Oh hello. I have a treat for you in the form of another awesome guest post. This one comes from the lovely Ashleigh at SmashOz, which I highly recommend you check out. She bravely tackles self-doubt and body image, something I’ve openly struggled with/shared before. Enjoy!
Here she is again! That witch, she wants nothing more than to make me miserable. Always filling me with self-doubt, saying horrible things about me! Just when I’m starting to feel good about myself, she will have something cruel to say! If I try something new she tells me I can’t do it! Or she likes to tell me that it isn’t good enough or that I’m just not good enough! Filling my head with what ifs? I really take it to heart. I become irritable, sensitive, upset and I start to self-sabotage.
It normally starts with my appearance. She tells me my arms look fat in that dress or that my legs aren’t slim enough to be wearing that skirt. She tells me to sit up straight and to hold myself in a certain way to appear smaller. She then goes on to tell me I’m just too fat and that I really should be doing more to lose weight.
She tells me I need to be lifting weights as well as doing cardio but in the same breath reminds me that its 80% diet, 20% exercise. So I start to try all kinds of diets, the soup diet, the 5/2 diet and calorie counting and make myself got to the gym 3 times a week minimum. She tells me all of the reasons that these won’t work either and that I should stick to what I know. So I eat clean, lowering my portion size. I train 3 times a week and I cut out the alcohol. She tells me that it isn’t enough and I should be going longer, harder, better and faster. I listen to her but I don’t see any results. She tells me to get on the scales and then when there’s no difference she tells me not to bother with weighing myself as it just demotivates me. Afterwards she tells me none of it was ever good enough anyways and she’s not surprised I haven’t lost any weight.
She tells me that I need to lose weight as no one else I know has curves and that no bikini is ever going to look good on me so it’s best to stay covered up through summer. She taunts me, calling me “The Duff” amongst my friends. She belittles and patronises me with jeers of “It’s easy, what are you waiting for? Why can’t you just do it?! Everybody else manages it! They go out and have a good time on weekends and they still look good, why can’t you? You obviously don’t try as a hard as they do!”
She tells me if I don’t lose weight in the next year I will never get it off. She tells me that I will have health problems when I’m older and I will probably develop cancer and die. She tells me that if I don’t start losing weight that my partner will eventually grow tired and bored of me and leave me for somebody slim and beautiful.
If it’s not my appearance, it’s about my relationship. “He’s only going to stick around for so long, good things always come to an end! It’s only a matter of time before he cheats and it would be pointless to get married as it will only end in divorce.”
If it’s not my relationship, it’s my friendships. “They don’t care enough about you to be bothered about you going through a hard time. Everyone’s too busy with their own lives; they’ve probably forgotten all about you. I don’t think they really liked you to begin with.”
I hate that witch! And that witch of course is me! I am my own worst enemy. She doesn’t always get a voice but she’s been making more of an appearance these days. She rides in on her broomstick when I suffer from low mood. I’m not currently working and I spend a lot of time alone. Having fallen victim to full blown depression in the past I know how to chase her away but only so far, when it comes to body image anyways. She gets her fuel from social media, tabloid media any media actually. She compares me to every female that passes me by! She exhausts me!
I have been attending some life coaching sessions with a good friend Bhavna Patel, she is the founder and owner of apa kula which is a program that identifies needs/ goals in life and develops methods to best assist in achieving them. I have been working on the negative self-talk and even after 2 sessions I already feel I have a better handle on it. I have a long way to go yet but I truly believe that coaching sessions like this can help. Check it out!
I am going to be honest and say that I am really happy in every other area of my life and I’m scared to upset the balance. I don’t want to spend my life in the gym. I don’t want to watch everything I eat and I especially don’t want to stay in every weekend in case the unthinkable happens, I have a few wines! I am guilty of becoming too caught up in things and again this isn’t healthy for me. I need to find the right balance for me. Another one of my problems is that I want to see results immediately if not sooner and that’s just not how it works.
In the New Year and after a 3 week visit to the UK over Christmas, I’m going to banish this witch for good! I just need to be mindful and realistic. Changing my lifestyle is going to be tough but it can’t be any worse than this procrastination and negative self-talk! I no longer want to give her a voice; I don’t want to be on the receiving end of the words” vile, worthless and huge!” I want to be healthy, happy and at peace with myself. I do want to be slimmer and I do want to weigh less. However the bullying technique does not work so I just need to figure out what does.
Steph Not Stephanie 