Loving myself, meant loving my body. All of it.

For 40 years I felt one form of body shame or another. 

My innocent nakedness was shamed early by my mother. Her favourite story to tell on every occasion, even to me in the room, was when she and my best friends mum interrupted me and my best friend being naked under the kitchen rug. Two little boys aged 4 or 5, became a story of shame, and her amusement and derision. Me. A body to feel shame about. Me. A body that can start to be ignored. My body doesnt meet requirements. My body is easily mocked. Hide it away. 

So now im owning my nakedness. I am me. Naked.

My body now surplus to requirements, began to be the place I gave pain, because I needed to feel. Until I was 14 I bit or picked my nails (fingers, and toes) until they bled or went pussy. I did the same with spots when spots arrived. My body was the place where I could feel, because I had learned to shut down. 

My teeth were crooked and because they didnt matter, travelling to a dentist 11 miles away was an inconvenience. Looks didnt matter. Thats what I heard. My body didnt matter. 

By then I had learned to shut down feelings too, and they were part of the body. I had to care for others, I had to be the attuned calming one, I was again, derided for being scared, or bullied or being soft. When I was smacked or spanked, I had worked out how to not feel the pain. I bricked up. Only I could give myself pain. The blood on my fingers were a testament to that. 

It all came in handy for when I did paper-rounds and forgot my gloves on cold British mornings. If I could think about hot fires and hot cups of tea on my hands, I wouldn’t feel the cold as much, and on the odd occasion, that worked. Yes my fingers were chilled, and sometimes blue, but in my head I didnt feel the cold, even my 15 yr old fingers on the metal bike handlebar. Yes, imagine. 

I learned to abandon my body in painful situations. I learned to abandon my body so that I didnt feel. I learned I could control my body with my mind. 

And the Bible helped endorse all of this. Deny thyself. Deny the flesh. Your body is a temple….so keep it stony and statue esq , it’s all about the thinking faith, not a body one. 

Can we talk about sex now please. 

I discovered masturbation late. When I did it was both a thrill and full of total shame. Endorphins met with guilt. Shame both from within my own response to what was happening to me, and shame and guilt from being a good boy or a good christian boy. For I was that too. Though I knew about sex, my first sexual encounter I barely realised that ‘this is what this is’ I was so disconnected from what was happening physically. I didnt know how dissociated I was to what I was doing and what I was feeling. It’s like I was having sex but not realising. I began to watch late night channel 4 tv, eurotrash, The word, and anything that had some kind of sexual content. 

All the while feeling like im in a little secret space of my own, and also shame. The roots of my body denial went deep. I couldnt access porn then, my only direct experience was a few trashed magazines in the park, oh and sometimes, trying to avoid page 3 of The Sun on my paper round. I had to deny any enjoyment, or knowledge, knowing that God was watching me, and if he wasnt, Mum probably was. 

Then theres the food. Hollow legs me. From Nappies. Comfort and speed. Eat quickly to get away from the dinner table. Eat a lot to fill an ache within. It wouldn’t matter as a teenager, eating plates of bread and cereal, because I was swimming 1-2 miles a week, cycling probably 50-100 miles to school and paper rounds per week, cross country running, sports at youth club etc. But through my 20’s-30’s the eating stayed the same. 12 was my highest for slices of bread in one evening, lathered with jam or peanut butter. Id eat whole packets of bisciuts with cups of tea. It was a constant thing, yet I was running from the ache that caused it. I was in a cycle with food and porn being the things that I looked forward to having each night, football if my team were playing too. Marriage a total mess, just keeping the show on the road. I admit my part, but it wasnt all me. My woundedness was never going to stand a chance. Im not sure even after 8 years of inner work it does now. 

I was a shell, and my body, was just the housing for my mind. Oh yes. I dug deep into thinking, completing two degrees (including an MA at Durham) whilst in serious depression that I was masking and breakdowns waiting to happen. They revealed themselves when I tried to study at the main library. I hit the trauma run buttons often in such daunting places. I didnt know it then though, I was just living the nightmare and the cracks were appearing. Still I got a merit. But I didnt graduate. I was barely proud of myself, let alone ask anyone else to come along. Yeah. It was that bad. My body was just the housing for my mind. So I thought, and thought deep, my bookshelf and a blog on Youthwork with 1000 pieces on it is testament to that. 

All the while my body was being shovelled food, and sometimes given a long bike ride. I didnt do drugs or drink, that would be obvious. That would get me sacked and people would know. I had to stay hidden, and stay good. And my body, I denied. Completely acceptably. But denied, abandoned and shamed. My body was functional, my body was just the bit that carried my head and brain around. I think therefore I am. 35 years of comfort eating, 16 years of porn watching (26 if include TV versions before the internet) 

Shame, comfort, hurt, ache all in a spiral. 

Friends, this is just the summary. The first 40 years. 

Fast Forward 8 years and heres me this morning. 

Im showing you this because Im comfortable doing so. 

It’s a crap photo on my phone in the morning light. 

Youre not getting one with a tantalising bottom shot or seductive shoulder. No. 

I take selfies of me now. I dont even care that they’re not perfect. 

But this is me naked. 

Never done this. 

It was totally accidental the moment I realised I could feel love towards my body. The only compliment id had on it was the school nurses when I was 15 saying I had broad shoulders when then were giving me injections and doing the spoon test (IYKYK). 

7 months of the very beginnings of clear air and im staying at a friends house who had a full length mirror. Something I would never stand in front of. Or even look at myself, for anything other than spots or do my teeth. Not look. oh no. I realised as I looked that my body was ok. More than ok. I realised as I looked that I could have positive thoughts about my body. Yes it was in the midst of a breakup and I wasnt eating that well, and so maybe thinner than today. But, that didnt matter at all. What mattered was my thoughts about myself and what I saw. And waves upon waves of tears arrived. And waves upon waves of release and bliss arrived. 

Everything changed instantly. As did moving into my own place and continuing the healing process. Trauma therapy gave me more tools to connect on the inside, EMDR was and is like a gentle self soothing hug. I feel and am very different sexually and spiritually and realise that I can be in my body, present. I haven’t comfort ate in 7 years. I have a different relationship with porn. 

Because I feel into my body and feel its feelings and sensations, all the feelings, sad, angry and joy… the endorphins are there naturally, even shamed feelings like desire come out play in both creativity and sexually. And it’s normal. Its healthy. Its me. 

Spirituality is through the body. the body is important then. 

I love how women are reclaiming their bodies. Totally, please keep doing it. Kat Shaw the artist is incredible, doing artwork of women. I have some in my flat. Everyone body is more beautiful, when I realise my own is too. Everyone is both clay and spirit, both natural and mysterious. All our bodies are vulnerable to exposure and raw, weak to illness and yet also divine, alive and fully human. Perfect. 

The body is in constant conversation with creation, it allows us to smell the roses, see the waves and stars and read the hieroglyphics of the human countenance. The human body is a fragile home (John O Donohue, Eternal Echoes) 

Maybe my story is unique to men that it’s not yours. Thats ok. I wouldn’t want any of you to have had the kind of mother I had. Your relationship with your body is different. I know loving myself and learning to took a big shift when I learned to realise I could love my body. That my fingers could be felt together and I could feel, touch, sense and notice, my body and feel, all completely ok to, important to. Sex is different when embodied, whole, felt, sensory. Men, do your inner work, and this improves. (Passionate Marriage, David Schnarch) Loving your body also means that part of you too. It’s the part that creates life. Its beautiful. Truly. It’s not a means to an end or just an endorphin rush. It’s beautiful in itself. 

Being alive is that eros feeling of embracing life through the senses, and that only happens when I can get myself out of my head, and I do. 

We dont heal unless we feel. But I was terrified of both. Abandoned both. Had to mask that there was nothing wrong with me. My body took it all. 

Now. I love my body. All of it as it is, even the crooked teeth that never got braces. 

If I didnt love my body i couldnt breathe and relax. If I didnt love or notice my body I couldnt feel the fractures of when I wasnt in my body. I had no reference point before. I was just a shell on auto react mode. There was no I and no Body. Just a housing. To be beaten up, acceptably shamed or personally denied and avoided, or self pained. 

I know when im not in my body, because my head is spinning. Theres a wound and a fracture somewhere. At least I know now. 

I love my body. I love me. I love how my body feels naked, how it feels with a suit on, how it feels the air, the sounds of the birds, the taste of my home cooked food, the smell of steam trains, the touch of the water in the bath (oh yes, baths… found them when I was 41 too, all part of the same process, slow, feel, touch, candles music, yup) , walking slowly to feel the bones of my feet in my shoes. My body is as home as I am at home in it. And im truly grateful and proud of me. Wholly so. dancing in the kitchen with a body that can relax, with hips that can still move, that can feel joy and sadness, not stone and brickedupness. Life is full and my body is in it. Real, whole and full. 

Thank you for reading. 

The day of my body epiphany is described here

The Mirror