The Body War, Part 2

Well, I did indeed pay for my gym sins today. I was so sore that I slept most of the day, not wanting to move. My joints were swollen and I had to hobble around the house. But I tried to stretch as much as I could, move once up, as much as I could, understanding that to be still was to instill that suffering into my body memory. A stupid misconception of an analogy, but to cure a hangover, more of the same, right? Only in this case, it's actually true. Well, maybe not cure but definitely helps.

I can easily get drawn into an either/or mindset. I don't have a middle ground (a phrase I really hate). I prefer Center. And I don't have one. It's extremes for me, thank you very much. And I say that with the most respectful amount of sarcasm. It's not fun. It's either no exercise at all or wanting to go crazy and go everyday and exercise for three hours a day. And I had thought about it Monday after my nutso three hour stint, "I'm going to come back tomorrow!" and was already examining the lists of classes to see what was available.

However, when I woke up, I realized that would be a completely ridiculously stupid idea. I hurt way too much and really, I do vaguely have a brain in my head that I was able recognize going to the gym today would be falling into that obsessed extreme. So I did try to take it easy, while gently stretching throughout the parts of the day that I was actually awake. I did, however, have to leave the house for my Rosen session.

While there, we talked about The Body War, which was the term that I had already used to title the blog I was working (part one) and I used it in a way unknowingly, to describe what I felt was going on in my own body during the session. Then I remembered I had already come up with term.

And it's accurate. I wage a constant war with my body, not only physically but the mind attached. The emotional, mental and spiritual bodies that I carry within and without. I look in the mirror and despair. I see my reflection and feel rage. I hate my body and often, the person within. I feel fat and ugly, I feel worthless. I definitely don't feel hot. And I want to be hot. Ahh, but really, do I? As Steuart always asked, how does it serve?

There are so many layers to the answer to this question and it feels like forever that it will take to strip them away, to uncover some sense of liking. But I guess it boils down to this:

Being tall and slender, being hot (as in good looking), being "different", being lively and invigorated, full of passion made myself a target that garnered very serious consequences - being teased, picked on, bullied, chased walking home from school, tripped in the hallways, being slammed into lockers, my hair pulled, jumped on while playing in the school yard, knocked down and kicked while on the ground, having extremely clever, emotionally manipulating schemes played against me (and me, being who I was, falling for it over and over), being touched in inappropriate ways by adults and peers alike.

So the war continues, fiercely raging from one battleground to the next without end, or maybe even without reduction. I guess it really can't go anywhere until I realize that there is safety in my life now. And then, why need the the war to create safety?

Funny that, don't you think? That something so horrible is developed in order to be protective. Let's hear it for Inner Critics.