A woman’s body can be such a lonely place. Maybe not for all women, but enough.
The Self Love Experiment says that 93 percent of women hate their bodies. 93 percent. Heartbreaking, yes. Surprising, no. There are so many billboards to blame, porn sites to point too. So many measurements we don’t fit. The first half of my life was spent treading the ugly waters of shame. Apologizing for who I was, how I looked.
TO SAY I HAVE HAD A COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIP WITH MY BODY, IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT.
I’ve suffered from everything from eating disorders to infertility. Everything that is feminine feels like a fight, like I fail the role of female every chance I get. I’ve felt tormented, almost mocked, to have to carry around this body that had failed me in so many ways. It’s been like having betrayal as a roommate. Every morning I watched it eat, take up space.
When I was young I grew up in a house of 3 women, all of us battled with disordered eating. Every one of us. No one spoke about it. Not a word. No one said much when I asked for a bathroom scale for Christmas or I cried at dinner time. We never talked about my family both celebrated and punished themselves with food.
I stayed silent. When I turned 38 I was ready to talk. I published a poem in Diode titled “Where No One Says Eating Disorder.” Even though I was terrified to share, tiny hearts and thumbs flooded my social media. There were so many comments: it was affirming and haunting. Women of all ages, youth I had taught, reached out in gratitude. I needed this. Thank you.
I LEARNED TOO MANY OF US ARE SUFFERING IN SILENCE. WHY?
I remember almost not allowing myself to write any poems about my body, or our stalemates, figured another girl writing about an eating disorder was such a cliche (but also terrifyingly relevant). One of my biggest regrets of life is not telling anyone how hard it was to love myself. How I measured my worth in praise and pant size, on bad days I still do.
Through Life I have been told, you’ll grow out of it. What I have found is that you don’t unless you do the work.
Halfway through writing my first book and a young student of mine asked about the goal of Boat Burned, what I wanted to achieve. I explained the book was inspired by a Sun Tzu quote: “When you cross into enemy territory you burn the bridges and burn the boats..” meaning the only choice is moving forward there is no turning back.
SOMETIMES THAT ENEMY TERRITORY IS THE THOUGHTS YOU HAVE ABOUT YOURSELF.
I explained to her why I needed to write: I didn't like who I was, especially as a woman. I reached for power outside of myself, lived as an apology. Convinced that my curves and cravings, even my strength, would never be beautiful.
And while the world is so much bigger than beauty, it is not bigger than love.
SHAME HAS A WAY OF TRANSFORMING EVERY LANDSCAPE. IT REWRITES ALL THE MAPS.
“Is it helping?” she asked me, one night after class. “Do you feel better?”
Again, I offered my silence.
It was right then that I thought, maybe I can’t be better for me (right now), but I would love to be better for her. For other women.
So I lit a match. Burning down the old ideas I refused to go back. I stopped thinking about unfair standards and starting shifting my reaction to them. I couldn’t erase the magazine or the bikinis, the jeans I told myself I was too monstrous to fit into. But I could stop calling it the truth.
I asked myself what would happen if I started listening instead of looking. If I spoke with my body, and really heard what it had to say. The dialogue was not pretty or easy. But important. Life-changing.
FOR ALL WOMEN OUT THERE STRUGGLING WITH THEIR BODIES
THESE ARE SOME STEPS THAT HELPED ME.
TALK ABOUT IT
So many negative body images are born in isolation. We think we don’t measure up. It is important to ask yourself why loving yourself can be a struggle. And ask other women who have figured it out, how. The woman who don’t, why. Dialogue is the first step to destigmatization. I started an Instagram Live series called Body of Art (every third Thursday at 5pm PT) that invites artists to talk about the role the body plays in their life and work. Join me.
WRITE ABOUT IT
I once heard that poetry is not therapy, therapy is therapy. While this is true I would argue a poem is the best place for inquiry. Craft doesn't negate catharsis. It asks us to examine what happened, how we feel and why. The best place to wrestle with myself is in a poem. It was where I can track the steps of my shame, locate where this behavior was born, and why I needed it in the first place. And while I maybe was never 100% healed, published, transformed after a first draft I definitely could smell where the hurt was coming from. If you want to write about it but don’t know how my upcoming Burn the Boats workshop is a great place to start.
THANK IT
I was once given the advice to touch a part of my body and say, this is my blank (insert arm, stomach, toe). I love my blank because. Blank is a part of me. I tried to start with the areas I hated the most. In the bathtub my hands shook, voice caught, as I felt the folds of fat and dimpled skin. This is my stomach. I love my stomach because it helps me disgust. My stomach is a part of me. Everything in my stomach started tingling, talking. This was the first time my body and I wept together. I could feel her sadness as she had felt mine. I had never ever said thank you. It felt like an important start.
LISTEN TO IT
Everything in this world is so loud. Email. Mortgages. Social media. So often when I had to work late my body, health, healing, and movement are the first things to go. When on an impossible deadline, and stress was taking over. I would sleep less, eat more. It wasn’t until I would pull a muscle from leaping out of bed from blaring alarm that I realized, my body was trying to get my attention before (the headaches, the back pain) and you had to scream for me to listen. Put the conversation with your body first, what do you need from each other.
The most important thing in this world, I believe, is to find a way to love yourself. Even fear or hurt, every act of violence is born from parts of us that don’t.
Would love to hear from you and your stories. Better yet, come join the conversation or write with me. Let us lean into the dialogue, and listen to what she has to say.
KELLY GRACE THOMAS is an ocean-obsessed Aires from Jersey. She is a self-taught poet, as well as an editor and educator. Kelly is the winner of the 2017 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor from Rattle, 2018 finalist for the Rita Dove Poetry Award and multiple pushcart prize nominee. Her first full-length collection, Boat Burned, released with YesYes Books in January 2020. Kelly’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in: Best New Poets 2019, Los Angeles Review, Redivider, Nashville Review, Muzzle, DIAGRAM, and more. Kelly is the Director of Education for Get Lit and the co-author of Words Ignite. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband Omid.