Body Neutrality Makes Room for Worthiness
There isn’t a day that goes by where I do not judge my body in some way. Some days more than others. I also can’t remember a time where I didn’t care about my appearance. I recognize the ways that this self-critique has been ingrained not only in my hard-wiring, but also in my programming, and my entire environment. I was born into a female body, my body was subject to unachievable and patriarchal standards of beauty from a very young age. I do not remember exactly when I began hating my body, but I do know that it started exactly when I swallowed the belief that I had to be the best, kindest, most soft, most beautiful girl I could be. I was told to deny all the parts of me that the world didn’t like, didn’t find appropriate. I, like nearly all young girls today, Began controlling my body and my appearance with a self hate so powerful that the parts of me that didn’t fit in the box (the too loud, the too sensitive, the too strong, the too quiet, the too smart, the creative, the masculine, the queer, the uncanny) were shrunk and silenced and near the edge of oblivion.
So this body and its home and its street and its neighborhood and its town and its city and its region and its country and its continent and its entire physical world is drenched in a narrative that the authentic is never right, it needs to be edited and cropped and photo-shopped until it no longer resembles the self, and begins resembling the what is valued by the powers that be. Think about this for the same amount of time you would usually give to making your body, your clothes, hair, skin, size fit into the world’s boxes.
The people in power – who are they? Don’t fool yourself. They are way more than just Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump. Of course, we must note that the concentration of financial power within the top 1% gives control of so much to the hands of a few, and this disproportionate allocation of resources alone will shift the lives of nations. However, power is not only found in money. The powers that be are hierarchal and intersectional in nature. The power of wealth when combined with white supremacy and colonialism has and will extinguish entire ways of living, speaking, growing, and working. The power of patriarchy mixed with physical strength has and will objectify, devour, and strip not only women but also queer folks of their humanness, their agency, their creativity. The powers that be are based on the intersection of identities. The most notable of these identities are race, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexual orientation, religion, legal status, socioeconomic status, education level, age, citizenship status, trauma history and countless other identities that may fall outside these lines. These identities interact with one another, as the humans of the world are collections of both oppressed and privileged identities in each of these categories. We are a patchwork, a maze, some sort of puzzle you may find in a Sunday New York Times. We make sense, but we are complex. Too complicated, maybe, for many to even attempt at solving us. But if you have sat with me thus far into this argument you might have the clues, and the patience enough to be still, to bring your ear and your heart to the source of the pain, and to know the truth. Thank you for being here this far.
The world’s boxes are plenty. They are fairly detailed, too. They exist in polarities, they ask that you fall on either end of a spectrum. The want you to be black or white, girl or boy, rich or poor, an American or a terrorist, a republican or a democrat, a native or a colonizer, a good neighbor or a felon, worthy or not worthy. Not one human is born untouched by complexity. No body is an empty vessel. I exist as a key that simply doesn’t turn any one lock, we all don’t fit.
Welcome. This is my work. My inner work. The job I have dedicated most time and energy into for the last 2 years. I have researched and formed an understanding of my existence. I looked to the world for answers to questions I had of myself for years. I wanted to better know my heart by believing with every ounce of my being every belief I could get my hands on. I researched the major religions of the world. I went to temples. I got on my knees and prayed. I spent weeks in silence and reflection. I wrote and cried and moved in praise. I was disgusted and overjoyed at once. I was alive. I believed in everything.
I wanted to better know my purpose so I invested myself in communities and conflicts in order to help foster healing and understanding. My purpose has always been to put my heart and my ears quietly next to the suffering. To listen. To proceed accordingly. I went into the world and invested. I tried to live my purpose. I did. Every time. But it was not enough. I needed a better job, or I wasn’t making as sweeping of an impact as I had hoped, and I needed to contribute more. I love my need to grow but I must ask myself with intention, when will I be enough? When will my contribution be acceptable? And who makes those decisions? Is it me or is it the powers that be?
I was seeking answers in the world when I needed to seek answers in myself. My work has been severing the connection between my productivity and my worth, which is difficult being a member of the working class in a capitalistic society. My work is creative self-discovery, it is working and moving and acting with intention, it is letting truth guide my words and my hands, it is admitting fault, it is forgiving, it is knowing that my body is a vehicle for love.
When I embrace an incredibly complex understanding of my situation and its many contexts, I am better able to see the ways that the world has taught me to silence my authentic self. My work is to love my body, not for what it is, but for what it holds. I will love my body as it is the kloeeper of my compassion, my intellect, my hope. It is the keeper of my health. This is how I must relate to it. I must ignore all discussion of the way it does or doesn’t fit into the world’s boxes. This chatter is irrelevant to how my body feels and operates, it is just noise that has kept me hating myself for years. I will regard my body as a something unattached from my worth.
“Body positivity says, I love myself because I am beautiful. Body neutrality says: I love myself and that love has nothing to do with the way I look. I am much more than this body. This body is a vehicle for my existence. My worth is separate from it and because of that, my worth is steady. I am simply here, being in this flesh and bones.” – Emma Zeck
I will hold this truth of my worth with me. I know that my body will change. My body has done nothing but change since the start of my existence in human form. My body will continue to grow and shrink and age and adapt and wrinkle and sag as I come into contact with time and stress and trauma and nurturing. I know my body will change as I seek out holistic health. I have worried in the past about gaining or losing too much weight, about my cystic acne returning, about “keeping myself together” and not “letting myself go”. I no longer worry about my body changing. I know it will. I remain here in neutrality, knowing that my appearance does not always transparently display my self-love. In fact, my self love exists apart from my body. My worth is inherent, and does not falter when my body changes.
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