Befriending Your Body as an Act of Resistance

Growing up with an eating disorder just felt like a normal part of life as a young girl,especially one whose sole obsession was the stage. I wanted to be on Broadway so badly, it colored everything I did; every decision I made. That coupled with the fact that I was an only child and often seeking someone to talk to, I developed a robust inner critic from a young age and my body was right in its bullseye. When the inner pangs of hunger cried out, I barked back at them with all the gusto of a girl who felt her every dream depended on getting into a smaller shape. 

Body Control as a Moral Imperative

One of the strongest predictors of developing chronic pain after injury is a history of perfectionism or tendency to self-criticize. Every single client I’ve worked with to date carries around an inner critic that makes it incredibly difficult to spend any time focusing on things that feel nourishing and kind for themselves. There seems to be a common mantra we all developed in adolescence: things that matter require suffering. I can probably credit my evangelical Christian upbringing for the incessant reminder that as a human I am deeply flawed and prone toward evil deeds. To live righteously was to resist the demands of my own body.

And resist I did. 

Yet despite my best efforts, I just couldn’t get my thighs to be thin enough to be considered seriously as a dancer. And my thoughts kept taking me to unholy places when cute boys were around. I felt utterly bewildered about the fact that I couldn’t seem to take control of my body no matter how hard I tried. In my head it seemed clear that my weakness was the issue. I don’t know if this was connected to the launch of cycles of excruciating low back pain that came and went during my teen years. But that certainly didn’t help matters. In fact it was the last straw: the only thing I could expect my body to do was disappoint me. Back pain took hold of my body right in the middle of my first time singing a solo on stage and then it seemed to never truly leave. From then on, my body and I were sworn enemies. It was clear it was always going to let me down.

The Inner Critic Backlash

There’s tremendous grief that comes with having to acknowledge that the body you are in doesn’t feel like the one you wanted or had before. But I didn’t allow myself to have any of that. There was only rage and a focus on pushing, pushing, pushing for a different outcome. The belief that every single goal could be attained with the right amount of effort had been ingrainedin my psyche. 

If my body wasn’t doing what I wanted, then I simply wasn’t working hard enough. I refused to accept that kindness, comfort or soothing might be what I needed. And it certainly never occurred to me that my body was trying to tell me something. Up until this point it had only been an unreliable partner; a flaky companion who seemed to always end up doing the opposite of what I asked.

I have only anecdotal stories to back this up, but I have a hypothesis that there is a huge overlap between people who have experienced disordered eating and those who experience persistent pain symptoms. Within my studio, and in discussion with some intuitive eating coaches, we have noticed a lot of shared experiences. 

This makes sense to me because the incessant inner beratement I described as being a necessary and also natural part of trying to control my body as a young person, also created an adversarial relationship between my identity and the vessel it was being carried in. I spoke to my body as if it was separate from me. And I kept directing resentment at it in the hopes of getting a different outcome. It was never a conversation, only a rebuke. Surely if the very thing we live in is perceived as a threat, hypervigilant nervous system response would naturally follow.

Breaking the Cycle of Body ‘Othering’

If you are here, you have probably watched your body change. Maybe it doesn’t have the stamina or strength it used to. Maybe it reacts to the world in ways you can’t predict or understand. Maybe you find yourself completely deflated, terrified or immobilized out of the blue. If any of these is true then I’m sure the thought of being more connected to your body might provoke resistance or even fear. It can be really scary to face the things we carry, but it’s only by honoring the voice of your inner self that you can set yourself free from judgment and blame. It turns out, you’re a lot tougher than you think. And whatever is in store, you can handle it.

If there’s one thing I know will bring a person in touch with sensations in their body, it’s a mindful movement practice, like the one we advocate for in Pilates. All the grief and disappointment and frustration can come spilling out when you move and pay attention to it. You try to focus on the movement and find yourself face-to-face with the emotional pain of getting to know (and trying to accept) a completely new body. It’s so much easier to keep your body at arm’s length and avoid that conversation entirely.

I have been there and I understand. I have also witnessed this experience for dozens of clients in my care. It is a normal response to moving in a body that you have tried to ignore for any period of time. It is reasonable to feel vulnerable when dipping into a mindful movement practice after the trauma that often comes with illness, injury or other unexpected changes. I respect the determination it takes to fight this opening up. To resist accepting a new normal unlike the one you wanted is to demonstrate incredible tenacity and resilience: the kind that is key to conquering pain in the long run. We just need to direct that determination at a target other than ourselves.

Expanding Into What Is

I am not asking that you ignore or deflect these feelings. In fact, the best thing you can do is find a supportive movement teacher where you can bring that rage and betrayal to your session so that you can be supported while you express and move through it. I believe it’s the feeling of needing to pretend that you’re totally OK with what your body is going through that undermines a movement practice. 

You don’t need to be OK with it. But you do need to be able to sit with it and to discern what different sensations actually mean. This is what a life with anxiety has taught me about pain. If everything has been coded by your mind as dangerous, the world will get smaller and smaller until it becomes a tiny prison. And with movement, this means we start to lose ground with function almost as soon as we stop using it. 

We expand our existence by sitting with sensations and learning to place them on the very broad spectrum between pain and pleasure; misery and joy. We expand our movement vocabulary by practicing unfamiliar things.

Making movement progress in a body with persistent pain requires acceptance of this current moment, yes, but also the recognition that adaptation is possible. It is perfectly normal to imagine that whatever discomfort you are facing now is how it will be forever. While I cannot guarantee you can banish your pain for good, I can say with confidence that your experience of your body will shift. We aren’t static beings. 

This is for certain: the chemicals in your body change through each moment and your physiology adapts continuously to repeated exercise. Instead of asking our body for forever, we only need to ask for right now. And accept the answer.

The Dear Body Exercise

Making friends with your body is an essential first step to moving forward in partnership rather than trying to fight the reality of what is. To kickstart this, I am going to share with you the “Dear Body” exercise that is a consistent favorite with clients. Take a few minutes right now down now and write a letter to your body:

1. Acknowledge the betrayal and disappointment you feel
2. Be specific about the way you have viewed your body over time
3. Identify the things your body does for you every day that make your life better
4. Thank your body for trying so hard and for making life possible
5. Identify one thing you will do today to show your body some kindness

Write like you are making amends with a lifelong friend. Don’t hold back but also remember that no matter what happens, you are in this together.

I am not suggesting that one letter will solve a lifetime of disappointment, but it can be a powerful first step toward finding safety in the experience of moving your body. The most important thing is to discard any sense of shame you might be carrying about the way you have spoken to your body or the changes that have occurred. We only get one body and treating it with kindness will bring far better rewards than trying to force it into submission.