Body Language

I’ve been wanting to write about body image and powerlifting for a while, but I’ve been struggling to find the right words. I want to be honest without being self-deprecating and acknowledge that every person who struggles with body image has an experience all his or her own, this is simply part of mine. 

This past Sunday was probably my hardest day at the gym since the early days of training over a year ago. My deep-seated and persistent negative thoughts about my weight and body image had been piling up, as they often do until I reign them in again. For the first time in a while, the gym was contributing to those negative thoughts; nearly every time I went to squat, my hips would rotate or my right knee would cave in and cause me to think about how I was getting bigger without getting stronger, and that really messed with my head. The thing is, I had no proof of this thought I was convinced was true. I just sat and looked at myself in the mirror between sets-- analyzing every perceived flaw, becoming increasingly anxious, and endlessly frustrated that the place that I often use to practice positive self-talk is sometimes the stage for unhelpful thoughts to find their voice again. It is moments like this that remind me how important it is to speak to myself as compassionately as I would a best friend, because language is important no matter who the listener. 

 When self-talk gets particularly hard for me, I’ll often reach out to my close friends at the gym and tell them just how much I am struggling. I think it’s particularly important for women to share these struggles with one another so that our responses are not centered around numbers (“You look so skinny” “You don’t look bigger”) but around how common these feelings are regardless of size, and the ways we can help each other move through them instead of talking around them. If we can change the dialogue we have with each other surrounding body image and insecurity, then maybe it will make it easier to change the dialogue we have with ourselves.