A few Sunday’s ago it was forest church, this is my favourite church service ever, the whole thing is done outside and you get to not only spend time in nature but learn about it too. It is such a great way to connect in with the world around us. This particular Sunday I felt challenged, and not because of the topic that was talked about, I was instead challenged by an activity we were invited to do. Now I need to state here that there wasn’t a pressure to do this activity, it was very clear that everyone had a choice.
Let me set the scene to you can understand.
It is a winter’s day, the type of winter’s day where you can feel Spring is on the horizon, the wind is a fraction less chilly and the flowers are beginning the bloom more vividly. It’s dry, but it has been raining, leaving the occasional muddy puddle on the dirt path under the trees. We’re were sat on one of the benches, as per usual, all the other families and people filling the other benches around us, everyone wrapped up, some not as wrapped up as others as the sunny morning had given them a false sense of how warm it actually was. One of the families stands up and begins to lead us in an activity, THE activity. Suddenly, and quite to everyone’s surprise, one of the parents in this family group slips a shoe and sock off, their children follow suit, then off goes the other shoe and sock. We’re all shocked and confused, this is highly unusual behaviour! It is here we are invited to go for a barefoot walk around the Forest Church area, they’d provided towels and cleaning products for afterwards, so other than not wanting to there really wasn’t any excuse. Or was there? Instinctively my brain goes into overdrive, the thought of taking my shoes and socks off in front of people horrifies me and I’m filled with dread. My feet! My bare, naked feet. I can’t hide all the things I hate about them and everyone will see their flaws. I’m not doing it, there’s no way I’m doing it.
One of my children wanted to do the activity, the other didn’t. Fair enough, it’s cold and I don’t blame them. But what about me? I begin to question why I don’t want to do it, and once I realise it’s because of the feelings I have towards how my feet look I start to challenge myself, really challenge myself. I actually wanted to take part in the grounding activity, the activity itself appealed to me, it was my own self consciousness that was stopping me. I asked myself if I’d regret not doing the activity and the answer was yes. That was it then, I had to push myself through this uncomfortableness to get to the other side. And you know what?
It was marvellous.
No one noticed my feet, and if they did I didn’t care, I was too busy enjoying the feeling of the cold stone, the warm log, the cool, calming muddy puddle. It was all a sensory joy, it wasn’t about image, it was about connecting and that’s exactly what I did.
A few weeks later and I woke up stressed, no idea why, I just did. Unable to shake it I went outside in my garden, in the rain, with a brew and stood there barefoot for awhile, connecting in with the early again. Calmness instantly came over me.
As well as this incident there’s been freaking out and over analysing video footage of myself with my belly sticking out further than I thought it did and fighting against deleting it, there’s all the photos where I think I look too old, or ugly and so on, and it’s got me to realise something.
I am a long way from being healed.
If anything challenging myself is making things even more painful, BUT I know it’s for the best, because after every challenge I learn something about myself and I use that to help further. I learnt that even though I know every body size is beautiful, when it comes to my own body the message that being fat isn’t beautiful really has a place in my mind and is a big voice when I look at myself in the mirror and in pictures. It’s a voice I pay far too much attention too, which is crazy because it rarely speaks the truth.
Through all this process I’m also learning to recognise the different voices within me and question where they’re coming from, then challenging those that need challenging.
I’m learning to enjoying exercise not to make me slim, but because I love how strong my body feels when I’m doing it, I love the joy it gets from it, and I love the confidence it gives me. Letting go of the concept of exercising to lose weight and switching it to enjoy movement and feeling strong has been a total game changer, and it’s actually made the whole thing more enjoyable. It’s made me learn to listen to my body and try new things.
Recently we bought a book about body image and creativity, it sets you different creative activities to help you process your body image and self esteem, it’s taking a while to get through because, well, life, yet the few activities we’ve done so far have been eye opening. Creativity really does allow you to access parts of your brain that open an opportunity to communicate things you hadn’t previously been able to articulate.
This why I’ve slowed down on the public posts about it all recently, I’m privately processing, what I’m creating isn’t for others it’s for me whilst I figure things out, and you know what, isn’t that what we should all be doing? Creating not for others but for ourselves?
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