My Battle with Body Image

Growing up as a dancer gave me a multitude of experiences.One of them was a poor body image.

I spent a lot of time disliking my reflection in the mirror. I constantly compared my body to those of the other girls in my class. They were all so skinny and I was not.

 A friend once told me that her mom said I was “pleasantly plump”. I disregarded the pleasantly and focused on the plump.

When I was in grade 9, I experimented with how little fat I could eat. In grade 10, I experimented with how little I could eat period. It felt powerful to see my weight drop on the scale.

I also added a lot of physical activity to my life. I played on the volleyball and field hockey teams, I continued to dance and I joined the track team. I rode my bike or rollerbladed to school. In the evenings, I did calisthenics and step aerobics.

You would think that with all that effort and focus, I would be pleased with my reflection.

Nope. It was never good enough. My body may have been really healthy but my mind was not.

Eventually, I decided to eat healthily again because I love food too much to cut it out of my life. I poured over any information available about nutrition and even won the Food Studies award in grades 10 & 11. (For some reason I found the awards really embarassing at the time.)

When the time came towards the end of grade 12 to decide on my next steps, I felt drawn to either physical education or becoming a chef. I remember watching a video in Food Studies class that showed the chef’s career path.

What I saw in the video solidified my choice. All the chefs were beyond pleasantly plump. I would become a Phys Ed teacher.

I spent the next few years getting degrees in Kinesiology and Education. Once the school board hired me, I ended up teaching mostly dance and a little PE.

I know you have your fingers crossed, hoping that my body image had improved by this point, but it didn’t really. I was physically active for about 6 hours every day and ate very well, but I hadn’t done much to improve the war in my mind.

Having two babies didn’t help the situation very much. Enough said.

It wasn’t until I started to do personal development work that things began to shift for me. When I trained as an Embodiment Coach, I finally had a major transformation.

I realized how good it feels to be in my body and how miraculous the body really is. I went from loathing my body to accepting it to eventually falling in love with it.

I learned that my body: 

·    is my direct connection to Spirit

·    is how I experience my intuition

·    is a vehicle for fun and delight

·    helps me learn concepts on a completely different level

All of this led to my first foray in entrepreneurialism with my business called Dance Ugly Dance Awkward. For 3 glorious years, I learned how to release perfectionism while living life more fully and authentically. It finally felt good to be in my body.

When I wrote my book “How Ugly Awkward Dancing Changes Everything”, I was able to see how much had changed for me (and then for my clients as I shared the learning with them).

Unfortunately my website got hacked and blacklisted by Google. Rather than fight against it, I took it as a clear sign that something new was on the horizon.

Enter Courageous Self-Care!

I couldn’t leave all that juicy learning behind, though, so Ugly Awkward Dancing became the impetus for Courageous Self-Care Foundation #9; Embodied Action.

Initially, I thought the Foundation would be called Ugly Awkward Dancing but as I got clearer, I realized there are many more aspects to explore beyond dancing.

Embodied Action is a way to connect mind, body, spirit and emotions simultaneously. It can involve dance, but that’s not the only way approach it.

Embodied Action is also about: 

·     honouring this incredible vessel we call home

·     learning that the body is a map and that pain and discomfort are its way of communicating through metaphor

·     moving with joy and vitality

·     becoming fluent in what our bodies are trying to convey to us

·     seeking to understand concepts physically as well as mentally

There are many delicious aspects to Embodied Action. I look forward to sharing them with you later on when we take a deeper dive on the Courageous Self-Care Podcast.

In the meantime, thanks for reading! I’m going to get up and stretch now.

While I do that, I encourage you to listen to the Podcast episode I made on this topic.

CLICK HERE to listen to the audio

CLICK HERE to watch the video

Lots of love,

Christina