"This girl was fat and I hate her."
One of my clients said this recently – about himself. Well, her little girl herself. And my heart broke.
One of the very first things I do with clients is to encourage them to exercise self-compassion and kindness – simply by expanding to the same basic human compassion and kindness that everyone else would do.
Quite the opposite of what most people who struggle with weight and food are used to. When it comes to our weight and food, we are finally programmed with messages like "You just want it more, be motivated, build up your willpower muscle, work harder, work harder, be better …".
It may sound simple or silly to some, and it's hard to understand what the hell kindness and compassion have to do with weight and food struggles when we're programmed to believe the opposite.
Expanding just some basic human kindness and compassion is one of the most important things you need to do if you are struggling with weight and food for a long time. It is also the most difficult and some struggle more than others with this simple concept.
Personally, I had big problems with it when I started trying.
I hated myself. I hated and felt ashamed of everything about myself and didn't think I deserved kindness or compassion. But I knew if I ever wanted to change my attitude towards myself I had to figure out how to find which.
So I started imagining a little girl version of myself when I felt I needed kindness and compassion. If I couldn't give myself to myself, I would get an idea of her and direct it.
It worked and is a trick that I have been using with customers since then.
But recently this woman (like many others) said: "Little girl, I was fat … and … I … hate her. How am I supposed to give it to her if I hate her too? "
It broke my heart, but it didn't surprise me, and when I think about it, it makes me angry. It makes me angry because this beautiful woman was not born to hate herself for a little belly roll. She learned it from our stupidly broken society and has carried that belief with her every day ever since.
Since we are old enough to make sense of the world around us, we have been taught that fat is the enemy.
Mothers have taken their children to Weight Watchers meetings to be publicly ashamed of the number on a scale since they were seven or eight years old. We were warned, "Better not eat this, you don't want to get fat, do you?" as if it were a fate worse than death while teaching that food repairs everything.
"What's up, honey, you're sad? Here, have a biscuit."
"Sore throat? Here, take an ice cream. "
We have seen weight loss rewarded at all costs. Those who lose are treated like kings – showered with praise, attention, and acceptance as we watch those who win are whispered behind their backs because they "let themselves go." Or worse, they are teased openly and made fun of on their faces – often even by friends and family who claim to love and claim to do so out of love and care.
Our society programmed us to believe that fat is the enemy and that through millions of micro (and macro) aggressions, thin people are somehow better than those who are taller through our lives.
And here's what happened as a result:
Dozens of millions of people (big and small) are literally wasting their whole lives trying desperately to "fix" their "fat" problem so that they feel more acceptable to the current narrative that size and shape are human Determine value.
And if they put on a pound, they hate themselves.
It's all so incredibly toxic, harmful, and counterproductive, and drives the very "problem" that our people are obsessed with "fixing". Because the people behind the war, which we have waged with fat, hate and reject themselves all their lives.
The stories they tell about themselves look very similar in the end:
I am worthless and unpopular if I am not thin.
I am a failure if I gain weight.
I am useless and stupid.
I ate badly, so I'm bad.
I'm such an idiot because I let myself go.
I am disgusting and do not deserve to feel good or to be treated well (by myself or others).
You may be thinking, "Well, how else are you motivated to get your shit together and lose weight!" You can even follow this thought with the typical tripe "I'm just worried about your health". (If you still believe obsessions to lose weight are in the "best interest" of public health, drop by and read this piece.)
Think about these words for a moment and consider how you feel about them. Now think about how that affects your auto-playback for years, even decades, tens of thousands of times a day, every day.
We believe the things we say to each other. And when we say to ourselves that we are worthless and unpopular and fail because of extra body fat, we believe that these things apply, who we are at heart, what we are worth and what we deserve in life.
And we treat ourselves accordingly.
This woman I was talking about a minute ago? Like tens of millions of us, she struggles to feel anything but hatred of a little girl she thought was fat. The little girl who no longer exists physically, but is built into the fabric, who she is now and how she feels because she has carried these stories, feelings and convictions into adulthood.
Me too. And I would be willing to bet you too. Because we all do it.
So it does not prioritize itself. She does everything for everyone else, ignoring what her mind and body need until she has no physical or emotional energy left to do anything. And then, when she doesn't seem to have the energy or willpower to force herself to follow someone else's stupid eating rules to "fix" her "weight problem", she hates and insults herself even more and the cycle simply feeds literally continue forever.
Nobody in human history has ever thought: "I am such a worthless failure, I think I will do something really caring and good for myself and my body today."
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These stories don't work that way. The shame they cause doesn't work because we treat ourselves as we believe we deserve to be treated.
When we combine our happiness and value with our weight, we feel less worthy through weight gain. The less worthy we feel, the less health-promoting behaviors we show.
We don't move our bodies (unless we choose to lose weight) because we don't give priority to their health. We only care about the things we believe we need to do as a weight gain penalty to "get them back in shape". The physical punishment is literally built into the way we talk about it. But because we treat it as punishment, we cannot adhere to it.
We eat and eat things that make us feel like garbage (and gain weight), as a habit, as punishment, as a reward, to numb and calm, to celebrate, to mourn, whether our body needs or wants these things – who cares what our body wants? We have spent decades hating, insulting, and learning not to trust them.
That is why stories are important. They have to do with weight. That's why the entire weight loss industry has become such a crazy joke.
We must stop demonizing and prioritizing weight. We must.
Instead, we have to shower ourselves with kindness and compassion. If we hate each other too much to take this into account, we must shower a younger version of ourselves with it (just go on to the latest version you need to find a version of you that you sympathize with) ).
Kindness and compassion are so strongly built into this process that we cannot change self-punishing behaviors until we stop believing that we deserve to be punished.
If you want to change your weight, your health, or your relationship with your body or your food, you have to change your attitude towards yourself, and you cannot, while you continue to insult yourself with stories of being worthless because of, what you ate or what the Libra says.
It just never will happen.
We have to stop rejecting parts of ourselves as rejection writes these stories in the first place and start working with the way our brain is wired (by changing the thoughts and stories that change the Generate beliefs that drive self-destructive habits and behaviors). And we have to adjust to our thoughts and the wisdom of our own bodies with kindness and compassion.
If we stop focusing on weight and weight loss and instead focus on losing the stories (and beliefs that make self-destructive decisions), then we can only have created physical and, above all, emotional weight forever , It just becomes an effortless side effect.
About Roni Davis
Roni Davis is a coach, author, speaker, and podcaster who helps women rebuild trust, compassion, and connection so that they can relate to food, themselves, and their Heal Bodies Live the healthy, peaceful, joyful life they deserve. Find them at RoniDavis.com, on their podcast at It & # 39; s All In Your Head and don't miss their free eBook with information: ronidavis.com/whydieat to help you overcome your weight loss, healthy eating barriers and why the hell to uncover that sometimes you eat so self-defeating.
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