Are weight-loss compliments needed?
Re-focus your conversations around anything but that number.....
Today, a well-meaning co-worker walked past me and said, “Cutelis, you look like you’ve lost some weight.” I was standing in the hallway at my job. I sheepishly thanked her and responded something benign, “Must be stress”, I yelled back over my shoulder, trying to hide my shock. In my heart of hearts I know her, she’s an incredibly lovely woman and a super kind human overall and I’m sure she was just trying to say something she felt was nice as she passed me in the hallway and thought a compliment would do the trick…but hours later, I am still tossing and turning over the comment. I am trying really hard to understand what it was about the interaction that really bothered me.
First, I felt invaded. Being extremely private about this topic, I almost never open up about my body or my weight with anyone except a select few whom I trust with my feelings and my heart, and even within those people, rarely is my body the topic of our conversation. But invaded? why invaded, you might ask? Let me explain. I have been struggling with lots of body issues my whole life, perhaps due to trauma experienced during my adolescent years; having body issues is just part of the aftermath of any trauma that involves your body. To exacerbate the situation, these past few months the struggle has been a lot more pronounced; I have stopped running and started walking, but seeing as my schedule is pretty intense with my full time job, the kids’ sports and nightly dinners I am finding it harder and harder to find the time to work out, all contributing to lots of conflicted feelings about my body at the moment. Understandably, having someone I am not too close to verbally address how my body looks to her left me feeling exposed and vulnerable.
Part of me though is arguing back this post. So I have some body issued, big deal! Should the world stop for me and my issues? Should large swaths of the population be expected to change to make me not experience trauma? It was a super benign comment for goodness’ sakes. Plus, these utopian prescriptions seem so NOT like me. I have always believed that we should never expect others to change for us, that instead, we should always begin with ourselves; we change the world through ourselves. Why not just deal and move on? “It was just a well-meaning comment” screams half my brain. Absolutely, IT WAS a well-meaning comment, hands down. So then, why write about it at all? I write about it because I need to know for myself why these hurt feeling wake up and bring me down. In knowing oneself can we disempower the hurt. In some ways in writing about it I am fixing the issue without the need to change the world out there. The fixing needs to happen in me.
Jordan Peterson once shared that for his many hours-long lectures he hardly ever has a script. I was shocked, for if you have ever heard even one of his lectures he just makes so much sense. He follows each train of thought so thoroughly; it’s a pleasure to listen. Instead, explains, what he does instead of notes is simply have is an overriding question for the lecture which he proceeds to work through mentally for the length of the presentation, in front of hundreds, if not thousands of people. In other words, he lets us in on his entire thinking process and that itself IS the presentation. Genius!!! So for this post, my Peterson-inspired overriding question would be “why did it hurt so much?”.
Let’s start with a a few overriding highlights of all the things people have ever said to my face about my body. When I was in 9th grade I attended a camp in Montauk, NY. For those of you who do not know me, my mom was a housekeeper to an absolutely lovely family for 30 years. In the summers, my mom sister and I would go to their summer home so my mom could work for them there. The family funded our attendance at this summer camp for several summers in a row. At camp, we had access to a lake. I was the only Latina in the whole camp and my body developed faster than other 9th graders’. When wearing a swim suit I distinctly remember so many negative comments about my big butt. Mind you, I was regular weight, and my butt looked quite normal when I look back at pictures of myself then. But my body developed differently, faster and I became aware of how different I looked to them. Suddenly this awareness of how others experience your body became important, a thing I needed to also worry about.
Then there was high school. I attended an all-girls’ high school in Manhattan,NY. The girls talked about, obsessed, mulled over what they hated about their own bodies non-stop. This ultra-focus on our bodies became the new normal. My high school experience boiled down to being around girls who pick apart every aspect of their bodies out loud. Prioritizing the way we see ourselves through the lens of others became a full time occupation.
Looking back I realized that I managed to become a full grown adult without ever feeling powerful in my own body. The experience of having my own daughter has given me plenty of opportunities to think of ways I could tweak my parenting so that she has opportunities to feel her own strength. The first taste of feeling powerful I ever got was after completing a 50K race, my first long race ever, at age 41. I cried like a baby at the end, it was one of the best moments of my life. Once people get a taste of something that makes them feel strong(er), they generally tend to hang on to it. Running, hiking and endurance sports gives me that feeling of power. Could it be power then that one loses when some random person comments on your body? I don’t think we lose power, but when someone focuses on your body it forces you to focus on your body too, but through their lens. I have all my own views on my body and because I don’t do body talk with my female friends that lens is intact and always focused only on my own idea of myself. I purposely don’t open that door precisely because I don’t need to view myself through your lens in order to exist. How YOU see my body, that is entirely your business, and I’d like to keep those two lenses separate thank you very much. Are you kidding me!! I could never accomplish anything in life if I also held, within me, the worry about what every people thought of me or my body, in addition to my own thoughts….too much!. Again, it is not my business. It’s only the rare occasions someone offers their opinion on my body do I get a glimpse of how others see me and life is too short to feel like one needs to meet others’ criteria of you, in addition to one’s own criteria of oneself.
That should explain the shock factor. But the hurt? why the hurt? The hurt happens because all along I’m thinking that surely these people, who know me, can see more than my weight when they see me, a mere number, right? I choose to see myself more holistically, there is surely so much more to me than this number on the scale, there is so much more to anyone than that number on a scale. For example, I am a prolific artist who paints very textured trees, roots and flowers on recycled canvases I buy from the thrift store, I am an endurance hiker who aims to complete a marathon distance in all 50 states and have 40 states to go, I am a dedicated mother of two amazing teens who light up my live with joy, I am a faithful friend to a handful of pretty amazing humans, I am a loving wife to a kind, wise and sweet man I adore, I am an excellent art educator and love going into work every day, I am an aspiring motorcyclist who failed her skills test but am not giving up. It’s sad that others fail to see the me I see, but it also makes me wonder if they also evaluate themselves only by that one number.
Next time you notice anyone’s body change in any way, simply move on, If you MUST say something at all, discuss her other accomplishments instead. If she does not bring up her body or her weight in the conversation, you’re not invited to comment. Ask about her aspirations? perhaps being a single digit size is not her number one aspiration, or even her tenth. If you really care about this person, you’ll find out what is…..