Category: Healing

Trigger warning ; Childhood abuse, self harm, spiritual abuse.

I saw this from the beautiful Kat Shaw Artist yesterday:

Her work is incredible to predominately female audience, on the female body, healing and self image. I always love it, I love this one too.

Yet it provided me a question;

How many times as a Man have I been encouraged to love my body? Or to ‘love the skin’ I’m in?

Mentally arrive at your own answer here too, how many times have you heard this about loving your body as a man?

I hope it’s a lot, but my guess is it’s not very many.

And what was your response when you heard it, who said it to you?

Clearly this question was in my subconscious as when I woke at 2am this morning, and the bulk of what I write next started to take shape, and I think that this might be a series of posts on this.

Let’s start at the beginning, what were the internalised messages, as a boy, that you received as a child, in regard to your body?

Mine were the following.

1. Nakedness was shameful. A story that was repeated ad finitum by my psychotic mother, to encourage shame, was the story that she and my friends mum found me and my best friend naked under a carpet rug, aged around 3, two innocent little boys. But this story was told with glee to embarrass and shame.
2. My body could be hit as punishment. Whether her hand or his slippers, thats my body taking it. Taking the punishment my voice and mind caused through being said to be too clever or cheeky.
3. My body could be made to feel pain deliberately in a controlled way to either create attention, or alleviate other pain – such as biting my nails until they were septic, scratching, picking spots also pulling out my own hair.
4. Pain also got attention, I hid having verrucas for a week (I didnt know what they were on the balls of my feet, just lumps) after the horror and inconvenience of this ( I loved swimming) I clearly remember how enthused my mother was when it came to getting needles and tweezers out on a daily occurrence to supposedly deal with, but also inflict serious pain. ‘You know your mother likes to get the tweezers out and be the pain doctor’ as my Dad stood by and watched this bizarre scene.
5. My body could be denied warmth and love as this was what was the norm, so I would lie in bed and feel deliberately cold, not deserving of warmth, or forcing all pain into my head and asking it to numb the pain. Self punishment of my body for a time when id been made to feel guilty about something.
6. When there was a possibility that I would need braces to alleviate my crooked teeth and as the Dentist said ‘ to help him feel better about his smile and looks’ my mother said that ‘we’ll not worry about this and Im not travelling 12 miles a week to get them set up, checked and done, thats too much effort’
7. No praise of anything I did that involved physicality, or softness of touch, hugs, love, in fact… this is what I gave my abusive mother…
8. Clothes and looks didnt matter as a Man, Mum would control what my dad would wear and I as a child wore the most embarrasing clothes.
9. My body was someone else’s to dictate and destroy, to shame and enact pain on.

Most of these were from under the age of 9. I think the braces I was 11.

What were yours?

Other messages about my body came from church and school, and also inferred from other places too.

They were all internalised in the context with above.

Some of the things about the body, I heard that became implied in church were the following:

1. The Body was weak and prone to temptation
2. The Body was fleshly and dirty, compared to the spirit, the soul
3. Jesus’ body was crucified, so that was ok, bodies are disposable, his mind and soul elevated
4. The body is mortal, the soul is eternal, so only focus on the eternal
5. The body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit, but barely attention given to what this actually means, except to use it to pray and read the bible, but it is just ‘housing’ for something more important.
6. Some parts of the body sin, and could be ‘chopped off’ like eyes..
7. The Lord sees what’s on the inside, the heart… your body shape, size doesn’t matter, but not in a special way, an irrelevant way.

Not much body love happening here… right?

And the implications for all of this for me, who already felt deep internalised body shame, self conscious, self neglect and pain that I had normalised…

The other activities in my life, including sports and school, emphasised either the cultivation of the mind to do academic work, the physical aspects of the body for sports, some bits on healthy eating, and the facts about the body were just that, facts, how the body works, from the organs and muscles, to the smaller details of the DNA, cells, neurons and oxygenation, facts to be understood, not a body to be treasured or wondered at, just to learn about.

Pictures of perfect male specimens started to adorn my walls, the footballers of the 1990’s in poster form. Ryan Giggs’ left foot, Mark Hughes powerful thighs, the massive hands and shoulders of Peter Schmeichel, and that utter confidence of the mercurial Eric Cantona. It wasn’t difficult to feel inferior, as though I tried to play football, I could in practice but in games I had too much anxiety and panic, and so pretty horrid nicknames were headed my way.

And it was all my bodies fault.

It could all be taken out on my body.

My body didnt matter did it. And though I maybe cute and blond, i didnt like how I looked especially my teeth, and hid myself from any mirror.

It wasn’t difficult looking at this with my eyes open, aged 46, at the damage this was doing.

As I headed into teenage years.

And yes, the myriad of Puberty.

I liked what my body could do, sports wise, I was pretty fit and dived into sports, so swimming, and I wasn’t uncomfortable being practically naked each week swimming with others, I played badminton and pretty flexible, and football, and in the main, was in good physical shape. It wasn’t that I loved my body’s ability to do this, it was that I was competitive and determined to win.

I remember a school nurse when I was 15 or so, it was ‘that’; check up, where they checked my whole body, so I stripped off except pants, and stood there, on the scales, and she commented; ‘James you have a very well toned body with broad shoulders’ and remembering this now, was the only body compliment I received between 0-18. I didn’t know what to do, but probably smile uncomfortably, and let her know that it was due to swimming a couple of miles a week. One of only a few positive body complaints I received as a young person, the other was from a youth leader who probably crossed a line when she told me I had ‘great legs’ and yes… given the sports.. but only two positive body messages in childhood. WOW.

Wasn’t hard to see how easy it would be to disconnect from my body though. Mind and Spirit more important, body the source of pain, frail and weak. And I would berate my body if it couldn’t do sports beyond the pain, keep pushing it, keep pushing it. Or keep pushing it up late to study and learn.

My body just the tool, the housing.

How damaging was all of this though?

What did it cause, self denial, self loathing, shame, self-neglect – and then self pain – from that constant nail biting until I was 17, comfort eating which started when I was 12 (late night bread/cereal was safe food, and required for the ‘growing boy’) and continued until I was 41, averaging 4 slices of bread each night, for 29 years, and thats not to mention the other times I would eat so unhealthily to mask emotional pain, the millions of reduced price doughnuts at Tescos for one example, or eating food in the car between leaving work and going home, to comfort the depression in both settings.

I would try dieting, and it was have to be severe, and it worked for the odd month, but it wasn’t from a whole place, comfort eating soon followed again…

So let’s go back to puberty…. eeeeuuugghhh, I know..

Yes.

Those body changes. All seen as humorous by those parents. The Voice cracking, squeaking, etc, trying to work out myself about shaving and also, the looking in the mirror; The spots. Oh the spots. I had learned to inflict pain. You can guess the rest.

At this time also, though maybe also before, our eyes dont help us think that our own bodies are beautiful do they?

Starting to notice, like and find and fancy other people. I’ll be inclusive, it may have been other boys to you, but it was girls for me. Eyes start to notice the shape of girls and not really know how to deal with what they saw. From their hips, legs, smile, breasts and bum and everything else. All of which is perfectly natural, but seriously hard to know what to do with as a disassociating teenager, with body in shame mode, trying to be a good christian boy and go to school with some well developing beautiful young women.

And those eyes still do the same dont they, even in a healthy way, you may be reading this blog on the couch and your beautiful partner (male or female) is making you a coffee and they are hot in your eyes, they are your partner, they have something that raises your temperatures… so it can be difficult to love ourselves and our own bodies when our eyes see the beauty in other people before our own.

I know most of this is my story. But anyone else relate?

So.. the big question:

Have you, as a man, ever considered that you could love your body?

As it is… not as you think it should be

All of it? Even if it can feel frail or has let you down

All of it? even if it contains feelings that seem mysterious, or distractive

All of it? as you are, not comparing it to the bodies who you find attractive

All of it? even now, today, even after it may have tormented by others in the past, wrongfully (it wasn’t your fault, it wasn’t your body’s fault)

And as Men, what have we learned to feel about our own bodies…it’s barely to love it is it?

Men, why do we find this weird? Does it feel feminine? Does it feel soft? Does it feel impossible? It’s as if our bodies has housed all of our shame and we don’t know what to do with it, I didnt.

I sense there is a lot more to write about this subject from both an emotional, physical, spiritual and sexual perspective.

But I want to end this piece with this quotation, which I read yesterday, and tied with what I read above.

‘It takes so long to learn to take the place in your own life’ (John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes).

And this life includes our bodies. the inner wholeness within, the sense of peace and contentment, acceptance of and also, not using the language we have created to berate our bodies, instead loving our bodies with kind words. But it takes so long, far too long, and it’s about unlearning all the internalised messages from a long long time ago. They do not need to rule in our heads any more, another way of thinking about our bodies is possible.

I’m a man, and have a heart too, can this not love myself and my body in a healthy way, and what would this feel like to have self acceptance, wholeness and love for myself.. within?

Please do put some of your thoughts and reasons in the comments below or send me an email. This as I say is part one.