Fat Fox's post highlighted something for me, something I've been struggling with since shortly after Kat was born. This new body of mine does not have nice boobs. I loved my boobs. They were plump and nice and I miss them. These new boobs don't belong to me; they're floppy and badly need the support of a bra at all times, unless they're full of milk, and then they're more like they used to be, but a bra isn't really necessary as I'm probably about to feed Katherine. I don't like them. I certainly don't love them.
As far as body and fat acceptance goes, I'm on board all the way. But I'm seeing the difference between fat and body ACCEPTANCE, and fat and body LOVE. Depending on whether it's personal or political (and so often the personal IS political) acceptance is easier than love. I accept this new body, but I don't love (all of) it. Then again, saying something as silly as "I love this body BUT..." shows the mind/body/spirit split, where there actually isn't a split at all. Either I love myself or I don't, right? Either I accept myself or not. Is self acceptance a zero-sum game? Help me out here. I'm too tired at the moment to tease this out to any kind of rational conclusion.
When I was a screaming banshee of a teen my mom would tell me "I love you. I will always love you more than anything. Right now, this minute, I don't like you."
That's how I feel about my body sometimes. I love my body. I'm learning how to be good to my body. But when I can't find pants that fit my hips or my knees hurt I don't like my body. I still love it because it's what I have, its me. I just give myself permission to dislike it from time to time without guilt.
It's not a zero-sum game. There's room for contradictions and complexities nearly everywhere, and this isn't really an exception.
I love my body. I also hate it. I mean, that would be true even if I weren't fat. I hate my body when it's being a jerk. Which is quite often. But I also love it for getting me around, and for living, and for being fairly healthy, and for refusing to give up.
And while there may not be as much of a split between body/spirit as more transcendental traditions think, going the complete opposite direction to "we ARE our bodies" isn't really any better. If we truly ARE our bodies and there's no split, then it's fair to say that people with uteruses are walking baby factories and that people really *can't* control their sexual urges.
Our bodies have wisdom but they're also really friggin stupid.
I love my body, but I want it to be better. Saying that, to me, is no different from my mom saying "I love my daughter, but I want her to do better." Wanting more -- demanding more, demanding better -- is as much an expression of love as is just being satisfied with the way things are.
Which is why I say all my activism stems from love. Because I love this world and I want it to change.
And I accept some things, but push for changing others. Just like I can accept my body the way it is, and still want to change it. Because I love it. And I want it to be better, because it's far from perfect.
/ramble. I've been up for a very long time, so that wasn't as coherent as I wanted.
I'm good with my boobs right now, but as someone with a chronic pain condition, I am often -- like right now -- not good with my hips, low back, and uterus.
And so, sometimes in terms of accepting, I will shift my thinking from love to calling a truce with my body. That is, even if I'm not happy with how my body looks or feels or behaves -- I remind myself: 1) This is the only body I'm going to get (though as you noted, parts of it do change, and often without direction from me); 2) actively treating my body -- or parts of my body -- as if I don't like them (even if it's true) is unlikely to help anything and may well cause me physical or emotional harm.
So basically, I make a deal with myself to act like I love my body -- even if I don't always feel like it's true.
Personally, I think it is a zero-sum game. The question isn't about loving your body, it's about questioning where these thoughts are coming from. When did you buy into the idea that breasts that are plump and nice are preferable? What messages did you receive from your culture and your upbringing about the ways in which you relate to your body?
The problem is not with your body, but rather with your expectations of your body. Truly, this concept is not that far different from the normal fat hate concept. We are force fed a very narrow image of what is "right" and "acceptable". Currently, in our culture, what is right and acceptable is a perfectly able body that conforms to a certain sexual and physical aesthetic.
If we dislike our bodies because we have pain (and readers know, that I blog about chronic pain) is an ingrained response to living in an ablest culture. Sure, all bodies should be pain free, flaw free, and perfect right? And what if they aren't?
My personal opinion, would be to take some time to look for positive images that help you relate to the body that you have. There is an excellent quote "You can't be, what you can't see."
http://theshapeofamother.com/
I suggest taking a look around this site. Your body is not the problem. It is doing absolutely everything that it can do and is suppose to do. The problem is how you are thinking about your body. Would your thoughts be any different if you were talking about how you love your body but you dislike your black skin? How about, I love my body but I dislike the fact that I have 2 legs. (For some people this is a reality!) How about, I love my body, but I dislike the way it carries out cellular respiration? The parts of our bodies that we "dislike" are the parts that we have received innumerable social messages about.
Pregnancy and age both change our bodies profoundly. It's hard to be perfectly "okay" with that 100% of the time, and that's normal. You muddle through anyhow and have to forgive yourself for having less than loving thoughts about yourself sometimes.
For me it wasn't the boob thing, it was the belly thing, which is what I was trying to discuss in my "belly thoughts" post last year:
http://www.wellroundedmama.blogspot.com/2011/01/belly-thoughts.html
However, a lot of people found that one hard to read. It can sound like self-hate when it's actually just a normal processing of changes to one's body and your ambivalence about that.
It's one thing to express a normal dissatisfaction or unease with changes in the body or with body challenges, it's another to hate the body. Sometimes there's a gray area between, and it's okay to talk about that. Thank you for your honesty in sharing yours. This is healthy and normal.
Ultimately, I agree with Fat Fox and Tori. It's good to question how much of this is coming from unrealistic societal (or personal) expectations, and to confront that. But there's also something to be said for declaring a truce with your body, a detente, when you can't actively love something about your body. That gives you space and time for change or re-adjustment.
Forgive your body for not being perfect, acknowledge how hard it is to have a body that is changed, examine where the dissatisfaction is coming from, but ultimately, reaffirm self-love by acting like you love your body, even when sometimes you find it challenging. In time the actions will become the reality.
"It's one thing to express a normal dissatisfaction or unease with changes in the body or with body challenges, it's another to hate the body." This is what I was trying to get at in my latest blog post but failed miserably to do so. Thanks so much to everyone for their excellent comments. So much to think about!