The Journey of Walking in Freedom from Body Shame
By Kathryn Davis - Greenville Counseling Associates
In a study of 50,000 adults, 60% of women thought they were too heavy and were self-conscious about their weight. 30% reported being too uncomfortable in a swimsuit. 20% thought that they were unattractive. Body shame is the experience of shame, dislike or contempt for one’s body or certain parts of their body that oftentimes takes up a substantial amount of mental space, resulting in feeling distracted, preoccupied, and not really living into one’s true values. This could be a background struggle, or it could be front and center and causing significant impact in their life. A large majority of women (and men) feel mentally and emotionally weighed down by this struggle but vacillate between outwardly shaming their bodies in groups of friends (“look at my cellulite!” or “I could never wear that!”), or silently suffering because of how vulnerable it can feel to even talk about bodies. In this modern age, the enemy loves to keep us in this trap of body shame and disconnection from our bodies. Like a fish in water, body shame is the water we swim in culturally, so it’s a genius trap because we are not even aware that we’re stuck and that body shame is blocking us from experiencing abundant life.
I can relate to this struggle on a personal level as I’ve known body shame through many stages of my life. As my body has changed and the culture has changed what they deem “worthy or valuable” in a body, my own experience of body shame has ebbed and flowed. I have been on a journey of undoing many of my own harmful agreements and beliefs from my past and renewing my mind and body in order to continue to walk in freedom from body shame. It hit me differently when I came to understand that when we disconnect from our bodies, we are also disconnecting from the wisdom our body has to offer, our emotions, and the Holy Spirit who lives in our body (I Cor. 6:19-20). Our relationship with our bodies is a deeply spiritual issue.
Although body shame can be coming at us from many places, deep down we know, and have a nagging desire for peace and connection with our body, to live our one wild and precious life free, awake and alive. There is a gnawing sense that there has to be more than treating our body like a project, based on someone else’s ideals or beliefs.
If this is something you desire, here are 3 questions to reflect on that might help you on your journey: (adapted from Jess Connolly’s book, Breaking Free from Body Shame)
What does God actually say about my body? Your body is good. God made your body and he cannot make bad things. We need a kingdom mentality about the truth of our bodies (God’s kingdom is not of this world- John 18:36).
What agreements from my past are showing up today and no longer serving me? Perhaps personal stories from your past are keeping you stuck in a cycle where you feel like your body must look a certain way to be valuable, worthy or desired. As an adult you have the freedom to look at those stories and decide whether they are serving the life you are creating now.
What would it look like to shift my posture towards my body to be more “for” instead of “against”? To be more “in” your body instead of looking at your body from the outside in judgment?
A “FOR” posture might include saying- “I am for my body, not as an object of worship or as a marker of my worth, but as the place I get to experience my life, God and others.”
An “AGAINST” posture might including believing “My body is a project, my body is a problem to be fixed… what’s wrong with my body?"
We get to choose which posture is more life-giving. This is not a one-time fix, but the beginning of a process of change. God wants us to embody freedom and to be alive, awake, and bringing more of our whole beautiful self to this world. And our relationship with our bodies is a really important part of that.