10. OUR BODIES: Why are we at war with them and can we ever make peace?

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Speaker 2 So everybody, this episode has raw real talk about disordered eating.

Speaker 2 If that kind of talk heals you, listen up. But loves, if that kind of talk triggers you, skip this one or save it to listen to in a safe place with safe people.
Please first take care of you.

Speaker 2 We'll finally find

Speaker 2 a way back home.

Speaker 2 Hi, everybody. It's Glennon.
Thanks for coming back to We Can Do Hard Things.

Speaker 2 Today we're going to get into some hard things about women and why so many of us seem to be trapped in an endless war with our bodies.

Speaker 2 I got this question a while back from Anne. She said, gee, I'm struggling hard with food and body stuff, especially since quarantine.

Speaker 2 I look to you for advice on most things, but I don't know if you can relate to this one. You're so thin.
I just want to get to a place where I feel acceptance and love for my own body.

Speaker 2 I felt so freed by Untamed, and I'm hoping you can help free me from my own body hate.

Speaker 2 So, Anne, I can.

Speaker 2 I can relate. I've struggled my entire life to be comfortable in my own skin, to understand my body, to be as much me as my mind and my spirit.

Speaker 2 As a girl in this culture, I learned to be desired, but not how to desire, how to be wanted, but not how to want.

Speaker 2 To care about what I looked like more than I care about what I'm looking at.

Speaker 2 I learned that my worthiness was in my appearance, in my outer beauty, and that to be beautiful, a woman needed to stay small. To slowly disappear, really,

Speaker 2 in ambition and desire and appetite and emotion and voice and body.

Speaker 2 I tried hard to follow directions, to somehow feed myself and also to disappear. I was severely bulimic from age 10 to 26, and I stopped binging and purging when I got sober almost 19 years ago.

Speaker 2 And now I'm 45 years old, old and just last month, I cried to Abby and told her that I bet that throughout a typical day for me, especially during COVID, it felt like 80% of my thoughts were still about food and my body.

Speaker 2 What did I eat today? Did I eat too much? Was I good? How do my thighs feel? What am I going to let myself eat tonight? How much do I weigh today? Why did I eat that ice cream last night?

Speaker 2 It's like being harassed constantly, but the call is always coming from inside the house.

Speaker 2 And it makes me embarrassed as a feminist. It makes me enraged as a human being because of the opportunity cost of spending half my time and thoughts on this stupid shit.

Speaker 2 Because I am a smart and powerful woman. I cannot imagine the thoughts I would think and the art I'd make and the activism I'd unleash if I had those thoughts back again.

Speaker 2 And that's the cost of this cultural poison we ingest right the opportunity cost of obsessing about our size and shape is our time and energy and thoughts and potential and peace

Speaker 2 it's our life

Speaker 2 i want us to get our minds and bodies and lives back i want us to unlearn the self-hate and to begin to inhabit our bodies, to begin to love them and trust them, to, as Mary Oliver suggests, let the soft animals of our bodies love

Speaker 2 what they love.

Speaker 2 Let's try.

Speaker 2 We can do hard things.

Speaker 2 Okay, so the hard thing that I'm bringing today is my

Speaker 2 infuriating and never-ending,

Speaker 2 extremely complicated relationship with food and body.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I started thinking about this differently recently because,

Speaker 2 so Abby was talking to me one day, my wife Abby

Speaker 2 was talking to me one day about my, as we've called them, tiny, barely imperceptible control issues. And

Speaker 2 I was explaining to her how something should be done, but I felt like I was doing it in a very precious way that she would never notice that I was really controlling the thing.

Speaker 2 But Abby is always able to notice when I'm doing the thing.

Speaker 2 So she stopped me and she said, honey, I see what you're doing there.

Speaker 2 And I need to tell you that when you try to control what I'm doing or decisions that I'm making, it really hurts me. It makes me really sad because

Speaker 2 I trust you so much.

Speaker 2 I believe in you and I trust you. And when you try to control me, it makes me understand that you really don't believe in me and trust me.

Speaker 2 And yeah.

Speaker 2 And so I thought about that so much and I realized

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 the truth of things seems to be

Speaker 2 in relationships that we can trust people.

Speaker 2 Well, I guess guess i would say we can love people or we can control people

Speaker 2 but we cannot do both okay we have to choose are we going to love them or are we going to control them because

Speaker 2 love

Speaker 2 requires trust

Speaker 2 okay

Speaker 2 and we only control things we don't trust

Speaker 2 Right? So

Speaker 2 in my marriage, in my relationship with Abby,

Speaker 2 it has become very clear that when I am controlling her, even when I'm doing it in my very, what I think are subtle, precious ways.

Speaker 2 So subtle, yeah.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 That I am not loving her.

Speaker 2 Right. Which is baffling and paradigm shifting to me because I have always believed that my job, the way that I love my people is that I just,

Speaker 2 you know, I help them make all of my dreams for them come true.

Speaker 3 Right?

Speaker 2 Like, my job is to be like, I am here to support you

Speaker 2 in creating the truest, most beautiful life for you. So I'm just going to show you what I have diagrammed as the truest, most beautiful life for you.
And then together we will get, right?

Speaker 2 So this idea that allowing her

Speaker 2 to lead the way for her is

Speaker 2 interesting and a new process for me. And honestly, quite scary because I'm not someone who believes that things just work out, right? I just feel like I have to work them out.
Right.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 the way this relates to body is that what I figured out recently is if I can love, people are always talking about loving their bodies, right?

Speaker 2 I just want to love my body as self-love, love, like whatever the hell that means. Well, exactly.
What does that mean? Like, does that, loving my body mean I love the shape of my body?

Speaker 2 Does it mean I love the way it looks? Does it mean I love the way it feels? Does it mean like what does body love mean? And so,

Speaker 2 well, I sure as hell know I

Speaker 2 have never had it.

Speaker 2 Okay, like as someone who's dealt an eating disorder when she was 10 and has

Speaker 2 been figuring that out for since then.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 here's what I want.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 I want to love my body

Speaker 2 in this way, in the way Abby described. I want to trust my body.

Speaker 2 Okay. I want to stop spending my one wild and precious life controlling my body.

Speaker 2 And what I mean by that is I have had times in my life where I feel like I have gotten healthier, like I've gotten more normal with food and body, although I can't remember them now because because after COVID, I, and, and I think that with the book tour,

Speaker 2 preparing for the book tour, I just got weird again.

Speaker 2 And what I think, what I mean by getting weird is I just start obsessing more. I start thinking constantly about food,

Speaker 2 about what I've eaten, what I haven't eaten, about I, I obsess with working out.

Speaker 2 So I'll start, I start on the elliptical for a half hour, then I'm on it for 45 minutes, then I'm on it for an hour. And when I'm working out,

Speaker 2 I am not doing it with the same intention as I know some people do. Like some people are like, I am here to get strong, I am here to be healthy.
No,

Speaker 2 I am here to deal with my anxiety and to control the crap out of this body I've been given, to make sure that it does not get one millimeter bigger, that it stays small, right?

Speaker 2 I'm controlling the crap out of my body. I would say

Speaker 2 that on a given day,

Speaker 2 50% of all of my thoughts,

Speaker 2 the entire day are about food, working out my body, which is so humiliating.

Speaker 2 It's so embarrassing as like a feminist, as somebody who is out in the world talking about women and freedom and joy and power.

Speaker 2 It's embarrassing. It feels like I should have freaking figured this out by now.
I'm 45. I don't know what I'm waiting for.

Speaker 2 But also, it's infuriating because I am a smart, powerful woman.

Speaker 2 And when I think about the art I could have created, the activism I could have unleashed, the love I could have been a part of if I had those 50%

Speaker 2 thoughts back, right? It's the opportunity cost.

Speaker 2 That is, you know, the cultural conditioning that little girls get the second we're born on this earth about staying small.

Speaker 2 about controlling our appetite, about controlling our desire, about not being hungry, about not being about staying small.

Speaker 2 That's the price of it. It's the opportunity cost.
It costs us life. Right.

Speaker 2 It costs us life. And

Speaker 2 I just,

Speaker 2 I feel like, you know, I started to get weird and then Abby.

Speaker 2 She's trying to help, trying to help, trying to help.

Speaker 2 She brought over this woman who is a local person in our area and she started working out with us in the driveway during COVID. Okay.
So this was Abby's thought.

Speaker 2 Like, if this is, if this body thing is taken away from you, maybe you won't obsess about it. Maybe if we give you the structure and we and we think about getting strong instead of getting small

Speaker 2 and you like lift weights and we just turn it all over to her.

Speaker 2 It's just every time I have a

Speaker 2 weirdness, there's always, I'm certain that some structure will fix it. You know?

Speaker 3 You're just missing something.

Speaker 2 You're just missing something.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Just missing something.
I'll just get one answer and all we'll be fine. So this woman starts coming over and sissy, you know this because I started talking to you about it.

Speaker 2 I'm out in the driveway three days a week, kicking my own ass,

Speaker 2 right? Just kicking my own ass three days a week. And one day I just looked at this woman.
I was like, I am 45 years old. I don't want to kick my own ass anymore.
I don't care.

Speaker 2 I want to not care, right? I want to stop trying so hard to control this body or change it or make it some idea that somebody told me it should be.

Speaker 2 And just be gentle and kind to it, right? Just like find a way

Speaker 2 to just eat what it wants to eat,

Speaker 2 to move how it wants to move. And then love and trust it enough to let it become whatever it wants to become.

Speaker 2 Right? Because I don't care. Like when I look at women now, I know we all have different

Speaker 2 goals and dreams and vibes. Right.

Speaker 2 But when I look at women now who I can tell spend

Speaker 2 a ton of their one wild and precious life controlling their bodies, it no longer looks aspirational to me.

Speaker 2 It just looks kind of like sad.

Speaker 2 The women, like the kind of bodies or women that inspire me now are people who look like they actually are enjoying their life,

Speaker 2 who

Speaker 2 allow themselves to indulge sometimes, who don't spend all day kicking their own ass in order to create some body that our culture has told us is aspirational for a woman.

Speaker 2 You know? Right. It's like that, I think it's that old quote that says, thinness is not about beauty.
It's about obedience.

Speaker 2 Like, it's just obedience. It's that somebody, a million people told me, a million people told me when I was little

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 a woman's worthiness is beauty, and beauty is staying small.

Speaker 2 And I have just been really freaking obedient every day of my life about that. And I'm so tired of being a good little soldier.
I just want to enjoy this next

Speaker 2 part of my life and just let myself be.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I mean, I think, so you haven't worked out in like a month, right? You, you decided to just

Speaker 3 stop for a while.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So this, well, I quit the personal trainer.
So now she comes over and works with Abby because Abby's on a different journey. I mean, that's the thing.
There's no,

Speaker 2 there is zero. If there was one answer to the body stuff, I promise you I would have found it.
There's no, it's like different for every person in every

Speaker 2 season of their life. And so Abby's out there with the personal trainer.
I hide now. I just like hide in my house from her.

Speaker 2 I decided that it wasn't for me. And then I decided, okay, what I'm going to do is I'm going to go for a walk every day.
I'm going to stop kicking my own ass. I want to be nice to.
my body.

Speaker 2 I've put my body through hell.

Speaker 2 I want to be gentle to it. I want to be, I want it to feel good.

Speaker 2 So I decided to go for a walk every day. I've been going for a two to three mile walk every single day.

Speaker 2 And I've been doing this 20 minute thing of yoga. There's something about yoga that

Speaker 2 is really good for me. Not hard yoga.
I freaking hate hard yoga. When I, when somebody starts a yoga class and then it gets hard and sweaty, it makes me so upset.
It's like ruining it.

Speaker 2 It's like turning ice cream into frozen frozen yogurt or something. It's just like not correct.

Speaker 2 But I love, there's something about getting on a yoga mat and breathing and the way yoga instructors tend to like talk about our bodies that makes me feel very

Speaker 2 loved. I don't know.
It makes me feel like remembering how precious and

Speaker 2 good my body is to me. And it just helps me,

Speaker 2 well, I guess it's that idea of I'm not controlling it. I'm just in it and I'm remembering.

Speaker 2 It's the closest I get to loving, loving my body, not the shape of it. That's not what I'm talking about.
But like

Speaker 2 trusting and honoring, yes,

Speaker 2 honoring, being present in.

Speaker 2 And listen, it's been three weeks that I've been doing no sweating, just walking and

Speaker 2 yogaing. And I don't know.

Speaker 2 So far, so good. I haven't missed that freaking elliptical.
I am not,

Speaker 2 I don't know how many more years I have on this earth and I am not spending any more hours in a dark room

Speaker 2 on an elliptical machine. It's just, I'm just not doing it anymore.

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Speaker 3 Well, you started talking about how

Speaker 3 Abby, I mean, clearly you trust Abby to,

Speaker 3 I mean,

Speaker 3 when people talk about trust, it's like, do you trust them not to make terrible decisions? Do you need to control them because you think they're going to be go off and like

Speaker 3 do something crazy? Clearly, that's not the level of trust we're talking about here. We're talking about

Speaker 3 help me

Speaker 3 guide your decisions with the benefit of my wisdom, which can sometimes feel like control, right?

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 this whole of your body,

Speaker 2 it's

Speaker 3 this

Speaker 3 trusting

Speaker 3 that

Speaker 3 your body has wisdom

Speaker 3 equal to

Speaker 3 or more particularly

Speaker 3 attuned than whatever wisdom you have. So like in order to trust Abby, I have this actual question because I struggle with the same thing.
You have to go say or at least practice

Speaker 3 saying,

Speaker 3 you have a wisdom for yourself.

Speaker 3 You go do your thing and I'm not going to impose my wisdom on you.

Speaker 3 And is it the same with body? Is it saying you, body, have a wisdom and a power and a purpose?

Speaker 2 And I'm going to trust you to return to what you need to be. Yeah, that you have a wisdom.

Speaker 2 I mean, I would say I don't think that Abby Mines, when I share wisdom, like I don't, first of all, I'm never going to stop doing that. So,

Speaker 2 but I, I don't think that's it. I think there's an energy that comes with my wisdom that she senses that is fear based.

Speaker 2 It's, it's not, I want to accept wisdom from other people. I want people to, I want to be able to share ideas, but there's an energy

Speaker 2 that controlling people like you and me don't think other people can feel and sense and they always can.

Speaker 2 And it's outcome.

Speaker 3 It's outcome focused too.

Speaker 2 It's outcome focused. It is.
Yes. I'm trying to get you to make this decision.
So here's the three pieces of evidence. I'm wisdom.
I'm showing you to try to get you to this point.

Speaker 2 And every, John knows when you do it. Abby knows when I do it.
I know when you're doing it. You know when I'm doing it.
Like

Speaker 2 there's a way of being that people will always sense that you're not honoring me.

Speaker 2 and my own wisdom and my and you're not just contributing what you can to help me that you already know what you want and you're just trying to get me And that makes the person feel mistrusted and used,

Speaker 2 right?

Speaker 2 And just kind of like a means to an end.

Speaker 2 It's just two different approaches. But I, when it comes to the control thing with the body,

Speaker 2 what you just said is what I'm trying to believe.

Speaker 2 Just like I believe Abby has a wisdom and a way that is better than mine for her.

Speaker 2 I have to believe that my body has a wisdom and a way that is better than my my controlling plan for it. Because by the way, my controlling plan for it isn't, was never my plan for it.

Speaker 2 It's a patriarchal idea that has been planted in me that now I'm imposing upon my body and have been forever. Right.
And that is the idea of control for women. It's like,

Speaker 2 you know, by the, we're born. And everybody tells us we can't trust any part of ourselves.
Like you can't trust your ambition. You can't trust your anger.
You can't trust your envy.

Speaker 2 You can't trust your hair. Like like you can't trust your skin, you can't trust your forehead wrinkles.
You get like change, change, change, control, control, control, control, right?

Speaker 2 Like change everything, control everything. You as you are is wrong.

Speaker 2 And it's just like the weirdest little things, like,

Speaker 2 you know, trying to fix and change and control my depression and anxiety, actually.

Speaker 2 Those are two things are what contribute to making me a really good writer and artist, right? Like stupid things. How long, sister, did I straighten my hair?

Speaker 2 I spent so much of my One Wild and Precious Life. Like someone told me along the way that straight hair was prettier.
So I used to fry straight my hair every day for 20 years.

Speaker 2 And one day I was like, screw it. Like, I'm just going to chop it and leave it curly.
It knew what it wanted to do.

Speaker 2 Right? Like, I could have left it alone and had better hair my whole damn life.

Speaker 2 So it's just this idea of what if we don't have to control

Speaker 2 our people or our body or

Speaker 2 freaking anything. I don't know.
It's the body thing is a final frontier for me.

Speaker 3 And it's a, and we never find out.

Speaker 3 You know, if you never trust your partner, you never find out if they're worthy of trust.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 3 Because they never go and make their decisions for themselves that then you can see and say,

Speaker 3 damn, wouldn't have done that, but

Speaker 3 good on you.

Speaker 3 If we don't trust our bodies, we will never know

Speaker 3 the power

Speaker 3 of our bodies.

Speaker 3 And I think

Speaker 3 I also just find it

Speaker 3 mind-boggling that of all the people who say, oh, no, you need to live in your body and know your body. And this is for the good of your body, getting it healthy.

Speaker 2 I mean, I feel like.

Speaker 3 Every woman would be able to tell you 10 things about their body that are that they have tried to control or that they have noticed or they've obsessed over but we don't actually know our bodies how how

Speaker 3 in this country how many women can tell you about the dramatic decade-long process of perimenopause and menopause like that is literally the way our bodies are made How many people can tell you the parts of their body that can consistently and effectively give them an orgasm.

Speaker 2 That's an incredibly important part of our body.

Speaker 3 Like when we say we actually know the tiniest hair of percentages about our bodies, and

Speaker 3 that is intentional.

Speaker 2 Yes. Like for whom and for what.

Speaker 3 The only parts of our bodies are that we understand and know how to

Speaker 3 use

Speaker 3 effectively are the parts that are made to be controlled

Speaker 3 for the purpose of keeping us under control, for the purpose of 50% of our time being spent doing that and not doing something else.

Speaker 2 So, or to please someone else, like what parts, we don't know how our body works, bodies work in the way you just described, but we've spent years obsessing about our what stomachs or our cellulite or what, because that's for other people's viewing

Speaker 2 as opposed to actually understanding how our bodies work for us.

Speaker 3 And to be fair to women, like if we're telling the whole picture here,

Speaker 3 we control ourselves to make ourselves

Speaker 3 in the short run

Speaker 3 more effective, more successful, more palatable. Because very unfortunately,

Speaker 3 women who are because of fat phobia, women who are those things who do follow the rules

Speaker 3 in the short term

Speaker 3 have that privilege so at the end of the day like we're doing it because it's quote unquote smart for us to do it okay but in the process of getting that privilege we lose ourselves we lose the wisdom of our bodies the same wisdom of our bodies that tells us we want to eat that that tells us that we want to indulge in that is the same wisdom of our bodies that when we walk in a room and says, get me the fuck out of here, this ain't right.

Speaker 3 We lose that too, by the way, because we are so used to denying what we know, denying our hunger,

Speaker 3 explaining away what our body's telling us and telling it to shut up that we lose all the benefits of that wisdom of the body.

Speaker 2 That's right.

Speaker 3 And we lose in the long run.

Speaker 2 That's right.

Speaker 2 And you're right that it's not our fault. It's like the don't hate the players, hate the game.
It's the game.

Speaker 3 Oh my God. I can't believe we have you on tape saying don't hate the players, hate the game.

Speaker 2 I mean, is that not the case of patriarchy? We don't hate the individual women or even men who have

Speaker 2 contorted themselves to be

Speaker 2 efficient pawns in the game of the patriarchy. But let us be clear that that's what we're doing.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 3 When we're winning, we're losing. Like they said,

Speaker 3 we are winning, but in the process,

Speaker 3 we have ceded our power,

Speaker 2 our inherent

Speaker 2 and our lives and our joy. Well, I'm going to try to reclaim some of that power just by reclaiming some freaking time in the day is what I'm doing.
I'm not going into a dark room.

Speaker 2 getting on a machine to keep myself small anymore. And that is my little teeny, huge political, personal act of revolution for this month.
And I'll let you know how it goes.

Speaker 3 But it's a big deal, it's not little.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's not little, it's a very big deal.

Speaker 2 All right, I love you, and um, I love this conversation. Let's just take a little break, and then when we get back, we'll answer some hard questions.

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Speaker 2 Okay, everybody, let's get started with some hard questions.

Speaker 3 Our first question today is from Katie.

Speaker 5 My name's Katie. I'm from Melbourne, Australia and I just love you, Glennon and Amanda.
So my hard question is,

Speaker 5 I have a daughter and she's nine years old and she is overweight. I even hate

Speaker 5 saying that term, like there's a weight world supposed to be.

Speaker 5 But I just, you know, she's healthy and she's active, she plays sports and she eats the same things all my other kids do and she seems to be the only one who has this issue.

Speaker 5 I, from someone who's suffered from eating disorders my whole life and body image issues, have made it such a mission to never talk about my body or anybody else's body or comment on my children's bodies because I just don't want that for them.

Speaker 5 But now she's getting to an age where, of course, she's getting teased for being fat.

Speaker 5 I tell her she's perfect and beautiful, but I guess I'm starting to wonder if I should be helping her try to perhaps change her body just to avoid

Speaker 5 the name calling and the troubles that inevitably are going to happen in life.

Speaker 5 If you have any advice on what to do, I would still appreciate it. I love you guys.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 Okay, first of all, I love Katie.

Speaker 2 What

Speaker 2 fantastic

Speaker 2 mom

Speaker 2 you are, Katie.

Speaker 2 First of all, I guess I want to say thank you for being a mom who is just

Speaker 2 knows to

Speaker 2 not comment on other people's bodies and to

Speaker 2 tell your baby that she's perfect over and over again. Well done.

Speaker 2 I guess I was listening really closely to what you were saying, Katie, and some things that I noticed is that you said that your little girl is healthy and active

Speaker 2 and eating what your other kids are eating and happy. And

Speaker 2 so I guess what I would say is, first of all, it feels like there's an issue, right? We're having an issue. But I wonder if the issue is her issue or if it's the world's issue.

Speaker 2 Right. You said it's an issue, but I guess I would at first ask, whose issue is it? Right.

Speaker 2 Because if your little one is healthy and active and happy, and it doesn't sound like she has an issue, maybe it's the world's issue because our world is so unbelievably fat phobic,

Speaker 2 right?

Speaker 2 There are all different kinds of bodies,

Speaker 2 but we all have soaked in this idea that there's only one acceptable kind of body. Right.

Speaker 2 And so because we all soak that in, we get afraid when our children's bodies fall outside of that very ridiculous, narrow, restrictive

Speaker 2 cultural ideal.

Speaker 2 Right. And then that fear,

Speaker 2 it just, it's contagious from us to them,

Speaker 2 right? So I remember in my family

Speaker 2 feeling very, very clearly the energy of fear. that my parents thought that my body was too big.
I remember that. And it wouldn't have been said to me directly.

Speaker 2 It was just in the tips and the reminders and the all of the little things that they said that made me understand, oh, my body's not okay.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 So, so first of all, maybe your little girl is perfect as is your intuition.

Speaker 2 And maybe there is an issue, but maybe it's the world's issue. Maybe the world's issue is that the world is fat phobic and maybe there's nothing wrong with your little girl's body.

Speaker 2 And I bet you know that.

Speaker 2 It sounds like you know that. But then there's this other part that's like, okay,

Speaker 2 that's fine and good. Like we're all our kids are perfect.
It's the world's problem. But then your baby, our babies have to go out into the world and deal with the world's problem.

Speaker 2 So Katie is

Speaker 2 hearing that her little girl is being teased by the fat phobic world,

Speaker 2 right? So, so if we don't, there's this feeling as a parent that,

Speaker 2 okay, I can decide that my baby's perfect and tell her that she's perfect, but am I sending her out without the armor she needs to deal with the world who will tell her over and over again that she is less than perfect?

Speaker 2 And is that being a good parent?

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 And I understand that deeply. I mean, when I have a son who's gay and

Speaker 2 I know through every bit of my being that he is absolutely and utterly perfect.

Speaker 2 And that there is an issue, but that it is the world's issue. It is not my family's issue.
And that

Speaker 2 there is homophobia in the world, and that that is the issue. And that's the world's problem, and not my family's problem.
But when my son goes out into the world

Speaker 2 and things happen over and over again, as you know, sister, where he is called names, or

Speaker 2 yeah, that

Speaker 2 it's like that part where it crosses over, and the world's problem hurts my baby.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 what I know about that, Katie, is that

Speaker 2 as a mom and as a teacher, I was a teacher for a long time.

Speaker 2 And so I saw over and over again parents whose babies were different in outside of the narrow cultural expectation, whether that was body size or personality or sexuality or, or, or, or, or, right?

Speaker 2 There is an approach where you try to change your your baby for the world.

Speaker 2 Okay, there is that. And I understand it.
I get it. We're just, we don't want our babies to be in pain.
So we try to change our baby to make them more inside this narrow window of acceptability.

Speaker 2 And then our babies feel that.

Speaker 2 Now the world is telling them they're not okay. And then in some way,

Speaker 2 their parents are telling them they're not okay either. And everybody now is telling them to change.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 And then there's this other

Speaker 2 way

Speaker 2 of going about things, which is like

Speaker 2 this thing that I saw that it felt to me like the babies who did the best, the babies who were a little bit different, but did the best were the ones

Speaker 2 whose parents were. vehemently and militantly and relentlessly on their children's side

Speaker 2 about who they are, right? So it felt to me and still feels to me like little ones can deal with the whole world telling them they're not okay.

Speaker 2 If in their home, if their most important people are over and over again saying, yes, you are.

Speaker 2 It's them. It's not you.

Speaker 2 I feel like there's no perfect answer and there's hardship on either side. It's like, this is hard, that's hard.
Choose your heart, right? But

Speaker 2 to me, the right kind of hard is staying relentlessly on your child's side as they are and teaching them to see it as the world's issue and not theirs. To me, it's like, okay,

Speaker 2 my baby will be able to handle it if the entire world disapproves of her, if she knows that her mama approves of her, right?

Speaker 2 And instead of changing her, I'll use all of that nervous, terrified energy to go out and change the world for her and let her watch me.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I mean, there's literally nothing harder than

Speaker 3 this impossible situation of sending our precious perfect people out into

Speaker 3 a world that doesn't deserve them.

Speaker 3 Like there's, it, it, it feels like it might actually kill me at certain points to do that over and over again and just have them be vulnerable in a world that is cruel and doesn't see them the way we see them.

Speaker 3 And I think I agree with everything that you said. And I think there's also this kind of math part of it to me that is

Speaker 3 like you could, Katie, have a potential short-term relief for your precious daughter and teach, because the world is so fat phobic, to teach her how to be thin now.

Speaker 3 And you might have some short-term relief, but you.

Speaker 3 also might have a long-term disaster because as you know, you said that that you dealt with eating disorders. And

Speaker 3 I myself, who was like quote unquote, safe with the world by my thinness and sameness throughout my life,

Speaker 3 never,

Speaker 3 never saved me

Speaker 3 from feeling quite unsafe in my own skin. And I think that,

Speaker 3 you know, if she receives those messages from the world and from you,

Speaker 3 she might be temporarily safe out on the playground and in school and whatever but

Speaker 3 she might spend

Speaker 3 decades of her life being unsafe inside of her head and i think oh that's good

Speaker 3 when i think back over my life

Speaker 3 i really

Speaker 3 think that i would have traded unconditional internal safety and peace inside my mind and

Speaker 3 head and body

Speaker 3 for the conditional and precarious safety that the world

Speaker 3 granted me because my body was palatable.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 yes.

Speaker 3 And I just,

Speaker 3 when she was talking, I kept thinking of that phrase: all the water in the world can't sink a ship unless it gets inside.

Speaker 3 And I just feel like it's a very, very brave parent

Speaker 3 who will

Speaker 3 seal the ship. You know, I mean, it's just

Speaker 3 because it is true, Katie, that the world doesn't deserve your daughter,

Speaker 3 but she deserves you. Like she deserves a mother who will see her as perfect, tender treasure that she is.

Speaker 3 and refuses to pass along the world's incessant messaging that she needs to intervene to help her daughter as early and often be

Speaker 3 as controlled and contorted to be safe in the world's rules.

Speaker 2 Amen.

Speaker 3 And that will teach her every day in a million different ways that the world is wrong and her daughter's body is right.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 3 And the, I mean, it takes a very, very fierce

Speaker 3 mother to be willing to withstand that because you can feel it. You can feel it in the air.
You can feel other people's discomfort with your child's body. You know it.

Speaker 3 But, but, like, let us just please

Speaker 3 let our daughters

Speaker 3 just understand that the world is confused and let them never be confused about the value of their own bodies. Just

Speaker 3 because truly, I mean, if you're, if your kids are going to have any peace at all in life, it is going to start from the inside out.

Speaker 3 The outside in does not work. So

Speaker 3 just God love Katie. And it's hard and brave, but

Speaker 3 don't let the water in and don't be the one to pour it in.

Speaker 2 I love it. I love it.
What in one sentence do you want to wrap it up and say to Katie?

Speaker 3 That if you

Speaker 3 know and believe your daughter is perfect and that there is nothing,

Speaker 3 not a hair on her head that you would change, You just relentlessly and shamelessly continue telling her that and continue believing that

Speaker 3 because they will sense if you're saying, but you don't actually believe, if your fear about the world

Speaker 3 is

Speaker 3 making you doubt your belief that she is perfect, she will sense that. So your only job is to continue to believe that your daughter is perfect and worthy of

Speaker 3 love and acceptance and celebration

Speaker 3 every day and telling her that.

Speaker 2 As she is. And if you need to put all that nervous energy somewhere, you change the entire world before you change one hair on her little head, Katie.

Speaker 2 We love you.

Speaker 3 Okay, we have a last question

Speaker 3 and it's a write-in. Hi, I'm Leslie.
I just turned 50 and came home for my annual physical. And for the first time in my life, my doctor told me I am officially overweight.

Speaker 3 I don't even know what my question is. I am just down and feel awful and don't know what to do with my feelings about this.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 let's see. How do I address this

Speaker 2 from my perspective without getting in all kinds of trouble?

Speaker 2 I

Speaker 2 love

Speaker 2 and respect doctors.

Speaker 2 I

Speaker 2 have had some very tricky situations involving weight and bodies and physicians in my life. Many, many.

Speaker 2 Many times where I have felt like what a physician was telling me about my body was not right.

Speaker 2 Many situations where I felt like what a physician was telling my children. about their bodies was not right.
I actually got to the place a few years ago

Speaker 2 where I started going into the doctor's office before my kids' physicals. Well, let me tell you one specific time.
I went in

Speaker 2 to the doctor's office and said, I do not want you to say anything to my girls about their weight or their bodies. You do not have my permission to

Speaker 2 offer any sort of opinion or commentary. on their weight and I don't want you to talk about it.

Speaker 2 That particular

Speaker 2 um

Speaker 2 time

Speaker 2 the doctor said okay thank you for that information and then sat with my girls and said nothing to my older girl

Speaker 2 and then to my younger one who happens to be smaller and lighter um said oh your weight is perfect and smiled

Speaker 3 which then of course my older one understood exactly what that meant about her and your younger one understood not to change her her weight at all,

Speaker 3 and be imperfect.

Speaker 2 Whatever the hell perfect means for a body. So I'm just telling you that after, after that,

Speaker 2 I said to the doctor, you have no, you do not have my permission to comment positively or negatively in any way.

Speaker 2 to my children about their weight because I don't know what's going on here, but whatever you're using as a barometer for what makes a perfect body is not right.

Speaker 2 I can't describe it, but I can feel it in my bones

Speaker 2 that they are getting just as much poison in this office as they're getting out in the world.

Speaker 3 Do you want me to, do you want me to describe the barometer to you?

Speaker 2 Yes, because I always want you. I always want you to tell me that I'm not crazy.
I'm a goddamn cheetah.

Speaker 3 Okay, I'm so excited we're talking about this because this whole, it's as if we have decided that there is an obesity epidemic based on this certain criteria and no one has

Speaker 3 bothered to interrogate the criteria that we are using. So can we just start with this idea of fat?

Speaker 3 Like at what point we started quantifying people as fat or not and how we started to equate fat with health. Because this is actually a relatively very new phenomenon based on a very flawed rubric.

Speaker 3 So weight was not considered a primary indicator for health until the early 1900s. For 50 years after that, doctors started assessing weight in earnest after in the 1900s.

Speaker 3 And it's because they had new data to use.

Speaker 3 And do you know who that data was from?

Speaker 3 It was from life insurance company actuaries who had started building these lists of height and weight to optimize their profits.

Speaker 3 So the doctors started using the lists from the life insurance companies. And then like 35 years ago,

Speaker 3 the

Speaker 3 scientists got together and were like, we don't have a reliable way to talk about

Speaker 3 body and height and to assess individuals. So BMI was actually was only coined in 1972.

Speaker 3 This whole rubric that we use to decide whether people get life insurance, whether people get health insurance, whether you walk into the doctor's office and they say you're overweight or not.

Speaker 2 Whether schools send freaking letters home telling you that your little perfect child is overweight.

Speaker 2 Okay, go ahead. Sorry.

Speaker 3 It's ridiculous, by the way. There's no business in that.
Okay, so the BMI, this tomfoolery of BMI, is based on a theory literally from 200 years ago by a Belgian astronomer.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 3 My man is a Belgian astronomer from 200 years ago, and he was obsessed with identifying the characteristics of the ideal man. So incidentally, his theory was also used to

Speaker 3 justify eugenics since it was only studying white Europeans. But that aside, he also explicitly said that this was never to measure an individual person's body fat or health.

Speaker 3 It was always supposed to be like assess the makeup of an entire population.

Speaker 3 when modern researchers couldn't find a workable measure to identify individuals' body and health, they said, what the hell?

Speaker 3 let's go back to this 200 year old theory that was specifically not for that purpose we'll call it bmi and we'll use it for the rest of our lives no one will ask any questions i know who we can pick to to tell us about our bodies an astronomer from 200 years ago who

Speaker 3 work was used to justify eugenics okay so it's completely illogical i'm not saying we don't have an obesity epidemic what i'm saying is that we have collectively decided that there's this objective referendum on whether our body is okay or not based on this incredibly flawed metric.

Speaker 3 It is: so, if someone is obese, they will have a high BMI.

Speaker 3 If someone has a high BMI, it does not mean that they are overweight or obese. It does not take account at all for bone density.
It grossly overestimates for black folks.

Speaker 3 It underestimates for Asian folks. It is this one-size-fits-all

Speaker 3 tomfoolery. And we use it for

Speaker 3 And so,

Speaker 3 what I am saying to Leslie is that

Speaker 3 it's like they have this

Speaker 2 thou

Speaker 2 is overweight.

Speaker 3 And I would just like to say they probably took your BMI.

Speaker 3 You are probably

Speaker 3 maybe you're 29, maybe you're 30, maybe you're 31. You know what the average American woman's BMI is?

Speaker 3 It's 29.6. The average American woman is overweight.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 3 Is the average American woman overweight? Right. Or is

Speaker 3 overweight

Speaker 3 criteria

Speaker 3 not

Speaker 3 in line with what our bodies are?

Speaker 2 Yes. It's like, once again, they're telling us we're too much

Speaker 2 over and over and over again based on flawed criteria, not on flawed women, Leslie. Not on flawed.
It's them, not us. It's just.

Speaker 3 Do you know the other thing? Talk about the

Speaker 3 we're flawed. Okay, the average American woman wears a size 14 or 16.

Speaker 3 Do you know what the average clothing line size stops at?

Speaker 2 12.

Speaker 2 What in the world?

Speaker 3 We are literally not making

Speaker 3 clothes for the women who exist.

Speaker 3 So the average person

Speaker 3 is bigger than the highest average size of clothing.

Speaker 3 We are literally not accommodating the women you have.

Speaker 2 I see what you're saying.

Speaker 2 I see. If you guys are

Speaker 2 following me her face right now, she's about to explode into

Speaker 2 thin air. Okay.

Speaker 2 What we're saying here, Leslie, is that we don't know you. And we can't see you.
And we don't know your BMI.

Speaker 2 But our bet is that you are goddamn perfect. Okay?

Speaker 2 That is what we believe.

Speaker 2 Okay,

Speaker 2 let's come back with our next right thing.

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Speaker 2 We're going to try something different with the next right thing today. I'm going to read to you a little something that I wrote about our bodies years ago.

Speaker 2 I think I pretty much wrote it to myself. I am always writing what I need to hear and teaching what I need to learn.

Speaker 2 So take a listen and

Speaker 2 I'll follow up with a little job for you this week.

Speaker 2 Your body is not your masterpiece.

Speaker 2 Your life is.

Speaker 2 It is suggested to us a million times a day that our bodies are projects. They aren't.

Speaker 2 They aren't. Our lives are.

Speaker 2 Our relationships are. Our spirituality is.
Our work is.

Speaker 2 So stop spending all day obsessing, cursing, perfecting your body like it's all you've got to offer the world.

Speaker 2 Your body is not your art.

Speaker 2 It's your paintbrush.

Speaker 2 Whether your paintbrush is a tall paintbrush or a thin paintbrush or a stocky paintbrush or a scratched up paintbrush is completely irrelevant.

Speaker 2 What is very relevant is that you have a paintbrush which can be used to transfer your insides onto the canvas of your life where others can see it and be inspired by it and be comforted by it

Speaker 2 your body is not your offering

Speaker 2 it's just an instrument which you can use to create your offering each day

Speaker 2 So don't curse your paintbrush. Don't sit in a corner wishing you had a different paintbrush.
You're wasting time.

Speaker 2 You've got the one you've got.

Speaker 2 Maybe even be grateful.

Speaker 2 Because without it, you'd have nothing with which to paint your life's work.

Speaker 2 Your life's work is the love you give and receive.

Speaker 2 And your body is the instrument you use to accept and offer love on your soul's behalf. It's a system.

Speaker 2 We are encouraged to obsess over our instrument's shape, but our body's shape has no effect on its ability to accept and offer love for us, just none.

Speaker 2 So maybe we continue to obsess because, as long as we keep wringing our hands about our paintbrush shape, we don't have to get to work painting our lives.

Speaker 2 Stop fretting.

Speaker 2 The truth is that all paintbrush shapes work just fine.

Speaker 2 And anybody who tells you different is trying to sell you something.

Speaker 2 So don't buy it.

Speaker 2 Just paint.

Speaker 2 But first, stop right now

Speaker 2 and say thank you to your body.

Speaker 2 Say thank you to your eyes for taking in the beauty of sunsets and storms and children blowing out birthday candles.

Speaker 2 And say thank you to your hands for writing love letters and opening doors and stirring soup and waving to strangers. And say thank you to your legs.

Speaker 2 for walking you from danger to safety and for climbing so many damn mountains for you.

Speaker 2 Then let's pick up our instrument and start painting

Speaker 2 this day beautiful and bold and wild and free

Speaker 2 and you.

Speaker 2 So how about for our next right thing?

Speaker 2 We just think hard about the masterpieces we have created in our lives

Speaker 2 that our body has helped us create.

Speaker 2 That's all. Just think of a couple beautiful things, a couple beautiful

Speaker 2 relationships, a couple beautiful pieces of work, a couple anything we've ever been a part of creating that is beautiful, that we would never have made

Speaker 2 without these bodies of ours.

Speaker 2 And when this week gets hard,

Speaker 2 you just remind yourself that we can do hard things.

Speaker 2 We'll see you next week.

Speaker 2 I am so excited to announce that by Pod Squad Popular Demand, our theme song by Tish

Speaker 2 is now available for streaming and download. How fancy and exciting is that? She is beyond thrilled.

Speaker 2 Search We Can Do Hard Things or Tish T I S H Melton on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon Music, Pandora, or YouTube. And now I give you Tish Melton and Brandy Carlisle.

Speaker 2 I walked through fire, I came out the other side.

Speaker 2 I chased desire,

Speaker 2 I made sure I got what's mine.

Speaker 2 And I continue

Speaker 2 to believe

Speaker 2 that I'm the one for me.

Speaker 2 And because I'm mine,

Speaker 2 I walk the line.

Speaker 2 Cause we're adventurers, and heartbreaks on the map.

Speaker 2 A final destination

Speaker 2 we lack.

Speaker 2 We've stopped asking directions

Speaker 2 to places they've never been.

Speaker 2 And to be loved, we need to be known.

Speaker 2 We'll finally find our way back home

Speaker 2 and through the joy and pain

Speaker 2 that our lives

Speaker 2 bring,

Speaker 2 we can do a hard game.

Speaker 2 I hit rock bottom, it felt like a brand new start.

Speaker 2 I'm not the problem.

Speaker 2 Sometimes things fall apart.

Speaker 2 And I continue

Speaker 2 to believe

Speaker 2 the best

Speaker 2 people are free.

Speaker 2 And it took some time,

Speaker 2 but I'm finally fine.

Speaker 2 Cause we're adventurers, and heartbreaks on that.

Speaker 2 A final destination

Speaker 2 lack.

Speaker 2 We've stopped asking directions

Speaker 2 to places they've never been.

Speaker 2 And to be loved, we need to be known.

Speaker 2 We'll finally find our way back home

Speaker 2 and through the joy and pain

Speaker 2 that our lives

Speaker 2 bring

Speaker 2 we can do a hard day

Speaker 2 Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks on that.

Speaker 2 We might get lost, but we're okay with that. We've stopped asking directions

Speaker 2 in some places they've never been.

Speaker 2 And to be loved, we need to be known.

Speaker 2 We'll finally find

Speaker 2 our way back on

Speaker 2 and through the joy and pain

Speaker 2 that our lives

Speaker 2 bring,

Speaker 2 we can do hard things.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we can do hard things.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we

Speaker 2 can do hard

Speaker 2 things.

Speaker 2 We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 Especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn't, don't worry about it.
It's fine.