Non-judgmentally.
What does it mean to accept yourself without judgment?
I don’t know about you, but as a woman who grew up during the era of the waif model and my mother and aunt counting calories at the kitchen table every weekend, I did not escape the Cult of Thin unscathed. My body image and sense of self is fractured. There are parts of me who see my body as lovable no matter what shape, size, or ability. But these other loud and critical parts decry self-acceptance with no strings attached. They want all the strings. They rent an apartment in my mind with no rent control, and I’m paying the overhead.
Last night I searched “positive affirmations for body image” online. Most popular were from famous actresses, influencers, and musicians. Unfortunately, this dive into google-land brought up more self-judgment. Now, I was judging myself about judging myself.
Judging ourselves for judging is a cognitive distortion Dialectical Behavior Therapy warns us about. There is no point in practicing non-judgment if you’re going to be perfectionistic. And guess what? There’s no winner. The disparate voices in my mind remain. I am between the proverbial rock and a hard place. I’m judging myself for judging.
What is non-judgment?
Non-judgment means noticing and noticing means acknowledging all the parts of myself, even those damn skinny renters I can’t evict no matter how many notices I’ve tacked to their door. It means examining the pieces and the damage and the emotions that come up without placing morality, blame, or negative thoughts upon them. It means leaning my head against my tenants’ door and listening to the bickering with curiosity and awe. I can see those parts of myself, created decades ago, as simply parts; younger versions of me influenced by the heavy, monolithic forces of cultural and societal body shaming. I find myself gently knocking on that closed door. And surprise–those ladies let me in. They are as terrified and fragile as they've tried to make me all along. Instead of pinning another eviction notice on the door, I reach for a hug.
As a human in a woman’s body with more than four decades on this planet, I bear painful, ugly scars. Sometimes I’m scared by aging, cellulite, or the desires of my being. But when I can allow myself to see the pain of even my most critical parts, my self-judgment stills.
I don’t know about you, but I think I might decide not to evict those noisy tenants after all. They’re teaching me something much more useful than making myself small.
