I was blessed to spend time last week in community with women, coming together and bonding both at festival and retreat space. As trust was built over our time together, our conversations became more personal, and the sharing became more raw. Amongst the laughter and the tears, I was particularly struck by what emerged in our conversation around how we feel about our bodies, and what has influenced those feelings. This is perhaps not surprising, considering the focus of my work and my passion for reclaiming body sovereignty. I found myself entranced as we spoke together with frustration about things like co-workers who constantly talk about diets, or the unrealistic images of beauty that women are expected to live up to. Again, not surprisingly, our sharing moved to talk about the pain of family members commenting on and shaming our bodies…especially our mothers. Truly, each woman’s story was more heart-wrenching than the last. It was a painful, but bonding experience because I could feel our hearts going out to each other as we recognized our own pain in the pain of our Sisters.
I think many of us who are middle aged, or moving into middle age are daughters of women who faced a difficult time as mothers. The second wave of feminism had created opportunity and progress for women, but did not provide a helpful framework for how we relate to our bodies amidst the chaos of social change. Courntey Martin, author of ‘Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters’ suggests the backlash from the rise in women’s equality brought us into shadow with our relationship with our bodies, and somehow the notion that we had to be perfect at everything (home, family and career) came to include having a ‘perfect’ body. Our mothers were caught in this backlash and many of them paid a huge price in body loathing. When they then became mothers I think their love for us made them fearful that if we also lived in a body that didn’t conform to the thin ideal, we might not claim our full status as women, or that we might live in the shame and torment that they did. Out of fear of passing on to us their bodies, our mothers unknowingly passed on something much more damaging, a deeply set belief that our bodies are inherently flawed, and that it is our job to fix them.
As someone who works with women to reclaim their body sovereignty, there is no doubt in my mind that we need to pay special attention to how our mothers shaped how we feel and care for our bodies. We need to challenge what needs to be challenged, and forgive what needs to be forgiven. Healing comes when we understand that much of what was said, as painful as it can be, was and is often motivated by both fear and love. But this understanding and forgiveness must also be accompanied by reclamation and establishing boundaries…by finding ways to express to our mothers our rejection of body hatred. By telling our mothers how we are working to come to peace with our bodies, just as they are….and how we wish that for *them* as well. And, for many of us, we need to be clear that body or diet comments are simply no longer allowed.
My own mother is now passed. While she was alive, I was able to let her know in recent years that body commentary was not welcome and that it is important to me to celebrate myself…just as I am. I don’t know if she got it completely, but I think she *wanted* to understand. It certainly did sink in that comments about my body were not welcome, and that helped our relationship immensely. I do know it isn’t an easy process to engage in because there are so many layers and landmines in our relationships with our mothers. But I think healing the mother pain is vital to our body sovereignty journey. The Pain of the Mother, when acknowledged and reclaimed can become one of our greatest sources of strength.
Thank you for reading!
Sydney
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