An interview with a badass feminist and very good friend of mine, Sarah Lorraine
All bodies are beautiful shouldn’t just be a hashtag, or what we say to seem open-minded or to make our “fat friends” feel better, but a reality that we should all live. It should be as normal and natural as knowing that the sky can sometimes be blue, or that the sun is bright. We have much more work to do.
Meditation can help with that.
I learned through my spiritual journey that our state of mind affects pretty everything in our lives, including things like depression and our relationship with our bodies. Society, of course, is another factor. We have to admit that although all is not rainbows and sunshine right now, there’s been some small progress in our dealing with body image.
This interview is an approach to that or, at best, it is our little contribution to help with body confidence. I’m sure there’s nothing here that we’ll be saying that you haven’t heard before, but like with everything in life, repetition is key. So again, ALL BODIES ARE BEAUTIFUL. Let’s dive in.
Disclaimers:
1- This interview will focus on the mental aspects of body issues. I don’t pretend to nor think that I know any of the many challenges faced by people whose bodies don’t fit within society’s standards of beauty. This is again just an approach to help people dealing with these issues know that there’s nothing wrong with them, and that they can be happy or happier looking great in their bodies.
2- This is neither a how-to-get-fit article or weight-loss-is-happiness B.S. piece. These are simply things that I’ve noticed throughout my own life and experiences. It’s a discussion on how getting in touch with yourself can help strengthen your relationship with your body and to see it as the beautiful temple that it is. By taking a <<new>> perspective, we can love and take care of our bodies a little better, and more importantly, be comfortable in our own skin, which radically changes our life experience.
But by all means, if you’re trying to lose weight, these can be good tips as well. Namaste.
3- Sarah and I are not doctors nor do we claim to be.
Sarah is a social worker and a personal friend of mine. She works at Planned Parenthood. Her patients are sometimes in desperate need of help with their mental health, making her an expert in dealing with these issues. Additionally, she, like millions of people around the world, struggles with her mental health, making her not only the perfect person to write this article with, but also the most understanding person to do her job.
After all, you can’t help people if you don’t know what they’re going through. Well, Sarah knows exactly what she’s talking about. But please, if you’re struggling with mental health or are in need of any help, see your doctor if you have one or go to the hospital. There are some great doctors and tools out there to help you, even if you don’t have insurance. And as a good reminder, take your medications if you are prescribed any.
M4CP: Hello Sarah! I’m so glad that we’re finally doing this! I’ve been wanting to have this chat for such a long time.
SL: Likewise, I am looking forward to diving in!
M4CP: I think it’s fair to say that this is an important topic for you, as you run a blog about body image and the journey you’ve taken from hating your body to loving it. Tell us a bit about that.
SL: Yeah, it is definitely something that is really important to me. I started blogging in about 2013, and originally I was trying to work through my binge eating disorder. I had recently been diagnosed, and I was determined to heal from it.
I can remember from day one feeling like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders when I posted my first blog. It was as though everything I had been keeping in for the last 23 years of my life just floated away. This ability to process what I have been through in a public way has been so cathartic.
I get to connect with people who reach out and say “I struggle with this” or “I needed to hear this today,” and it always reminds me that I am not alone even when I feel like I am. So, as I kept writing and kept working through things, I was able to not only go from hating who I was to loving myself, but I have also had the pleasure of watching others do the same.
M4CP: One of the things that I really love about your blog is how it transitioned from “Sarah talks about body image” to “Sarah talks about mental health and body image.” This is so important because there’s definitely a relationship between those two. In fact, I remember reading in one of your posts that you’ve actually gained weight since you started your journey–and I loved that. Can you tell us a bit about your journey and how your mental health affected your feelings about your body?
SL: My journey really started with me hating my body. One of my first memories of feeling true disgust with my size was in the fifth grade, but if we went back further, I’m sure I had moments long before then. That hatred of who I was resulted in a multitude of mental health struggles - I suffer from depression, anxiety, and excoriation (skin-picking). I’ve also had multiple eating disorders.
It’s important to note that I experienced trauma as a child and teen, and this impacted my mental health severely. My coping mechanism was to eat, and my desire to be small conflicted with my desire to be so full I wouldn’t have to think about the pain I was experiencing. When compounding all of these factors, my kid-self struggled with how to process it all. When I was in my early 20’s I started writing about my struggles with eating and my desire to be smaller.
I think that ability to reflect on my behaviors is how it then slowly transformed into much more about my health-mentally and physically-as opposed to this unnecessary ideal that is set out for us. My goal shifted from wanting to be in a different body to loving my body as it is today-even if tomorrow it is bigger or smaller.
M4CP: I love this answer. And this is what this article is about. Is it fair to say that once you started taking care of your mental health, your relationship with your body changed?
SL: Absolutely. When I finally started receiving help (i.e. therapy), it unleashed this inability to ignore the central theme I had about myself, which was that I am unworthy. I believed that I didn’t deserve to be happy, and I found so many ways to punish myself for it.
I was fat because I was lazy and stupid, and all the other horrible names I could think of to bring myself down. I believed that bad things happened to me because I was fat. Once I started to unpack the trauma I had experienced and recognized that I deserve to be happy, it shifted my whole idea of who I was. Knowing that I was worthy helped me to look in the mirror and not see a monster.
M4CP: Now, you and I are friends, so we know each other very well. I also know that you’ve been running, especially during quarantine (who hasn’t, right? lol). We’ve talked in the past about running, and how it helps us. Personally I’ve found that running helps a lot with my mental health. I’ve been diagnosed with major depressive disorder (that’s what they call it), GAD (generalized anxiety disorder), and adjustment disorder with mixed anxiety and depressed mood. So, a lot, lol.
Though there have been a lot of positive changes since that diagnosis, I realized that in addition to my regular self-care routine, I feel my best when I run.
What’s your experience with running, or exercising in general? We’re not trying to sell running to people but, there’s definitely a relationship between mental health and being active, and adding exercise to your self-care routine changes your life in a big way. What are your thoughts on this?
SL: Great question! When I exercised in the past, I would do it out of punishment. I wanted to feel like I was going to puke otherwise it meant I wasn’t doing something right. I learned this from watching shows like the Biggest Loser, which showed me that being fat meant you deserved to be bullied, especially by yourself. As I grew in my journey and understanding of myself and what motivates me, I found that I was approaching exercise all wrong.
First, I decided I needed to find the exercise that was right for me. I was shocked when I realized it was running, because honestly I hated running for a long time. For the longest time I believed that fat people couldn’t run. Second, I had to use more kindness. When I ran, instead of my old mantras of “you deserve to hurt,” or “think of all the people that hurt you and how guilty they will feel when you are skinny,” I switched it to things like “go as far as it feels good and stop when it doesn’t,” or “show yourself some love and be gentle, this isn’t about weight loss, it’s about self-love”.
Once I implemented these two factors I fell in love with the movement.
I love using my fat body to move in ways I didn’t believe it could and defy the limitations society has placed on us.
M4CP: Another thing that you discuss on your blog and that I like very much is that inner kid inside all of us. You call yours baby Sarah. I call mine my two-year-old monkey, or sometimes dad because he reminds me of my dad. Can you tell us a bit about that?
SL: Definitely. I have done a lot of inner child work on my own, in therapy, and with patients. Inner child work is based on the idea that there are root difficulties that we experienced as children and have been left unresolved and still show up in the present. I have worked with this through visualization. I close my eyes and I can see baby Sarah, as I call her, and I can feel when she is hurting. The work then involves healing those past struggles. I often have to mother her in ways that perhaps I needed and didn’t receive when I was younger.
Comment: The reason I’m mentioning this is because sometimes we all forget that at one point before society changes us and we start to look for everything that’s “wrong” with us, there was this child who just wanted to make friends and be happy, and that child usually is the most creative version of ourselves that we’ve ever been.
Sometimes that child gets hurt, and it’s a very good reminder that that child was just a kid and most of the people who hurt that child are also kids. Sometimes it’s the adults that hurt the child. In both cases, we carry this hurt through our whole lives.
We may carry this hurt through self-hatred, or by becoming the bully.
It’s very important to forgive ourselves for the things that we have and haven’t done, for the things that people told us that couldn’t let go. When we don’t, we grow up hating ourselves for our reactions or for not being cool enough, accepted, loved enough, etc.
When my child shows up, it’s after that 3rd pint of ice cream, that I know that I shouldn’t be having, or the 4th cookie that I ate (you know how I love my cookies). Sometimes, I just don’t want to take care of myself. Many times it’s that 2 am you up text that I send.
M4CP: How does it show up in your life, and how were you able to forgive yourself for hating that child?
SL: It most often shows up in my relationships, platonic and not. As a child I wanted to be a people-pleaser, which often left me feeling unheard and shrinking myself to give space for others. It has been hard for me to realize that I am safe with people, and that it is okay for me to voice how I am feeling and what I need.
I don’t know if I would say I hated that child, but I definitely resented her for not being bolder.
I have worked through that by recognizing that her only desire was to feel safe, and that the struggles I had as a kid stemmed from my desire to feel and be secure.
M4CP: Would you agree that after you were finally able to forgive yourself and that child within you, your relationship with your body has changed? And have you been able to accept it and embrace who you really are?
SL: Yes, because now I can recognize that the safest place I and baby Sarah have is within ourselves. Understanding that I do deserve safety and to be heard and have my needs met has helped me to live unapologetically as I am today. I accept and embrace myself now, and that includes the moments that those old feelings come up. As a human I am not perfect, and I will still have moments where I look in the mirror and don’t like what I see. But, instead of pushing those feelings away, I can go inward and talk with baby Sarah about what is coming up and how to work through it.
M4CP: Another thing that I realized is that for those who wish to lose weight, it’s only when you finally accept your body for what it is and love it for all the support that it has given you your entire life, that weight loss actually starts to take place.
Another thing is the limited beliefs that we carry with us. Again, this is something that we work on with self-care, which can mean journaling or blogging. I believe that’s the path that you chose, but correct me if I’m wrong.
SL: Blogging has definitely been my route of self-care, and therapy and medication have also helped me immensely in this work. I don’t think I would be where I am today without those two things and the people I lean on for support.
M4CP: But meditation can also be very good. Have you tried it?
SL: I have done meditation!
M4CP: And would you say that meditation has helped you in any way in your journey?
SL: I’ve had some good experiences and some not so good experiences with meditation, but for the most part I would say it really has helped me. I often practice meditation with an app on my phone (the Calm App for those of you looking for one to download). I find it helpful to have a guide that can help walk me through it. I would say that going into meditation without judgement is important. Some of those bad experiences I had was because I felt like I was doing it wrong. After I started to practice it more, and believe me meditation takes practice, I have found it very grounding and has significantly decreased my anxiety.
M4CP: Any last words you’d like to add?
SL: For people reading this-no matter where you are in your journey with your own body, try to be gentle with yourself. It’s okay if you want to change, and it’s okay if you don’t. No matter what, you deserve to be happy.
You can read Sarah's blog A[wo]men here.
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