False Humility, War Paint, Bellies, Nude Selfies, and More: My Self Acceptance Journey (So Far)

Hey, readers.

I had another blog in mind...one that was written almost in its entirety when I decided to scrap it completely and share what was on my mind. After all, my bedtime tea told me to...

As a few of you may know, I have joined a Body-Positive yoga studio here in Nashville called Curvy Yoga.  Being relatively new to my practice, I was relieved to be in an environment with women who all wanted to get in touch with, and appreciate our bodies.  This is a completely foreign concept to me.

Our mission statement over the fireplace.  I am forced (not in a bad way) to look at this through my entire practice. 

I have talked about the journey I have been on to accept "what is" my entire life.  As long as I can remember, my world has been surrounded by women who hate themselves.  I say this including myself.   Maybe it's being conditioned by the world around me, and listening to the women in my life that were supposed to show me what being a woman means, complain about their bodies that did it.  Who knows? A combination of the two perhaps...This lead me down the path of eating disorders, and a case of Body Dysmorphic Disorder at the tender age of thirteen.

Around thirteen is when the era of MySpace was really starting to take off.  Long before the word "selfie" was ever a thing, people took self portraits to use for their profile photos.  Remember those days? Where a bathroom photo usually involved an actual camera? I created a profile to keep up with my friends, and had the horrible realization that I actually had to take a photo of myself. The horror! I faced my fears and set up the self timer in front of my wall full of Beatles posters and posed. The cheap Kodak camera flashed three times and I rushed back over, prepared to see the monster that I saw in my mirror every morning.  To my absolute shock, the girl staring back at me in the camera screen  wasn't a mutant! Sure, her hair was big, and she had braces, but she wasn't half bad! Thus began my self portrait  journey.  I lived for getting dolled up and staging photos for my online friends all over the world.  I received praise, compliments, and felt my heart skip a beat every time I had a new Photo Comment. Remember those feelings? For the first time in my life, I felt like it was okay to celebrate and not be ashamed of myself.  A family member walked in on me taking photos of myself.  "You're so vain, Payton.  You're obsessed with yourself." This is the same family member that told me I was a "Child of God" and "Should be proud of his creation."

So, let me get this straight. I'm supposed to value, treasure, and love myself as a "divine creation" but when I celebrate it, I am "vain" You can see the dilemma that lies within being thirteen and terribly impressionable. Damned if I do, damned if I don't.

That's why my hair's so big...it's full of contradictory statements other people have told me. 

This way of thinking attracted a lot of real winners.  My last serious relationship's number one argument involved the rest of the world getting to see "The Payton that everybody wants to believe is real" vs. what he "had" to see. "The real Payton." Apparently, it was somewhat insulting that he had to see me not in six inch heels, full makeup, the whole nine yards. This created intense amounts of insecurity within myself (how could it not?)  to the point where whenever I would have to take my make-up off in front of someone else, I felt the need to give them a warning...as if it were the Elephant Man about to enter the room where I once stood...where most people either couldn't tell a difference, or thought I was being neurotic. I am only just now at the point where I know that I am wearing make-up because I like to feel more put together when I leave the house, not because I am hiding.  I usually won't wear it to yoga, or around the house, whereas I used to put on a full face at the beginning of each day, even if I had only planned to be alone...just so I could look at myself in the mirror and not feel ashamed.

Without, and with the war paint. 

With this insecurity came copious amounts of anger.  Anger at myself ended up being directed towards other people. If I hated somebody's band? I really hated them.  If someone smiled at me the wrong way, I was in a bad mood for days.  I am only now realizing this.  My hatred of myself was turned outward to hatred of others. This was terribly confusing for me.  So, I'm supposed to love myself, but not love myself too much because that made me vain, but only love myself with make-up on, love me in the mirror, but not in photos...all the factors that played into my already unhealthy internal monologue: "I will  be happy when I weigh this much.  I will be happy when I am in this size jeans..." NO WONDER I was so screwed up. No wonder I still have a conversation with myself that requires time to re-focus nearly every thought I have about myself.  Deprogramming is hard.

My current partner has honestly been a great help when it comes to my self confidence.  When he tells me I don't need make-up for him to find me beautiful, I believe him.  He likes that silly little birthmark under my eye I have been trying to hide for the last ten years.  He likes my bed head.  And he likes what's inside. And when you see someone else that can love you in spite of all of your flaws, it's much easier to accept them for yourself.  My partner is very intelligent, and I don't want to insult his intelligence by telling him he is wrong anymore.

Yesterday in yoga class, I had on a pair of leggings with an oversized t-shirt cut "Flashdance" style and a really tight tank top underneath.  As we went into forward fold, I could see down my shirt, all the way to my scrunched up belly. And for the the first time in my entire life, I thought my belly was sexy. It wasn't flat. (No one's is in that position), but it looked like the beautiful women of the 40's and 50's in bathing suits, it looked like classical paintings, it looked like a grown woman's belly.  Maybe it was the hip openers, maybe it was the fact I was surrounded by women much larger and yet still better at yoga than I that I still found to be gorgeous, maybe it was the positive atmosphere, or the fact I was having a great hair day, but I looked down at my belly and thought "Now that's sexy."

This is my belly.  I am usually too chicken to show it off. Sometimes it's flat.  Sometimes it rolls when I am in forward fold. Sometimes, it sticks out a little over the waistband of my jeans..But that's OK. I;m in good company.

I'm about to recommend something that sounds crazy here.  A friend of mine wrote a blog a while back about her weight loss journey (she makes my 50 lbs look like a sneeze compared to how amazing of a feat she overcame) and spoke about those "Damn, girl" photos.  You know the ones...you see them on your feeds...they make you say "Damn, girl!" or maybe you send them to your boyfriend, or husband while he is at work...I took the ultimate self portrait...a full on, standing nude.  I wasn't posed provocatively, I wasn't trying to be sexual.  I was doing the same thing that I did when I was thirteen and thought I had a mutated face.  I was trying to see what I really was.  I locked the door, set the self timer, and stood straight on. No angles, no fancy lighting, no filters...raw.  I held my breath and waited for the 5...4...3...2...1 Snap. Unlike I used to rush over to see my handiwork, I walked slow and heavy footed....almost afraid to see the result.  As I looked in the view finder, I started to cry.  My mirror had been lying to me yet again.  As I brushed a tear away from my eye, I said out loud, "Damn, girl." The girl in the photo had no make-up, she had a few stretch marks, a few odd freckles, and some scars from being terribly clumsy...but she was beautiful.  There was the masterpiece that has taken years to create.  There was the woman I had worked so hard to become.  I took a mental snapshot and deleted the image.

I eat insecurities (and glitter) for breakfast. Most days...

Is accepting my body as it is an overnight process? Not in the slightest.  I am still reprogramming my brain every day. I am having to remind myself that "Comparison is the thief of joy." and I am supposed to be in my body, not someone else's.  If I were supposed to be smaller, I would be.  If I were supposed to be taller, I would be.  The fact of the matter is that I'm healthy, I'm alive, and I've got just a little bit of extra love in my belly sometimes.  But the camera doesn't lie.  If being able to look back at myself in the reflection of a view finder and not beat myself up, not cut down every inch of my body, not belittle myself, and not absolutely despise myself makes me vain, then start singing the Carly Simon song to me...because being able to feel like I am not a failure, like I haven't let myself down, and that not only am I adequate, but I am beautiful? I'll take that over false humility any day of the week.

And let's get real, I probably do think that song was about me. :)

Because sometimes, you just gotta ask the mirror if your outfit works for you that day or not. 

(Damn, girl.)