In social work we talk alot about reframe. Here’s the classic example: She’s not oppositional, she’s spirited. She’s not backtalking, she’s advocating for herself. We can do it for just about anything, trust me. It’s more than just changing the words around, it’s about changing the way you look at something. I gave my sister a reframe yesterday without even thinking about it. She was talking about how my niece talks incessantly, and I said that she processes her world out loud. This gave Shannon some pause. It’s a reframe, a different way of looking at someone or something. You can reframe things positively, negatively, or neutrally. We social workers like to reframe things positively, but that doesn’t mean we always do.
I have had this thought in my mind for a while. It’s a bit of a dilemma, kind of, and I think it got me a bit stuck. I haven’t been sure how to accept myself for who I am and also work to change myself. How do you tell yourself that you are good enough as you are, or that you are good as you are, but know there are still things that need to change? Doesn’t the admission for a need to change imply that something is wrong, that something needs to be fixed? How can I accept my weight, accept my body as is, but still deal with the fact that I don’t feel very good about it right now?
And therein lies the reframe. I don’t feel good about IT: my weight- right now. I can feel ok about ME. Here goes my breaking moment: feeling bad does not have to equal feeling bad about MYSELF. My weight does not equal me. How much I weigh, the numbers on the scale, are not a reflection on myself as a human or as a person or even as a woman. They are a reflection of how poorly I do caring for myself, of my need to indulge myself a little too often. They are not a reflection on my quality of life or on my own inherent quality as Paige.
I know. It doesn’t sound groundbreaking to lots of you, I bet. But if you are a woman, I think it kind of is. We are taught from a very young age, from multiple sources, that our weight equals acceptance. If you are skinny, you are pretty, and can be accepted. If you are fat, you are ugly, and cast away. To be cast away, or not accepted, must mean you are not good enough. Even when we are trying to tell ourselves that intellectually we know that our weight should not be the marker of who we are as a person, we are using it to do just that.
At least I do.
Did, maybe. In the last year I’ve learned many things, many of them about myself. One of the things I learned when I let go of the need to worry about my weight was that I am actually an ok person, fat or not. Many people like me, some do not. I think that has more to do with my sometimes abrasive and bossy personality than it does my weight. Many people love me, no matter how much I weigh. I would say, also, that I don’t actually care about the opinions of people who are going to judge me based on my weight. That’s their own issue, not mine. I don’t need to make it my issue.
So now that I have accepted, or at least am making more strides toward accepting, me as a human, it just might be time to do something about the weight.
I don’t feel good. I don’t like how I look in the mirror. Not because I think I look ugly, but because I feel unhealthy. When I see myself in pictures or in the mirror, I know that what I am seeing represents a feeling of ick. A physical feeling. I feel sluggish and slow. Sometimes I wish my body was easier to move. I look at people at healthy weights and want to just move, sit, get up, dance…
This is going to take time. There’s no goal, number or time-wise. The goal is to learn to live like a healthy person. Because I’m so ingrained in eating whatever I want, initially I am going to follow an eating plan. The goal for me is to be able to learn how to eat that way naturally. Not to follow the rules, but to be reminded of what is healthy. I am not doing a plan where I have to write everything down or count points. I am doing the one that has worked for me the most: not necessarily in terms of total weight lost, but in terms of fitting with myself and my life. I am going to exercise.
I’m not looking to fit into a certain size by a certain date. To lose a certain amount. I’m not going to keep track of my weight. I’m not weighing myself at the start, or each week, or possibly ever. I just want to feel better. I want to remember that I do love me, and it’s time for me to be healthy.
