Have you ever thought about the unspoken agreements you’ve made with yourself? The stories that you keep telling yourself that keep you tied in one spot. How can you re-write those narratives? How can you take your baggage and use it to make your life better, to essentially stack that baggage so you can climb out of hating yourself?
An agreement I’ve subconsciously made is that I am unworthy of love because of my body and until my body looks a certain way, I will be denied this love. This is a deep rooted belief that dates back to being a small girl who was too big to be picked up and then promptly saw her much thinner cousins lifted and played with. It’s funny that such a small action, that was not meant to hurt my feelings, has shaped such a large part of my life.
I’ve kept myself in this narrative for most of my life in ways I don’t think I fully understood until last year, when I was the thinnest I’d been in my adult life and was rejected by a man after he saw me naked. I had felt relatively confident at the time, though not in my worth, but in my appearance. But he was judging me, comparing meto someone a decade younger who was shorter, thinner and blonde(r). This happened a year ago, and sent me on quite the healing journey. He was a catalyst of change, of accepting myself and realizing my worth comes from more than my physical being. I had shared dark baggage with him, and he with me, but it was not until he saw me physically naked that he was repulsed. Perhaps all the wounds manifested themselves onto my body like tattoos when he saw me or perhaps he’s just an asshole (likely the latter).
This guy was obsessed with numbering women, I was an 8, but he loved a 10, but it’s not like he hadn’t been with a 6 or 7… He had gone off his anti-depressants in order to lose weight, because “when I’m happy, I just don’t care if I’m fat.” His mom was gorgeous and treated his father like shit and he loved women that treated him the same way, plus she was short, thin and blonde. See the pattern yet? Our narratives had interlocked. I had felt compared for a good chunk of my life to women and girls I would never look like and here was this man whose own trauma was thrusting that knife deeper. I would never be what he wanted and instead of focusing on what I wanted, all I could see was that rejection and how it bolstered my narrative. For years men had only liked thin women or blonde women- I’d had an ex tell me I would be perfect if I were a blonde. I’d always been told, verbally and non-verbally- that I would be better if I looked a certain way.
This event led to the dissolution of a friendship that was tied up in body image and self worth, which I will talk about later, but I am telling you now so you understand how much it affected me in the moment. I spent hours meditating and crying over this person who I thought saw me so clearly, who had denied that I had any value. He endorsed my narrative, THE main narrative I’ve used to protect my heart: that my appearance is why I do not deserve deep, nurturing love. I didn’t understand that he couldn’t see my value because I couldn’t see it either.
This body thing comes back around over and over again in my life and I’ve decided to change the narrative. That’s why I started this blog, to help me re-write it. I’m meant to shake something up in a broader sense, and it seems like it has something to do with this bullshit. Why else would it keep popping up? Isn’t the way I can change the narrative to use it, to use my hurts, to help someone else?
Do I think deep down in my heart of hearts that I am unworthy of love because I wear a size 12. Or because I am a brunette and not a blonde. Or because I am the height of an Amazon, with long, strong legs and arms that can reach all the grocery shelves. No. I am worthy because I am a person who would never treat another like shit, and finally that includes myself.
too fat to be italian 