I learned to deeply listen to my body and honor and meet its needs. I experienced joy as I moved mindfully. I began to accept what was present in the moment over what I thought it “should” be. I created space for silence. I sat with discomfort. I prioritized what I was feeling versus what my body or my yoga practice looked like. I learned what it meant to practice moderation and forgiveness with myself. I called a truce with my body. I embodied gratitude.
Perpetual fad dieting was modeled for me.
Compulsively exercising to override shame and guilt was standard sport.
Groaning over the body I had and yearning for the bodies in MTV videos was normalized.
Comparing and competing with others was standard fare in my household and among my peers.
Rapport talk deriding and degrading my body and scrutinizing the bodies of others was ordinary peer group binding, completely sanctioned and expected.
Denying my body’s needs and prioritizing my intellect’s desires was part of my socialization process as I moved from adolescence to young adulthood. It set the tone, the template and the foundation for my relationship with my body, myself and the way I showed up in the world. I was relentless, merciless, and unforgiving with myself and my body.
And, damn, it was a painful, abusive and limiting experience. It was my greatest obstacle to personal freedom and empowerment.
Understanding and unlearning these taken-for-granted values, norms, and rituals of behavior through feminist theory, sociology and media literacy education opened my eyes to the systems of oppression at work… and how my experiences were part of a statistical pattern.
I stopped obsessively reading nutrition labels and logging everything I ate in food journals. I began to read liberatory texts deconstructing and challenging diet culture, the fitness and fashion industries, patriarchy and white supremacy while calling out ageism, ableism, sizeism, homophobia, consumer culture and the ways in which bodies are sexualized, objectified and controlled. I began logging the thoughts, feelings and aspirations that I embodied but hadn’t identified or expressed beyond the plate and the treadmill.
I stepped on to the yoga mat for the first time. I began to meditate. I learned to deeply listen to my body and honor and meet its needs. I experienced joy as I moved mindfully. I began to accept what was present in the moment over what I thought it “should” be. I created space for silence. I sat with discomfort. I prioritized what I was feeling versus what my body or my yoga practice looked like. I learned what it meant to practice moderation and forgiveness with myself. I called a truce with my body. I embodied gratitude.
No two people share the same path to personal acceptance, freedom or peace. This just happens to be a window into how unraveling my upbringing and cultural conditioning began and propelled me into my life’s work. And while there may be some similarities and differences to the path another walks, I know one thing to be true in every single situation… something needs to shift, a person needs to try something new and different.
I dare you to imagine something different for yourself and your body relationship. What would that look like? Feel like? Sound like?
You have full permission to drop what isn’t working, what’s harming you and holding you back from stepping into the fullest version of yourself with apology or shame.
What’s one thing you can do differently right now?
NOTE: This post is part of a collaborative media series organized and curated by Omstars and the Yoga & Body Image Coalition intended as a deep dive into yoga & body image.
Melanie C. Klein, M.A., is an empowerment coach, thought leader and influencer in the areas of body confidence, authentic empowerment, and visibility. She is also a successful writer, speaker, and professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies. Her areas of interest and specialty include media literacy education, body image, and the intersectional analysis of systems of power and privilege. She is the co-editor of Yoga and Body Image: 25 Personal Stories About Beauty, Bravery + Loving Your Body (Llewellyn, 2014) with Anna Guest-Jelley, a contributor in 21st Century Yoga: Culture, Politics and Practice (Horton & Harvey, 2012), is featured in Conversations with Modern Yogis (Shroff, 2014), a featured writer in Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Mindful Living (Llewellyn, 2016), co-editor of Yoga, the Body and Embodied Social Change: An Intersectional Feminist Analysis with Dr. Beth Berila and Dr. Chelsea Jackson Roberts (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016), Yoga Rising: 30 Empowering Stories from Yoga Renegades for Every Body (Llewellyn, 2018) and the co-editor of the new anthology, Embodied Resilience through Yoga (Llwelleyn, 2020). She co-founded the Yoga and Body Image Coalition in 2014 and lives in Santa Monica, CA.
melaniecklein.com/
Instagram: @melmelklein @ybicoalition
Photo by Sarit Z. Rogers/
