When I realised I had become a fat shamer…
Wow, hasn’t 2020 been a game changer for us all? Have you been paying attention to the increased shift in many people who are starting to see the ‘whole’ picture in terms of their physical, psychological and spiritual health? I’m sure you’ve seen the shift in how some people are now reassessing what’s important in their life and what has become insignificant.But rest assured, this is not another iso post. I’m not writing this to lament about the good, the bad and the ugly of world changes since isolation. And I’m not here to question whether the drama and stress of 2020 will actually provide a platform for permanent change? Or whether this pandemic will it lend itself to be the catalyst to a healthier physical and spiritual society?
My refocus was highly toxic and negative
What I am going to talk about is how this pandemic has had me refocused on my own health and well being and how that refocus has been highly toxic and negative.Now if you know me then you know that my purpose, what I actually do in the Raw and Real Women’s Empowerment Network, is support women like you from across the globe to “go beyond the illusions of their ego-minds and be empowered to embrace their feminine essence, power and purpose and become more confident to live their lives authentically”.It’s what I do and it’s what I love doing. But sometimes I lose my way too. And so it’s time for me to be raw and real with all of you!! It’s time for me to share my (life-long) weight loss struggle with you. A very real, very powerful and very raw struggle. So here you go….
My journey on the yo-yo train
I have yo-yo’d with my weight for my entire life, I have never been ‘thin’ (by society’s standards) but at different times have felt different levels of comfortability with my body.On my most recent weight loss journey (and there have been many), I lost over 17 kilos and whilst I felt better about myself, I really never felt attractive or ‘thin’. My mindset was healthy around this though, because instead of beating myself up about it, I was able to recognise and congratulate myself for the work that I’d done to get there. And I was able to recognise where I was in my journey and I had no issues with comparison.
As you know, a lot of my work is centred around mindset and managing our misguided illusions about what we need to do to ‘fit’ into the world as women. And a lot of my work is also focused on social constructs that have taught us to compare, judge and condemn ourselves as ‘less than’ for not being society’s expectation of the perfect woman.
I've done years of shadow work, work around body acceptance, spiritual empowerment and personal power. And I’ve spent many years shifting my mindset around body image. I even created a workshop on ‘Releasing Your Body Demons’ based on the work that I’ve done over the course of my entire life to learn to accept myself and my body. But I realised recently that I had fallen back into old mindset patterns constructed of a world view of what constitutes the perfect body image for women. I had the devastating realisation of this one day not lot ago (before isolation) where I was out with my partner at an event and instead of enjoying myself in the moment, I spent the whole time looking at other women and comparing myself to how they looked. I wasn’t just comparing weight either. I was looking at the clothes other women were wearing and thinking, ‘I could never look good in that’, ‘I wish I could get away with wearing that’, ‘I wish I looked that good’. I felt inferior and unattractive. And I realised I was angry at myself that I had put almost all of the weight back on. And that’s when I figured out….I was fat shaming myself!I was actually my own school yard bully!
Hands up if you’re guilty?
I had fallen back into the pattern of comparison, of body shaming and that pattern was affecting my confidence as a passionate, strong and powerful woman. It affected how I showed up each and every day. And it affected my thoughts on my value and worth and what I could bring to you and the Raw and Real Community of women.I realised that my thoughts around my weight had become an all-encompassing burden holding me to ransom. Because the thing is, even as talk commenced to begin lifting restrictions, the first place my mind went was fear of having to go back out in the world looking fat and unattractive. My thoughts didn’t turn to all of the great things I would be able to enjoy once I could get out to see family and friends. My thoughts immediately went to ‘how am I going to show up without shame when I look like this?’
Crazy right!
How did I get back into this head space?
Now let me be clear here, before you even ask. Even as a mindset, and spiritual empowerment expert, I’m certainly not perfect and I can fall back into old patterns as well, if I’m not doing the spiritual growth work that we all need to do to stay connected with our truth. And to be fair, (to myself for once), I was so overwhelmed with work in my muggle job, study and maintaining a household, that my self-care slipped off the radar.So when I realised that I had reverted to an old mindset and story around body image, I knew the way forward was about getting into the trenches with my emotions and feelings and figuring out what was going on and what I needed to process to move through it. And I needed to get back to the core of the work I’ve been teaching other women for years around body image and body demons.
Don’t buy into the social conditioning
The thing I know, is that my thoughts and feelings around weight have been developed through patriarchal social conditioning that has been drilled into us as women for all time. It’s not actually our fault that we default to self-shaming and deprecating thought processes around body image, because that’s all we’ve ever been taught. Mainstream media, and ideals and images of what a perfect woman with a perfect body should be has made sure of that.
But I also know that once we realise this, we have the power to change it. Once we realise that the way we see ourselves is often created through our external experiences, then we can choose what to accept and believe. And once we know that we have the power not to buy in to the masculine story of what makes us beautiful, empowered and strong women.And so I’ve been doing the work over the last few months and I have been in the space of changing both my mindset and my behaviour around this. So I’m working on removing comparison and going back to focus on what thoughts I need to have and what actions I need to take to bring me back to a place of self-acceptance and empowerment.I’m doing the work, intellectually, physically and spiritually to restore my mindset to go beyond the illusions and be empowered to take back my personal power and story around body image and what it means for me and how I see myself in the world.And if you struggling in this or another space… I encourage you to check in with your feelings and emotions, feel where it shows up or sits in your body, and pay attention to it. Give it the attention it needs for you to be able to shift and release it. Move beyond the surface of it, embrace your true feminine essence and take back your power.And of course, as always, reach out if you need to talk.
Big luv Sister
Kelli xx
P.S. – If you want to get your hands on my free e-book “Are you disconnected from your Sacred Feminine?, 7 Questions you need to ask yourself to find out”
