I Walk the Line

I walk the line.  On one side is the Fat Acceptance Movement and the idea that self acceptance is paramount.  On the other side the fitness community and the idea that self improvement is the goal.   From my perspective the line is not what divides but rather where the two overlap.  The overlap is the magic for me.  To me it is where the power of possibility and contentment thrive.  Beyond the overlap in either direct seems off balance and stunted in terms of ultimate happiness and achievement of what we want most.

Self Acceptance without Self Improvement   Self-Acceptance of our bodies is accepting what they look like in each moment.  It’s feeling free from mental anguish day in and day out.  Acceptance is realizing that our body is not comparable to someone else’s, that genetically we are different.  However acceptance is not complacency.  Without a drive to be better, without care of our body - something of the upmost importance is lost.   Without self-improvement there is a cap that is put on happiness and contentment.  If we are complacent with behaviors that are incongruent with nourishing our bodies or if we are disconnected from our bodies all together- we can’t truly be at peace with ourselves, and isn’t that what self acceptance is all about?   

Self-Improvement without Self Acceptance

We can get fit without self acceptance.  Some easier than others, but it happens all the time. By force of will we can train and alter our diets- ravenously checking off goals.  We can be driven by our ideals and by comparison to others- and it can work, but only to a point.  Without self-acceptance, we are always “not good enough.”  Always pushing, always fighting- never allowing ourselves to be satisfied.  We cannont even celebrate our accomplishments before we are on to the next thing.  Without self- acceptance there is a boundary set on contentment and interestingly enough the line may be drawn on our physical improvement as well.  Any athlete knows, in order to be our best we must seek out our weakness and embrace it.  We must accept that it exists, so that we can begin, slowly and without ego the process of getting better at what is worst.  When we are unable to accept we either avoid or quit--- either way we miss the mark on what we want-getting better.  

My whole life’s purpose is planted in the overlap.  What I strive to do is help women to experience freedom & joy.  Freedom and joy can’t happen with out both acceptance and love of our bodies.  Acceptance is being okay with what is so that we can be free from mental torment of self and feeling as if we are never quite good enough.  Loving our body means taking care of it, giving it what it wants and needs, honoring it as an integral part of ourselves.    

I am not in the business of self- acceptance.  I am not in the business of self-improvement.  I am in the business of both.

Personal Growth: What it's Actually Like.

Personal growth is a journey that begins from birth; however it really takes off the moment we become conscious about it.  It’s from there we begin the journey up a perceived mountain to our self realization….our inner peace…maybe even enlightenment.

The problem with the mountain metaphor is that it lends itself to the idea that one day we will reach an end, finally succeed and never have to go through discomfort again.  When we see personal growth as climbing a mountain, any struggle or new pain feels like a step in the wrong direction, when that’s exactly the opposite.  Pain and discomfort are the very signals that we are growing.  Personal growth is not movement towards a finite destination, but rather a process we will be on our whole lives long.   

Someone once explained personal growth to me like this.  He said it’s like your moving up levels.  When you reach a new level, often times “stuff is shaken loose.”  That stuff causes you to drop, but not to where you came from, you never really go back there.

I heard someone say recently this about physical training, “the real training starts when you stop setting personal records.”  Personal growth is like that too.    Upswings are exhilarating, but they aren’t nearly as powerful as the times when “stuff gets shaken loose.”  The time will come when we have to face something we thought we were long since done with.  The time will come when we feel painfully misaligned with our values.  This is where the seeds of transformation get planted. We will grow again, and it will be marvelous.   

In the specific area of our bodies the perceived pinnacle of personal growth tends to perfect health, an unwavering positive body image, a consistent diet and relationship with food.   Our growth in relationship to our bodies is always going to be a work in progress. There is not going to be a time when the stars align and we can stop changing. We will age, what works now might stop working, something new probably will arrive that will challenge the very fabric of our being at some point or another. 

I have become known for saying “Once you know, you can’t unknow.”  We know that our worth is not tied to our body.  We know that in order to feel at peace acceptance is necessary.  We know that our happiness isn’t ever going to come with a number.    Every step we take now is in that direction, even the ones that feel like the old has returned. Stuff will get shaken loose.  Even though it may not feel like it, we have not lost ground.  We are simply getting ready for the next big step. 

Radical Woman Q&A with Filmmaker Julie Wyman

Today’s Radical Woman Q&A is with award winning filmmaker, performer, writer and professor Julie Wyman.  Her acclaimed documentaries include Buoyant and A Boy Named Sue.  Her newest film is STRONG!.  The film documents the story of Olympic Athlete and Weightlifter, Cheryl Haworth.

Julie, Myself & Cheryl

I was fortunate to meet Julie at the sneak preview of STRONG! at Haverford College in March.  Watching the film and talking with Julie after it, it became apparent to me that we shared passion for creating a new paradigm for women and their relationships to their bodies.  You will have no doubt about the fact that Julie deserves the title Radical Woman after reading the Q&A! 

I also had the chance to meet Cheryl Haworth the subject of the film and was equally taken a back by her awesomeness.  In May, Cheryl will be joining me in a live teleconference interview just for women about female strength, bodies, beauty, sport and fitness (For more information click here or register now.)

Without further adieu, meet the Radical Ms. Wyman! 

Who are you?
I am Julie Wyman - filmmaker, artist, performer, professor, dancer, swimmer, cook, dogmom.

What do you do?
See above. More specifically, "what I do" is this: I am committed to challenging, confronting, and destroying the cultural and visual logic that produces a sense of bodily dysphoria for many women and many people. Put more positively: I want to encourage and produce images that model a radical sense of beauty and embodiment for people of all sizes, shapes, colors, and with all sorts of abilities.

What makes you radical?
Radical = to get at the roots: The roots of problems like widespread eating disorders, fatphobia, and our culture's ubiquitous bodily dysphoria is a particularly insidious logic that simply cannot comprehend that fat people can be healthy, that a woman like Cheryl can be an elite athlete. This logic is visually created and supported by a certain language of the image. My goal is to create images and stories that pull up, from its roots, and to overturn, this logic.

Describe your own personal journey with your body image, health and/or fitness?
As a child I was very active- I loved gymnastics and swimming and dancing and soccer - not to mention climbing trees, building forts and other outdoor activities. But, I was told, my body wasn't proportioned or shaped ideally to really find success or be seriously encouraged in any of these areas. Instead, surrounded by a family and a larger culture who were afraid of fat and wanted to "nip in the bud" the chance that I might put on extra weight, I became a normal weight kid who was put on diets from the age of nine, and encouraged, with all kinds of incentives to lose 10, 20, 30 pounds. I lost weight, I gained it back, and food and exercise became charged and loaded - certainly separated from any simple sense of their functionality or pleasure. This training to diet chronically, combined with the frequent enough feedback from kids at school and adults as well that I was "funny looking," bred a serious sense of dissatisfaction and bodily dysphoria in me: a sense of being in the "wrong body" with an ever present mandate to change who I was, how I looked. It wasn't until I was in college and developed a feminist perspective on food, body, and weight that I started to understand the cultural and political dimensions of this aspect of my life. At that point, I made a deep-level commitment to myself to try to reclaim and inhabit the body I have, and to not only bear witness, but to try to change, the harmful factors that had contributed to the needless suffering I'd endured through my childhood and teen years. Today, and for most of my adult life, moving is my joy: I love dancing, swimming, hiking, bicycling, yoga. Although I have grappled with injuries, and do still battle at times with the cultural mandate to alter my body rather than accept and embrace it, I do feel like I've transitioned, in adulthood, to a better relationship to my own physicality.

What are your philosophies on food & eating?
Food is hugely important to me; the pleasure and the creativity of cooking, the tasks of preparing and enjoying food with friends and family are incredibly important to the fabric of my everyday life. It would be a denial of everything I hold dear, my priorities in being alive, to sever myself from that experience, or to look at food and eating in a purely utilitarian way.

For me eating "well," i.e. in a way that is taking care of my physical, mental, and emotional health does require a certain discipline - a practice of being honest with myself about what I want and need at any given time- in terms of what food and how much food. This practice requires a certain slowness - patience- which is difficult to come by in the life I lead, but it is one to which I remain dedicated.

I also oppose dieting or regimentation of my diet in any way that is extreme or temporary. I believe in making productive long-term changes in one's eating patterns, but in avoiding crash changes that are difficult for the body to endure, and which usually create a backlash. Most of all, I believe in fostering, in myself and others, a sense of confidence that within each of us is the knowledge we need to make best food/ eating choices we can.

What are your philosophies on fitness?
I don't really like the word "fitness" because it implies "fitting" in to an external model.
I believe in a sense of physical embodiment, a sense of knowledge and active use of one's bodies - in whatever way that makes sense at any given time. I enjoy challenging myself physically and reaching new heights/ building new physical capacities like strength, flexibility, balance, as well as gracefulness and pleasure in movement. This would describe the goal I'd like to strive for: I'm not sure what the word for this is: but it's not "fitness."

What do you have to say about self-love & acceptance?
It's a tough, and ongoing process. It is, in many ways, related to a process of enlightenment, a process, perhaps, of one becoming less all-important to oneself, a process of acknowledging what's there and letting go of what's not. There is, in my experience, no zone that is long-term 100% safe from the societal influences that want to destroy that acceptance. It's bad for capitalism, self-love and acceptance. It takes us out of the market, in some senses, out of the project of trying to fill that empty endless desire. Which is all the more reason to adopt this as a goal.

What message do you want to communicate most to other women?
What if the body you had right now were perfect?

What else do you have to say/share?
Some of what I have to share is visual: I try to carve out/ create visual, visceral experiences with the imagery I create. So see my films. And that will answer this question ;)

 

You can start  by seeing STRONG!.  The film will have its television premier on PBS’s Independent Lens this summer, however there are community screenings of the film happening all over the country now.  Check to see when the film is showing near you here.  If you’re in my neck of the woods (Philadelphia) there is an upcoming showing on May 8^th, to RSVP follow this link.   Hope meet you there!

Thank you Julie for taking the time to share yourself with the readers of Radical Hateloss and for doing the important work you are doing in the world! 

"What if the body you had right now were perfect?" 

-Julie Wyman

Watch the trailer for STRONG!