How a stuffed animal led to Body Neutrality

The girls and I sat on the floor next to the Christmas tree. It was a year after the divorce and my relationship with them was tenuous at best. I was doing the best I knew how, but I was still in self-destruction mode.

They excitedly handed me a present. I looked at them tentatively and slowly opened it.

Staring back at me was the cutest little pink “scary monster” stuffed animal. She had a cute pink mouth with one single sharp white tooth.  Tiny pink striped arms and legs and soft stuffed hands.

 

The gift of gratitude

I started to cry. Happy, wonderful, thankful tears of gratitude, love, and joy.

I named this little scary monster- Izzy. She came into all of our lives many years ago during a visit to New York City and the future parents of the babies in my belly. It was Christmas time and the girls and I were visiting the babies’ parents.

It was a wonderful time to be in the city. Shopping, ice skating, and The Rockettes were on the agenda. One morning we took an excursion to FAO Schwarz, the toy store. After waiting in a long line that weaved its way around the building to get in, it was our turn. We entered the massive store in awe.

We had never been in a store so grand. It was more than we could comprehend. Floor after floor, aisle after aisle of toys. All shapes, sizes, colors, textures, types. We were riding up the escalator to the next magical floor when at the top I saw this huge display. There was a fun sign on top saying “Not so Scary Monsters”. I ran toward it, feeling like a five-year-old in a candy store, because I saw this adorable pink monster. I picked it up and stared at it with a huge smile on my face and turned to show the girls, who were no longer in sight.

 

Unbridled JOY

I spun around in circles looking for them and spotted them in a section nearby. I started yelling in their direction while holding the little stuffed doll up in the air. Hmmm, no reaction. I yelled again and they turned with these faces I will never forget. Heads tilted, eyes saying silently to me, “Mom, geez, get a grip!”

I held tight to the stuffed “monster” and ran over toward them to show them. “Isn’t this the cutest thing you have ever seen!” They both nodded, smiled, and said, “Ya, sure, Mom, that’s really cute, you should get it.” Then turned to continue their walk down the Bratz doll aisle. I sighed, smiled, and became sullen all in the same moment. I can’t buy myself something, we don’t have enough money. If I spend any money, it needs to be for them.

I wandered back to the big bin and gently, sadly placed this cute pink monster back into her home.

 

 

What you do when you care about something

And right now, she was in my arms. I talked to her immediately and she talked to me back to me in her “Izzy” voice. My heart was full of gratitude. They remembered. They care, they love me. I couldn’t thank the girls enough. They were both proud of themselves too for pulling this off, and rightly so.

Ms. Izzy has gone everywhere with me. She has traveled and moved five times since then and has landed on the back of the couch I am now sitting on.  I have had wonderful conversations together, because I love her.  And because I love her, I take good care of her.

Occasionally, she takes car trips with me.  She has cheered me on as I ran my first marathon, and she has held on tight to the toll money while she sits on the car’s dashboard.

It is because she is so important to me and was given to me by my daughters, that she is taken care of so well.  She is talked to kindly, appreciated, hugged, smiled at, and deeply loved.

That is what we do with a gift you like, one that you love. You take care of it, you treasure it, you treat it with respect and kind- ness, in whatever capacity that is. Wonderful gifts are important to us; thus, we nurture, take care of, and love them.

 

What about the bad gift?

So, what happens when you receive a “bad” gift, one you don’t care for? Usually, these bad gifts don’t get shown quite the same love. They may get shoved to the back of the closet, are given away, regifted, or taken to Goodwill or other donation spaces. For most of us, when we like or appreciate something, we take care of it. When we don’t, we don’t. It is a pretty simple concept.

So, if this statement is true, if we can choose to start appreciating and liking our bodies, might we begin to take better care of them? Might I even nurture it?

If we know our actions and behaviors come from our thoughts and feelings, this makes complete sense.

When the brain receives signals around how you think and feel about things, people, places, and about yourself, it responds, and you act accordingly. Your actions sometimes even are automatic and subconscious.

 

 

Our behaviors are connected to our feelings and thoughts

Our behaviors are congruent and instinctual to what we think, and what we feel.

Izzy helped me realize this. For every one of the five moves I have made since that Christmas morning, she has driven in the front seat. It’s because I love her so much that she is treated with such kindness and care. On the last move, I realized how I treated Ms. Izzy and asked myself, why have I not ever treated myself like that? I have never thought to actually like myself, much less appreciate myself.

This was an A-HA moment, I knew that if I ever wanted to try to treat myself with kindness and respect, I would need a whole lot of help.

 

My Body, My Business

I made the decision to at least stop hating my body and hating myself, and I started with a concept called body neutrality. I created a continuum on a piece of paper. On one side was body hate (where I was) and on the other side was body love, something I knew nothing about. In the middle there was this body neutrality. I knew I could not jump from where I was to this body love concept. It felt too foreign, too impossible.

 

 

Enter Body Neutrality

But with body neutrality, I was able to at least move away from the body hate end of the continuum. I defined it as the resting place somewhere in the middle where I could move away from the chaos of the thoughts and beliefs I had about my body.

Body neutrality gently quieted my critical inner voice (my Mini-Me) and started to strengthen a voice of body appreciation (my Maxi-Me) I started by being grateful for what my body could do at any given moment and disconnected from what it “looked like.” Up until this point, I had only ever thought about what my body couldn’t do. I focused on what was wrong with it, through comparison, criticism, and judgment. Although I couldn’t seem to switch over to really liking my body at the time, I was able to be at least grateful for my body. I was able to step back from the old thoughts with the help of Maxi-Me. I gave her one job. Every day find three things about your body to be grateful for. That was it.

I started with my legs; they are strong enough and capable of walking, which allow me to take walks, go to the store, and be independent. My face can smile; when I smile, my body relaxes, and I feel better. My belly gave birth to four children. How amazing is that.

 

This is MY BODY, and MY BODY is MY BUSINESS!

This body, my body, is the only one I have and the vehicle that has brought me to this moment and experienced every minute of my life.  So, with this new thought process, I began to intentionally search for gratitude and appreciation for my body. I looked back to see all the physical things my body had done for me from a different perspective. The wonder of climbing trees, swimming, skipping, hugging, having children, making sandcastles, or making love. As I stepped into the body neutrality mind-set, I began to develop a deeper acceptance of myself.

Your body is yours. My body is mine. You get to treat yours the way you want to treat it. No one has the right to tell you how to think, what to eat, what to do, what to believe, or how to behave. Those are your choices, so what are you going to choose?  Want to start your journey to Body Neutrality? Click here for your free Body Neutrality Body Neutrality Starter Kit! Or schedule a body neutrality chat HERE.