Balance and Symmetry
These past few weeks have made me more mindful of my life's dance between balance and imbalance. Fortunately, 2024 has already been filled with abundance for me. As all this positivity attacks me head-on, so too does an equal and opposite force of insecurity, fear, and doubt. My task as a multi-celled organism in search of purpose and meaning is to ask “Why?” and “So what?” of this. Now I hate to be one of those Millenials who only talk about their mental health as if it is their whole personality, so I’m trying to be more reflective about it and nuanced in my storytelling. Here are my reflections.
Imbalance
Now y’all know I’m going to give you the (Rooibos) tea. First, I’ve been struggling with my body image since around high school (as do most femmes living in a fat-phobic society). Since around age 25, my weight started piling on more easily as hormones naturally change around that time. Plus, contrary to my anxiety, my thyroids tend to underperform (a hereditary condition that influences hormones in my body-it just so happens that hormones control EVERYTHING, including weight). My anti-depressants also make it easy to gain weight. Correlated with my mental health, I gained a shit ton of weight in 2021, then decided to work really hard and I lost 50 pounds. Then, again, I gained a bunch of weight in 2022, and have been working even harder for over a year now to be at a current 35 pounds lost. It’s harder this time around because of said hormones, I guess.
It sucks to not be in control of your body and also to hate your body. I’ve done all the diets and workouts and fasting. I’ve gotten a trainer, a nutritionist, and talked to my ayurvedic doctor, and my therapist. I’m continuing to work toward my goal weight and optimal health, while also loving my body in the process. I’d love to be able to say that I’m writing about this now because I’ve finally learned to love my body and “here’s how you can do it too!” But I haven’t. I’m closer though.
Balance
My nutritionist told me about something called the Set Point Theory that stuck with me. The theory says that a person can be healthy (eating balanced meals and getting regular exercise) and plateau at a weight that is above a good BMI range, and that is healthy. In other words, BMI is stupid and a whole bunch of other variables unique to each person are actually what determine a healthy weight. I was doing keto at the time and she said to stop and just eat balanced meals. The moral of the story is, health=balance, regardless of what that looks like for other people.
Another idea found through my journaling and altar work that has helped me with my body image is my history. I talked briefly about my hypothyroidism above which is hereditary. My grandmother and my mother have had to have their thyroids removed and hormones regulated with medication. While I hate that hypothyroidism is being transferred down to me, another part of this makes me feel connected to my ancestors. I possess some part of them and that idea gives me the ability to have gratitude for how my body has carried me, both literally and figuratively, just like my ancestors do.
Imbalance
I’ve had a lot of professional abundance this year already and that has made me feel super excited and reflective. However, I noticed that I feel intimidated by people who are more successful than me, which makes me feel insecure and envious. When thinking about why (because I don’t want to be that way), I realized that I’m not mindful or present in my work and I never feel proud of myself. The cycle usually goes something like this:
Not feeling worthy/proud of my accomplishments > Take on another project to try to make up for that > Spend time thinking about what more I can do (because I’m not enough already) > Realize that I wasn’t in the present or doing something meaningful with intention > Not feel proud.
Balance
My remedy for this is to work on staying in my lane and honing in on things that directly contribute to my lane. If I’m secure in who I am and what I do, I feel less intimidated by successful people because I know I have a lane just like they have theirs. Since thinking about this, I’ve started only doing things that feel aligned to my path, instead of doing things for the sake of doing them. And I do feel more proud of myself lately because of it.
I’ve also been working on developing my identity outside of my career. I’ve dedicated this year to growing in community and have leaned into discovering my identity and reaching my personal goals that way. For example, instead of meeting my reading goal this year by just reading more books, I invited a couple of my friends to read the same book with me and it has been so much fun!
How can I invite more balance in my life? I think the answer is to be mindful of when things are imbalanced. And then do some self-reflection on how I can invite my community in and grow with them where possible.
In curiosity,
Meghan
