Healthy Addiction?

I was spending all my time so narrowly focused on my forcing my body to do things it was begging me not to do. The truth is, I didn’t understand my body’s pleas. When my body was screaming at me to rest by sending information through waves of inflammation, I just thought I was being mentally weak, so I would push through. When my body sent me multiple messages of exhaustion, I again, wrote it of to mental weakness and pushed through. I was abusing the so-called “healthy” fixes, and was trying to fill a soul-hole that was unattainable solely through physical perfection.

You see, I don’t think we have been taught how to develop the self-awareness and trust to cultivate healthy bodies. I mean, I felt self-aware at the time, aware of what I wanted and how to get there. But I failed to really look at the question, Why? Why did I want to hammer my body into a supposed ideal? My answer at the time would have been, “Because those people who strive for and attain the ideal seem happier and more successful.” But once I successfully replicated the packaging on the “ideal” life, I realized it was not my ideal at all.

You don’t slip on happiness like a size five pair of skinny jeans, a Brazilian bikini, or spandex leggings—happiness resides within. Happiness for me has gone hand and hand with the knowing that my value as a person is not determined by the shape of my body. Don’t get me wrong, I still love being fit and getting attention based on my appearance (unfortunately, I am still not evolved enough to say that it doesn’t feel awesome). But, I have loosened the reigns and find joy in submitting my ego’s desires to the knowing of my body’s intelligence. So now when my body says “Eat,” I eat. When my body says, “Rest,” I rest. It is like I am having a conversation with a more sound intelligence, as opposed to being a hard-headed brat who makes continual demands.

So, to all of my control-freak comrades with a disposition for vanity who have found yourself in this head space, we need to truly realize one thing. That your body/mind vehicle knows what is truly ideal for itself, but we have to first cultivate the ability to hear what it is asking for. And then, beyond that, we have to be willing to give the mainstream magazine ideals the big ol’ middle finger if our body’s constitution was not meant to be 110 pounds.

By Jessica Corbin