"Words are tears that have been written down. Tears are words that need to be shed. Without them, joy loses all its brilliance and sadness has no end."

maanantai 6. elokuuta 2012

On body issues


I've been writing this list of self-forgiveness all day. I think I could go on an on, and probably will as I'm not nearly done with the process here, but I guess this is a good chunk to start with.

----

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not accept the body I'm in, the tool through which I am present, participating in and manifesting life in this physical reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to refer to myself in the second person, to speak to myself as “you”, to separate myself from myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that if my body is the way it is – whatever it happens to be at the moment, as it never has and never will be as good as any ideal I can come up with – I will not be accepted and loved by the people around me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that if my body is the way it is, I will never receive desired attention, admiration, acceptance, love, tenderness, companionship or sex from anyone – a fear of ending up alone – a fear of not being enough.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I am constantly being judged by other people according to my physical appearance, and that I have accepted and allowed myself to define and limit myself accordingly.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear how others perceive me and how they react to what they perceive, and due to this defend myself by hiding, escaping, attacking, masking myself, wearing roles and characters to take the punches instead of baring myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive my “real” self as too vulnerable and weak to be exposed – too easy a target – and thus believe I am “forced” to hide myself under masks.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I am weak.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hate my body and myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to violently abuse myself physically by hitting, kicking, scratching, tearing, biting, starving, cutting, burning, freezing and neglecting the needs of my physical being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to violently abuse myself mentally by insulting, belittling, demeaning, limiting, tormenting and suppressing myself within and as my thoughts, speech and actions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that creating an ideal for yourself is a good way to motivate yourself to improve yourself, not realizing that the created ideal itself is an image forged by the mind and that reality is not an image and cannot be forced to function like a two-dimension imitation of itself, especially in the process of change and growth which can lead you to pretty much anywhere due to the unpredictable nature of life itself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create an ideal for myself not realizing that if it were attained I would create a new one and the cycle of self-hate and self-abuse would just keep on going.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the key to changing myself is not in realizing what I want to become but accepting that which I am now as the present me and figuring out what is actually required for change.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my interpretations of my childhood experiences even though I'm not a child anymore and haven't had a second look at what I experienced and what actually happened.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize my beliefs about my body have not been taught to me as I have interpreted them – I am responsible for the warped way I have been looking at my experiences as an insecure pre-teen and for the way I have allowed myself to continue believing what that child-me grew to believe.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to accuse my family members of the way I interpreted their words and actions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the world to be what I was taught it to be and my childhood interpretation of it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the social world to be what I was taught it to be and my childhood interpretation of it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give in to pressuring when questioning what was taught to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to trust the people I had granted “authority” to know “better than me”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to escape my body and become frustrated and violate myself when I couldn't.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I am the reflection in the mirror – the two-dimensional picture that poses – a one woman show of a myriad of characters I believe to be what I am and what others want to see – not realizing none of this is actual life itself, but a mere visual representation of a one certain dimension of countless dimensions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I am the girl in the photograph.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I am the text I write.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I am the books I read.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I am the music I listen to.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself according to the people I know and the people I meet.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live my life and define myself through images such as the ones mentioned above, not realizing none of this is life but merely a documentation of it, documentations never being life itself as here, breathing and present.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ignore and not credit the change that has already occurred in my physical being due to months and years of consistent changes in my lifestyle, and crave for fast results instead of realizing that permanent change may be slow – I have rapidly lost weight before, but it has never lasted for more than a few months.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe there's something wrong with my body for not losing any fat even though I'm exercising, ignoring the fact that my body is very healthy in spite of the excess fat and that getting rid of the fat is no longer a health issue but an aesthetical one.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to constantly live in the future instead of being here – envisioning what I want to become instead of facing what I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that the current beauty ideal of our culture is the way I ought to be to be accepted.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that women are perceived to have no other value than their looks, thus believing I have no value as, when comparing to those who are considered “most” beautiful, I “lose”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that everyone and everything is beautiful as it is, as life, and that cultural definitions and hierarchies of beauty are arbitrary and meaningless as they are based on images alone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define beauty as visual information and aesthetics.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that if I do not fit the visual and aesthetical standards of our (or any) culture, I cannot be considered beautiful, not realizing beauty is about life itself instead of mind-images such as visual, audial or other kinds of processed sensory information.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to compare my looks and other physical traits to every woman I meet and see to determine whether I'm “winning” or “losing”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive the competitiveness built into the social culture of women as “natural”, that it is ok as long as I'm not the worst and last pick.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my looks determine whether I will ever get the chance to approach the people I consider attractive, or, in fact, whether the ones I consider attractive will ever “notice” me and take the initiative so I wouldn't have to.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abandon my responsibility of initiating social interaction in the fear that I will be rejected, not realizing that we all carry the same fear and if I don't change myself the way we interact won't change either.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be ashamed of my body.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be ashamed of certain parts of my body in particular, not considering my body as a whole.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try and hide the parts of my body I am ashamed of by morphing my body and stature.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try and hide the parts of my body I am ashamed of by wearing clothes that cover up those body parts.

- tarkennus 17082012: I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try and hide the parts of my body I am ashamed of by wearing clothes that cover up those body parts; in this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself as “superficial” (putting some effort into the way I look / what kind of visual information I send) whenever wearing/choosing clothes that suit my body, completely ignoring the fact that it may also be a purely aesthetical action based on the fact that certain clothes support certain body types better than others, and that clothing, too, can be a form of self-expression. To ignore the way one looks would be abandoning an essential part of this reality; to wear clothes that fit and function is not a limitation but a support - when that support, clothing, entwines with fear (obsession, insecurity, self-hatred, duty, expectations, demands, you name it) it becomes a limitation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize what shame actually is – my fear of being judged by others – my fear of not being enough – me not accepting myself – me not being here as myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to constantly worry about my looks.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to learn certain ways of standing or sitting that “look cool”; in other words, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to pose as an image instead of being here as myself expressing myself freely through my physical being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look at myself “from the outside”, as an observer who criticizes and judges, instead of being here within myself behind my eyes, not realizing that what the observer “sees” is just an image in my head, as I cannot actually look at myself from outside my head.




I commit myself to accept my physical body as it is.

I commit myself to notice, stop, face, examine, breathe through and release my fears.

I commit myself to stop abusing myself and instead treat myself with kindness, gentleness, forgiveness and love.

I commit myself to notice, stop, face, examine, breathe through and release all of my mind-images, including the ones about my body and others'.

I commit myself to carry full responsibility of myself, my process of change and my thoughts, words and actions.

I commit myself to live patience and consistency.

I commit myself to always consider the state of my body's well-being as a whole.

I commit myself to stand fearless within myself as myself.

Ei kommentteja:

Lähetä kommentti