Today I have decided to actively engage in radical acceptance of my body. To view it as the shell of who I am and nothing more. For too long I think I have identified my self through my appearance and nothing else. I have not been able to accept any aspect of myself for my body never measured up, and this is whom I believed myself to be. I am trying to remind myself that I do not base my friendships or judgements of people on their appearance, that is not the 'them' that I see, but what is beneath that. I am hoping/guessing that this is the same for the majority and in this way can assume that others are not judging or engaging with me based on my appearance. This may or may not help free me from my own judgemental attitude but it's one argument I can try and counter my automatic thoughts with. I am also going to start practice thought stopping whenever a thought based on my size, weight, shape, or appearance arises. For not only is this now solely weight-focused but is also starting to include facial lines and other imperfections. I followed through with a breast augmentation earlier this year, and am investigating botox currently. I figure that if I continue along this track of not accepting my appearance, continually fighting the battle of aging etc i'm going to be one mighty miserable granny, and i'd have wasted my whole life on this issue. Not only that, but these such behaviours place a distance between those closest to me, as I hide what i'm doing, I cover my insecurities, shut down my vulnerabilities and 'human-ness'. This includes my husband and my girls, and this is not what I want to be doing to my dearest and most precious relationships. I do not want to be closed off and aloof to my daughters because i'm too caught up and obsessed with myself.
The next thing i'm attempting (again) is to stop weighing myself, and to stop the body checking (primarily studying myself, or certain areas of myself, in the mirror). I'm going to stop checking for the gap between my thighs, the degree that my belly sticks out, and the amount of cellulite under my butt. I'm also going to stop tracking my calories and macro's on MFP and try for a less stressed/obsessed approach to eating. At this point i'm still going to aim for 100g of protein, and a lower carb intake, but I think if I take out the tracking, then I will become more flexible with this and achieve a more balanced intake.
I am currently taking Ripped Freak 4x a week, as I would still like to lose body fat and achieve a more defined body, but as soon as the bottle is gone I will stop with that also. I don't even know if the stuff works, but I can definitely feel some thermogenic effect, so something must be happening. I can't say whether this "happening" is good or bad, but i'm not really interested in that answer right now.
The other thing i'm supposed to be working on is bringing my mind and body back together. Due to the experiences of abuse etc of my childhood I learnt to split these. I placed all of the unconscious feelings of shame, fear, hurt, bad, etc on to my body, and through the behaviours of the e.d. and other things, found a medium to manage them. I attacked my body in an attempt to attack/deal with these emotions. And now that i'm older, and no longer in such circumstances, I no longer need these coping strategies, so can let them go. It's not just as easy as recognising that this is what I've done and therefore i'm over it, these are long practiced behaviours and rehearsed thoughts, so I need to introduce a new 'mantra' and apply as much psychological 'force' to this in order for it to take effect. This actually gives me some much needed hope that things can change, that I can change the way I think, and therefore let go of such fear and anxiety, and perhaps experience a new state of being. Just imagine having thoughts of my body that are neutral and no longer tied to these emotions- it's impossible for me to imagine, but apparently it's a reality for a lot of people. My long term ambition may actually become a reality if I achieve this- the desire to work with e.d. clients in a very present way. I've held on to this dream for so long, but have also resigned myself to the fact that i'd never achieve it, due to not attaining the recovery and freedom from the disorder myself. I had long since come to the point where i'd not even share this aspiration with anybody, but have never been able to truly let it go.
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