How to Move Forward with Body Grief
In order to accept and embrace your current body, you must grieve the loss of your old body.
This is a suggestion I’ll offer my clients in session. As we move towards an accepting, compassionate and mindful existence with food and body, we often experience sadness and grief about our changing bodies. Whether it's due to age, illness, injury, a disruption in lifestyle, or a resolve to prioritize mental health over striving for the ideal weight, our bodies do change, either in mobility, ability, fitness, or size.
The uncertainty and lack of control is unsettling, and our impulse can be one of fear, to push and strive and try harder, often at the expense of listening to, trusting, resting, and caring for our bodies. We work hard to ignore or suppress the sadness, disappointment and anger we feel about our current state. But until we allow ourselves to acknowledge, process, and express these emotions in a constructive way, they’ll stay with us and manifest (physically and emotionally) in less-than-desirable ways.
How do you grieve the loss of your old body?
The very first step is to name how you’re feeling about this loss. Use an emotion wheel (this is my favorite version) to help you identify the emotions you’re experiencing.
The process of naming these emotions can offer relief because it allows them to EXIST. They’re real, floating on the surface rather than hiding underneath. You no longer must pretend that everything is okay. The emotions become tangible and concrete; something you can work with rather than a formless, abstract, ambiguous, scary thing.
We think we’re taking the easy route to suppress, numb or deny strong, painful emotions. In reality, they don’t go away, and the energy required to keep them down is an uphill battle. It leads to a stress response in the body; a chain of chemical reactions that in fact demand more energy and deplete nutrient reserves.
We can’t hate and deprive ourselves to a better place. We must bring gentle, compassionate acknowledgement and care for where we are today in order to have the energy and resilience to be present for ourselves tomorrow.
This is why the work my clients and I do together to achieve a healthy relationship with food and body is at once about our behavioral health (nourishing food & self-care choices, routines & habits) and mental health (attuning to our beliefs, past traumas, thought patterns, and emotions that drive behavior).
On that note, I will leave you with two tools that benefit both your mental health (a wonderful TED talk on “moving forward” with grief - this can apply to any type of grief, including body grief) and your behavioral health (a video of me making a yummy 5-ingredient summer salad dressing featuring an umami-rich and underrated surprise ingredient).
TED Talk: We don't "move on" from grief. We move forward with it. | Noral Mclnerny
My favorite summer salad dressing (watch video and get the full recipe here)
If you’d like support with body image and learning ways to move forward with body grief, get in touch for a complimentary 30-minute session.