiently
punching bags or targets
collateral damage
containers for other people’s shame
If you struggle to love yourself, it may be that people have used your body in some of the bad ways listed above. This is tragic. It will take you time, and much love and help, to learn to see your physical self the way that God sees you. I encourage you to talk about your hurt with a counselor and with people in your life that you trust. They can help you find healing and restoration, though (like Jesus) you may always bear some scars.
If you want to read more, there are many books available on the body, the effects of trauma, and the hope of healing. The most famous is The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk. A very accessible work from a Christian (and female) perspective is Strong Like Water by Aundi Kolber, who also wrote Try Softer.
