Ok But What if I Do Want to Change My Body?

But what if I do have something I want to change about my body? Is that ok? Or am I not accepting myself if I want to change my body? These are questions that I STRUGGLED with for years—wanting to change something isn’t accepting, is it? For the record—this is a black-and-white thinking statement. Absolutely no nuance. The truth is yes. You can accept yourself and want to change yourself. In fact, accepting yourself makes change a lot easier because your worthiness isn’t tied to the outcome. But achieving acceptance is both simple and oh so hard. The simple part is knowing you need to treat your body with loyalty and recognizing that your body isn’t a personal failing. The hard part is doing that daily when you have been taught your whole life that your body’s failings are your fault—deprogramming takes time. That is why we talk about this topic in Spirals 1, 2, and 3 because it is an unraveling process that you will continue to unravel as you build more self-loyalty. 

One of the reasons I love the concept of self-loyalty is if I can’t accept myself, I just have to be loyal to myself. 

The difference between accepting and loyal is that accepting is characterized by believing something is true, whereas loyal is constantly supporting something.

Removing the pressure to accept or love my body helped me build a better relationship with my body. Knowing that I don’t have to believe that my body looks amazing,  I just have to support it and not judge it. Being loyal to my body and have my back no matter what I am feeling or doing feels easier. 

Last week I shared a story about this topic with my desire to change the amount of sugar in my diet and the great donut debate that occurred as a result. That story was full of self-loyalty and, therefore, nuanced. 

And now I must share with you an experience that was not full of self-loyalty at all" As I shared, I have inflammatory arthritis and am always looking for ways to reduce the pain. Late last year, I found a book called No Grain, No Pain  A 30-Day Diet for Eliminating the Root Cause of Chronic Pain. The theory was that wheat and sugar cause inflammation in the body, so try this diet for 30 days and see if it helps. So I was game—why not?! If it helps, it helps, and what a game changer. The diet is militant with lots of do’s and don’ts, which I LOVE. I have followed a lot of diets in my life, so I thought this would be easy. So I dove into it. I went grocery shopping and purchased all the food. I did a deep dive online for recipes and tips and started my No Grain Diet. 

It wasn’t easy—in fact, it was triggering. Triggering ALL the diets I had been on in the past because I was defective and broken. My Monger was loud. Her messages included, “If you ate better before now, this wouldn’t be so hard.” And “If you took better care of yourself, you wouldn’t have arthritis. You brought this on yourself!” My anxiety was high, and I hated the Grain Free diet. It took me three weeks to finally hear my Monger talking, partially because I believed her and partially because I really wanted to see if the grain-free concept worked for me, so I was too busy white-knuckling my way through it to hear her chiming in. When I finally heard her talking, I practiced A.S.K.

A. Acknowledge your Feelings: worthless, disgraced, hopeless, dissatisfied, uneasy

S. Slow Down and Get into your body—I sat down on the floor, which I rarely do in the middle of the day, stretched my legs in front of me, reached for the sky, and stretched to touch my toes. 

K. Kindly pull back to see the big picture: This diet is an experiment—it isn’t all or nothing. We are simply seeing if this way of eating brings relief to a genetic disorder you have. You did not bring this on yourself. It is something you have to live with through no fault of your own. We can do this. 

That last week of the Grain Free diet went exceptionally better! I had to practice A.S.K. several times, but I made some peace with my body and the pain it carries. I certainly haven’t accepted my body 100%, but I can be loyal. Going grain free did not help my pain. I confess I was a mix of disappointed and relieved. 

Here are two stories both about making change to the body, both about being nuanced and having loyalty. 

However, the Great Donut Debate was way less messy and showed way more loyalty than the Grain Free Diet. But the big takeaway is the Great Donut Debate took place well before the Grain Free Diet story. If there is one thing I want you to take from Spiral 3, Building self loyalty isn’t linear. It is full of ups and downs. 

Building self-loyalty with our bodies is the key. It isn’t always our first response, and that’s ok. 

AND if you have ANY thoughts, questions or ah-ha’s about the content—send me an email at questions@selfloyaltyschool.com or  fill out the Q&A form. Ask Nancy Jane, and I will answer them in the next Q&A session. Q&A sessions will be recorded and appear on the Ask Nancy Jane podcast feed and in the member area on the last Tuesday of every month.