You Are Not Your Body…Or Are You? A Missing Piece in Food and Body Image Recovery
The statement, “You are not your body,” needs some somatic updating.
This statement, which has been said countless of times to try to decrease body image struggles, actually guides you in detaching from the body, further causing separation from safely inhabiting the body.
René Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am,” reinforced a mind-body split. This contributed to the belief that the body is meant to be transcended and translated to: don’t listen to your body, hunger, fatigue, needs, or sensations. This has led to further objectification of the body that it can be shaped to meet the mind’s desires. and detaching from the body in the process doesn’t teach you how to sense, feel, and relate to your body.
The premise of “you are not your body” has tried to decrease body image concerns by guiding attention away from appearance and toward other facets of you that make up who you are, but it misses the mark. This reinforces a mind-body split where you continue to stay in a cognitive place about who you are, rather than discovering life through your body’s sensations.
Living by “you are not your body” can also guide you to try to transcend your body.
Yes, you are so much more than your physical appearance, but you are also here experiencing this life because you live in a body. When trying to practice not being defined by your body, you may find yourself dissociated where food behaviors like binge eating increase to keep you at a distance from your body.
What we know now through neuroscience and somatics is that the mind and body are deeply entwined and constantly communicating with each other. So much so that individuals have started to use the term mindbody as one word rather than a separation between mind and body. We see this in trauma healing that the body's nervous system responses hold the memories of the past and shapes the way your brain functions and what you think about.
Now, I know that this statement has felt so freeing for many of you who have learned to solely define yourself through your body's appearance. This statement perhaps expanded your view that there are other things you can define yourself by that have nothing to do with the way you look. I would perhaps add to this though that your body's appearance is only one aspect of your body. Your body also encompasses all your felt senses, reactions, emotions, organs, cells, blood, history, lineage, and ancestry. It is through being able to feel, sense, and understand your body that body image concerns can decrease. Food and body image recovery is about a reintegration of the mindbody and coming home to listening to your sensations.
Body image struggles increase when your body is dysregulated.
It is looking to cultivate safety and found a way to do that through altering its physical appearance. This provides the experience of short term safety but not longer term safety. You may feel safe in a moment where your body appears the way society has taught you that your body should look to feel safe but that can be a fleeting moment that changes when your body is perceived differently or your appearance does actually change. Safety can't be built on a ground that is never secure. If safety and security are associated with a physical appearance, you never actually get to feel safe because the body's image is never consistent, nor is body image culture, as the needle is always changing about what is deemed the best body image.
If the goal is body autonomy and safety, then it is by showing up for your body, being its ally when it is scared, and feeling your way through the experience of threat, that body image concerns can decrease as your body senses it doesn’t need protection. You will perceive your body as enough and safe to inhabit when you're living more in the parasympathetic nervous system.
Instead of “you are not your body,” you might try on...
"You are not your thoughts or feelings. You are experiencing life through your body."
“My body holds the stories of all of my ancestors and lineage that I get to continue to experience today.”
“My body is a resource to experience life through my senses.”
“My body is one of my homes.”
After this episode, you might explore for yourself through some journaling or self reflection:
How do you want to experience, define, view, or inhabit your body?
How do you personally want to experience being a body?
What has informed you of how to perceive your body and does that still resonate with who you are today or who you are becoming or want to be?
What keeps you from your body and what would bring you closer to it that perhaps doesn't have to do with your physical appearance changing?
Feel free to email me any of your insights at support@stephaniemara.com and I hope you all have a satiating and safety producing rest of your day. Bye!