Tonight at my first official event as president of the Interfaith Council at BU, I moderated a panel discussion called Faith and the Body. In this discussion people from a couple of different faith backgrounds came together to talk about the intersection of our religious and spiritual lives with our human, body-having lives. One of the questions I asked was, “Do you think your religion has affected your body image?” The topic of Body Image is really important to me, and so I decided I would answer that question in my blog post.
Like, I would guess, a good 80 to 90 to 100% of women in the US I’ve definitely struggled with my body image. I have always been fat. I was a fat little kid and I’m a fat adult. (I’m trying to reclaim the word “fat.” It’s an accurate description of my body composition, but not a projection of my self worth or inherent value as a person.) As a child I was always the fattest and the tallest of any of the kids in my classes. I started noticing that I was getting bigger than adults by age 10. I was never able to shop at the stores that my friends shopped at, because I was wearing women’s clothing by middle school. I was fortunate not to have been teased very much growing up. (I know a lot of children experience hateful amounts of bullying, and I’m privileged to have avoided most of that) But I do remember the boy who called me a whale in 5th grade, the doctor who has shamed my body so incessantly that I basically refuse to go to the doctor now, and the parents and relatives who put their own body shame on me, making me feel disgusting; like I was too big, and too awkward all the time, like my body didn’t fit in and was never good enough.
I buried a lot of that stuff, under humor and confidence, good grades and eyeliner. I was determined to ignore the voices in my head that told me I was ugly, that no boy would ever like me, that I wouldn’t get to have friends and jobs and a future because of my fat. I wanted to be better than the people who cared about other people’s perceptions of their bodies. And so, I threw myself into schoolwork, friends, and my church life.
Right when all the body-image stuff got the hardest, middle school and early high school, was when I really began to explore my faith. Up until that point church was just where my mom worked, and where all of my friends were. It became the place where I knew how much people loved me. It was the place where adults told me I was smart, and also beautiful. It was the place where I was passionate and where my gifts met the community’s needs. I started craving Unitarian Universalism. Joining committees, going to youth cons, leading worship services, singing in choirs; I jumped into everything. And as I really stepped into my own, it stopped mattering to me, what people thought of my body. I was 100% safe, and my heart was the valuable part not my waist. Unitarian Universalism made me, in so many ways. I owe it my confidence, and my abilities. And as I have gotten older I’ve won back my ability to love my body.
A friend of mine said, that they had always known the 1st principle of Unitarian Universalism, the inherent worth and dignity of every person, applied to all people. But it had taken them a lot longer to remember that that principle got to apply to them too. I learned that I had, and had always had worth and dignity. I internalized that my body has worth and dignity. I began to believe that the light of the divine lives in me, like inside of my body. And if there is divinity in this body, then the imperfect parts, the fat and the stretch marks and the double chin, that I hated, have divinity in them too. I am enough. And my body is more than enough. It’s the only body I have, and the only one I’m ever going to get, and it is beautiful and holy. I won’t hate it anymore.