I will torment my body to ease my soul. How to learn to accept yourself and your body

The body. What is it?

The body is us. It’s part of us, an integral part of us. It’s not a tool or something separate. The body is inseparable from our soul and personality. We can see it from the outside, but also, or perhaps above all, the body is everything that is in us – our internal organs, all the processes that take place in it, cells, fluids.

For me, as a dietician, reducing body fat is a side effect of the work done on the interior.

And as a psychologist, I focus on allowing the body to function as well as possible without tension. You could say that what happens inside the body is the key to what happens outside. I rely on emotional work based on a gentle, understanding, compassionate approach to oneself.

The body is inseparable from us, at least that’s how it should be perceived.

Exactly. It should, but from your experience as a psychologist and dietitian, what does this actually look like?

There’s a group of women who treat their bodies like alien beings who don’t cooperate with them. Or one that you can take it out on or screw up – I use this verb on purpose, because that’s what my clients say. There’s also a group of girls who cause pain to their body so that their soul suffers less.

There are also women, although I do not deal with them personally, for whom the body is a way of achieving something – attention, popularity.

The objectified female body is used by the media, show business, advertising. A woman is reduced to her corporeality and her body is treated as the only aspect of her value.

Giving women control of their bodies was the best way for them to start controlling them. When you say to a woman, “You can be young, you can be slim, you can be athletic, you can wear whatever you want,” she wants to do it, she wants to become all this.

So women fall into the trap of objectifying their bodies themselves?

I wouldn’t really want it to sound like that. Often we just don’t realise it. We don’t know we’re objects, not people.

If you’ve been told since childhood to be pretty because you won’t find a husband. “Look at yourself, no one will look at you.” We do this to ourselves, but we are not aware that we don’t have to do it.

If we had freedom and the awareness that intellect and emotion are more important – or that the body is a component of the whole, that is us, we would probably all choose this option. We wouldn’t lose weight, go to a gym with what amounts to a violent plan for ourselves, etc. But this process has been going on for so long that it’s difficult simply to back out and say, “Actually, I’m not going to be part of it.”

When does the process you’re talking about start?

Very early on. As girls, we hear sentences about ourselves that stay in our heads and we automatically pass them on to our daughters without reflecting on them. “You look beautiful in this dress, everyone will love you” or “What are you wearing? Just look at yourself.” It takes a lot of awareness and mindfulness to stop acting this way.

Perhaps our daughters and our sons will be able to approach the flesh more coherently than our own generation.

In your experience, what do women most often have a problem with when it comes to their bodies?

The first group, by far the largest, are women who want to lose weight. They come with a manifesto, “This body doesn’t work, it won’t cooperate.” They used to treat it badly and gained weight, and now they finally want to take care of themselves.

Very often these women are successful in many fields – maternal, professional. And they can’t get along with their bodies.

Usually, they tried to lose weight before and they failed, or they are girls who suddenly gained weight for some reason – changed jobs, stopped training, got pregnant. They’re completely incapable of coping with being overweight or obese, because it’s something new to them. They say, “I’m the same, and my body is different – too old, too fat, not the way it should be.”

The second group are girls who were or are thin, but have an impaired vision of their own bodies. Despite their weight being normal and having healthy diets, they see themselves as too big. They are often very demanding of themselves. Working with such people is more psychological than dietary.

The third group is women with eating disorders, mainly with bulimia. These disorders often last a long time. It’s a difficult but very effective job.

And recently, I have a new group of clients – families with anorexic daughters. These are girls aged 11-16.

Now, so during the pandemic?

Yes, while spending more time with the child than usual, parents began to notice the problems that their daughters experienced or the daughters began to experience their parents’ conflicts even more strongly, venting the tension of the whole family through their illness or their disease began to intensify during isolation.

Eleven years old is very early. When do we even begin to be aware of our bodies?

The first stage is when little children notice that they are not their mother, but a separate being. They touch their hands, their feet, they love it. Then there is the practice of cleanliness, that is control of the body, meaning learning to pee and poop. Then, around the age of five, they begin to notice the differences between boys and girls and are very interested in it. And around the age of 9, they start to mature, but the readiness to talk about it is already around the age of seven.

And what happens when insecurities and problems are born out of enthusiasm and curiosity?

If we look at a child who grows up with perfect parents on an ideal island where everyone supports each other, doesn’t judge, and most importantly, the body is treated in a natural way, nothing can happen to that child.

However, if it’s not a healthy environment, that is we’re anywhere beyond this idealised island, the assessment process begins.

Boys are told, “Don’t cry”, “Come on, it’s fine”, “Be brave.” They receive the message: if your leg hurts, ignore it. The parent knows better.

Girls, on the other hand, constantly hear, “You’re beautiful, you’re dressed so nicely, everyone’s going to be looking at you.” All you have to do is say it 20 times, and she starts believing it. She becomes an object that’s supposed to look nice.

Another aspect – parents take control of the children’s bodies. They decide for them whether they’re cold or warm. Whether they’re hungry or full. This is how we make children detach themselves from their bodies. They can’t hear or they ignore the signals of hunger, satiation, thirst, fatigue. They treat their bodies as something hostile, unimportant, or a tool to gain something, such as acceptance and admiration.

So what are we supposed to do and tell our kids for them to have better contact with their bodies?

We, the young parents who have already grown up after the transformation, have a hell of a job to do because we don’t know how to turn it around. We don’t even really have contact with our own bodies, and yet we need to learn to talk to children about it, too. And then they’ll look at Instagram and Facebook anyway. They look and compare themselves to what they see on the Internet.

But these comparisons don’t just apply to children. I’m 37 years old, I’m a dietitian and a psychologist, and I compare myself too.

Comparing yourself with others is nothing new or bad. It’s an atavistic behaviour. The whole tribe was turning right and the man who wanted to go left wondered why the others were going right. They’re going there because that’s where the buffalo are, so I have to go with them, because that’s how I'm going to survive.

The problem arises when we begin to compare ourselves to something impossible to achieve – for example, Instagram photos.

Out of 10 Instagram photos of women, 9 are absolutely unachievable. There are no women like that out on the street. Now that we’re around other people less, the sense of dissonance is even greater.

Unfortunately, young girls draw the idea of what breasts, buttocks and bellies look like from the Internet. And the worst part is, when compared to images processed by computer programs, we always feel lost and depressed. No matter how much care we take of our bodies, we’ll never look like them.

Let me give you another example of the impact of comparisons, this time with TV characters.

Renee Engeln in her book “Beauty Sick” describes a study carried out on the island of Fiji. Until recently, there was a particular set of beauty standards there, where full-figured women were considered attractive.

The study of young girls revealed that they had no eating disorders and very good relationships with their bodies. And on this idyllic island, local television began broadcasting “90210”. Three weeks later, a study was done on a group of girls. It was repeated after three years. After 3 years, it turned out that 11 percent of girls had eating disorders, compared to the non-existence of this phenomenon before, and 78 percent thought that they were too fat.

All it took was one show, and 80 percent of girls abandoned what their mothers, grandmothers, and their culture and identity had been giving them over the years. It didn’t matter. They wanted to be like Kelly and Brenda.

We’re talking about eating disorders and feeling our bodies. What’s on the other side? There’s a lot of talk about body positivity right now. Should we aspire to it? I would call body positivity a movement that is like a mole digging a hole for body neutrality. You can’t go from an obsession with beauty to body neutrality without going through body positivity.

Body positivity encourages us to view the body as one of our building blocks. We dissociate ourselves from the cult and the ideal of beauty to see the body for what it is.

I’m this many years old, this tall, weigh this much, and that’s okay. Kaya Szulczewska shows on her Instagram what real bodies look like.

It’s about moving away from the canon and focusing on individualism – the more my ears stick out, the more freckles I have, the cooler I am, because I am myself. Original, one of a kind, unique.

In body positivity, we like and respect our bodies, and we also have a choice: we can do something with them or not. I can put cream on it or not, shave it or not, etc.

Body positivity allows you to familiarise yourself with different kinds of beauty types than those suggested by mass culture. In fact, it allows us to understand that beauty is something completely unique, freeing us from the need to strive for beauty. We are what we are as probably five people out of a thousand are beautiful.

Now, body neutrality is a movement that goes one step further. I have great respect for my body, because it allows me to function. However, this is cooperation and I am moving away from focusing on it, as one would in body positivity.

In body neutrality, I take care of my body, properly nourishing it, exercising it and tending to it, but I, Agata, am more important. I no longer focus on it as I do in body positivity. I’ve taken care of it, and now I can talk to you with concentration and attention.

Me and my body are one, but its appearance is not crucial to me.

I don’t think I’m saying anything out of the ordinary here by stating that our corporeality is inextricably linked with our psyche. It’s hard to accept the body if we have fears, pressures or unhealed wounds.

Elżbieta Lange, psychologist and psychotherapist, wrote a book entitled “Gdybym tylko schudła” (“If only I could lose weight”), which describes this phenomenon perfectly.

Emotions are at the root of most disorders and problems – each client is a different story. Usually, food is a way to relieve tension.

What we do to our bodies is sometimes the only way not to go crazy. You don’t drink, but instead you eat sweets. You don’t buy loads of clothes, you eat crisps. Sometimes food is the least destructive way to survive.

A lot of the girls who come to me should have met with a psychologist or a psychotherapist first to find out what they’re really hungry for. If they digest these emotions, the hunger may pass.

So the slogan should be: “I will be happy and I’ll lose weight, not: I will be happy if I lose weight”?

Exactly. Or maybe even... “I will be myself and I will not lose weight, because I may not have to...” We should remember that when we are close to the body, we shouldn’t be too demanding of it, we shouldn’t impose conditions on it. Let’s take better care of it, just as we care for our loved ones. We should feed it good, healthy food and provide it with the exercise it needs. Instead of imposing prohibitions on ourselves, “I can’t eat this”, “I should avoid that”, we should just hydrate and nourish our body well. It doesn’t really need much, and it’ll quickly return the favour.

The body gives us signals that it’s tired or thirsty. All we need to do is listen to it. Blocking these signals leads to various types of autoimmune diseases. Or maybe it’s better to think about what I can do for my body to comfort it – help my knees, hips, spine.

I want to walk, travel, do sports, have sex, so I’ll take care of my body and not just require it to be slim and pretty.

 

Anna Woźniak talks to Agata Ziemnicka  

• Agata Ziemnicka - dietician, psychologist, founder of the Kobiety bez diety (Women Without a Diet) Foundation.

The interview was published on wysokieobcasy.pl, 31 October 2020