Why I embraced body neutrality over body positivity

#tinytalesofmylife

I grew up with my mother and grandmother, who always shamed themselves over their bodies in front of me, and my mother still does so today. I learned the same thing from them; I used to feel uncomfortable in my skin, I never felt positive, and I’ve never seen myself pretty. I was always insecure about the gap between my teeth, and I used to feel, I look ugly when I laugh. I have seen this with almost every elder; I know. They always compare themselves to society's beauty standards, an excellent set of teeth, decent height, a nice waist, right skin tone, and so on..

Years later, In my early adolescence, I started feeling uncomfortable. I have unlearned that mindset, and I switched to body positivity. I loved myself, the way I am. I didn’t feel anxious about me not fitting perfectly into world beauty standards; I felt beautiful in my own skin and here came another trouble.

At the age of 21, for the first time in my life, I spotted a cluster of huge acne on my face. I started gaining more weight because it was summertime, and I was home, and I started over-eating. I lost a lot of hair. But then I wasn’t stable; I wasn’t feeling body positive. I started being worried; I was anxious. Almost six years later, today something made me re-see this memory, and also this is resonating with situations many of us are going through right now, I felt like sharing this beautiful piece of my life.

So this hard time we’re going through, this pandemic, We are stuck at homes, going through uncountable emotions and feelings and everything makes our bodies act different. Our bodies may look & feel different in response to threat & stress. For example, The stress might make your brain release imbalanced brain chemicals, and you might go through hormonal changes, you might have bumps on the face, gain/lose weight or might be out of your fitness track. What now?

Chill!

Breathe In from belly.

It’s all good.

We should learn normalising it. We should not bother about the dark circles we’ve never seen under eyes before, the massive pimple on the face, that never appeared before or we should stop being anxious and stop overthinking about how badass spot this pimple is going to leave on our face when it’s gone or how you’re going to look when this is all over.

Or doing it the other way, we don’t have to call it beautiful & grand or force ourselves to be “body positive.”

Body positivity says, ⁣It doesn’t matter, how society sees or you don’t fit ideal beauty standards that the world has created. You just love yourself the way you are, comfortable with the body you have got.

It says,
I love myself because I am⁣ beautiful.

I love myself. I have a nice neck

I love myself. I have nice assets

I love myself. I have long, beautiful hair

because I’m fit according to myself.

because I’m…..so on

Body positivity, for me, used to create a pressure to still put heavy emphasis on the external. It reminded me of all of the ways I was taught only to love myself when or If my appearance was up to standard according to myself. It used to create immense anxiety because if I am telling myself, “I love you because you are attractive, or at a certain weight, or because you have nice assets etc.”

This time in this pandemic, the anxiety we’re going through shall pass, but what if that changes how we look? Will you still love yourself then? Or feel anxious about what happens when the acne goes away, the hair starts thinning, as they will? ⁣

Being body positive is also making you feel anxious. What now?

Getting back to my 21-year-old self, what did I do when I felt anxious?

I started questioning myself about body positivity.

Okay, I accepted myself the way I am, I was cool and didn’t give a damn about not meeting the world’s beauty standards. I changed the thought process that I’ve learned through my elders. But why this anxiety? If I am gaining weight or seeing a cluster of pimples on my face. Maybe the weather didn’t suit me, that’s why I’d hair fall. But why I have to be anxious about it. The pimples will disappear, the extra weight will be chopped off when summers are over when I start keeping myself busy again. But why is this bothering me?

It definitely shouldn’t!

I have to be okay with everything. That’s where I started being “body-neutral”.

We can just call it a part of existing in a body. A part of learning unconditional self-love that is separate from appearance. We can just call it a part of being human. This is “body neutrality”. Accepting body as it is, no matter how many changes it goes through, no matter how many marks show up on your body, just accepting and loving yourself like you always did.
⁣This is the essence of body neutrality. Body positivity says I love myself because I am beautiful. body neutrality says: I love myself & that love has nothing to do with the way that I look, my body evolve time to time. ⁣I am much more than this body. This body is a vehicle for my existence. My worth is separate from it and because of that, my worth is steady. ⁣I am simply here, being in this flesh & bones. I may not love or feel positively towards every inch but I still unconditionally accept every inch. My body does not have to be some grand, wonderful, attractive, magnificent thing that I have to constantly be obsessing about or striving to be overly positive about. I can just be here, living inside of this body, & feel ok solely because of that.
So when the hair thins and the stomach bloats, and the skin becomes dry & ages & the body adapts & changes because of trauma, all these years I still remain in neutrality because my self-love no longer ebbs and flows as my appearance changes. In fact, in this space, it has nothing to do with it. ⁣

Today I’m simply grateful to have a body that allows me to live this life every day, The Immune system that keeps me strong no matter what battles I fight every single day, the hands that make me move mountains and the legs that kept me going, the teeth I used to be insecure of, never made me visit a dentist for cavity issues and above all, the mindset that’s been evolving positively, moving through years of uncomfortable situations and experiences in life. I am grateful for everything!

Let’s keep celebrating and learn to be kind to ourselves.

Our mind and body.

In every minute, every year of life, as we grow.

There’s this famous quote that fits here: “Just like the moon, our life goes through phases, from our darkest moments until we once shine bright, we learn to embrace both the darkness and the light dancing through each cycle to the rhythms of life.”