PART ONE

There’s been a lot of talk on social media, and in the media proper, about self-love. Since when I don’t know, but by now it feels like forever. For all the love I’ve been blessed with in my life the variety of love reserved for self is still a mystery to me.

I write this while trucking down Highway 1 at 120 km/hour, eastbound from Vancouver, in search of this elusive mystery in the days ahead. I plan to spend the next seven days off work looking for it, hoping to capture the little stinker, and then suffocate it – with love.

I’ve just left town with my husband for the first time since the pandemic began. Swapping out our lost March 2020 week in Costa Rica “with teen”, for a week as tourists on our own terrain in BC wine country – sans teen.

It’s July. We are without child but with one brand new puppy. So if self-love isn’t elusive on this trip (fingers crossed), I can guarantee sleep will be!

As long as I can find self-love I think I can stay the course to keep it. THIS time I’m ready to commit!

As we barrel down the highway through a rain forest in a heat wave, I’m also recovering from my first hangover in – how long? – I can’t remember. My belly feels wobbly and jiggly. Last night I let loose. Something got into me. (In some circles they call it “gin and tonic”, but for me it’s been a long time and I MAY have binged a little.)

Until recently, I’d been eating a precision meal plan. I started the fall of 2018 while prepping for my first ever figure competition. (Surely you’ve seen these photos by now: women and men on stage in teeny bikinis, flexing and posing well-developed muscles, fully dehydrated and starving. I do that for fun!)

For the absolute best results on show day, this athlete lifestyle includes zero tolerance for alcohol while prepping. I know this to be true because I abided by this dietary restriction for my 2019 show prep and did well, but for 2020 prep I switched from zero to low alcohol tolerance, and my results were not quite as good (pre-stage).

Other than being 100% dedicated to weight training during the pandemic, I managed to avoid changing course on meal prep too. I didn’t even give in to the sense of emotional disappointment when organizers cancelled one show after another, until the effort of prepping for four shows were all for naught, all due to the pandemic. I took it in stride.

I wasn’t phased. I held it together. Yes I shredded down and ignored as much sugar, dairy, wheat and alcohol as you can humanly imagine, counting macros and measuring my every carb, fat and protein for no good reason other than the chance to master my weaker impulses. But it’s just a hobby for me, so four cancelled shows were taken in stride.

The world is safer from Covid-19 for those shows being cancelled, and I still have a body I’m proud of at 46. So I still win, right?

Well, I “won”, until two months ago when an injury took my right arm out of commission from neck muscles straight on down to my thumb. The tendons and bones shifted position. No more upper body lifting, no more heavy weights, even on legs day. Top that off with sleepless puppy nights, and my metabolism has slowed – down – to – a – snail’s pace.  

I was still loving my body and on top of the world. Then one day (about a month into injury recovery), I was spiralling out of control.

I wasn’t proud of my body anymore. At this seemingly minor turning point to an outside observer, the results of my physique decline were devastating to me. I started feeling a very dark internalized sense of shame. “What if people see me gain body fat percentage now, after all this effort I’ve put in? They’ll think I’m a failure!”

For a moment I’ll spare you the details of the brutalizing self-talk which ensued (trust me the wounds are still fresh, it was borderline psycho). Being mindful of my present process of mental recovery I’ve been doing some reading of a book called What Happened To You? by Oprah Winfrey and Bruce D. Perry, M.D. Ph.D.

As a result it’s occurred to me: I only love myself conditionally.

Here are some* of the conditions I’ll love myself under. I love myself WHEN:

• I look jacked (because it means I stand out as “exceptional” for my age)
• My thighs don’t rub together or chafe (otherwise, I feel legitimate shame)
• There are no rolls of fat overhanging the waistline of my panties when I’m seated (again, shame)

And to top that off, I love myself best WHEN:

• I am told I’ve done a good job (especially by a male in a role senior to mine at work)
• I am thanked for helping someone (aka: “good girl”)
  
  *This is a sample size. The actual list is long and exhaustive.

These are never top-of-mind, until they happen, and then they are the ONLY thing on my mind until I can re-regulate. Are any of these confessions resonating with you? Maybe I’m not that original in my conditions, but what I hope does NOT resonate with you is what happens if the above conditions are not met.

*Trigger alert: DO NOT READ the bulleted list below if you struggle with self-love.

WHEN I hate on myself, it sounds like this:

• “You’re nothing. Garbage. Invisible piece of shit.”
• “You stupid bitch. Try harder.”
• “If they aren’t happy, you don’t deserve to be happy either.” 
• “They’ll never love you like this, so I can’t put up with you. Fucking nitwit.”
• “Seriously? I can’t even… I wish you could be anorexic or bulimic again, or whatever the fuck you were (but you even failed at that).”

With the new Apple TV series “Physical” now airing, starring Rose Byrne as a classically bulimic Californian housewife from the eighties, her character goes through much the same soliloquies in her darkest of times, conveying an eerily similar level of self-hate to my own worst-of-days.

The logical question I need to ask myself is “Why do you need to go there?” I am writing this to confess. It’s time to get really deep under the hood on this now. If not now, when?

Why? I have a daughter to raise! The culture of body shame for women and men, boys and girls driven by perfectionist ideals has got to stop. As self-aware as I am, it will take another round of Jungian psychotherapy when I’m back in the real world, post self-love-seeking vacation, to get this beast tamed once and for all. 

I WILL learn to love myself if it’s the last thing I do, damn it. Not based on appearance, not based on accomplishments, and not based on how much I’ve helped others, or if I’m “approved” by men.

There is much work to be done.

This is PART ONE of a two-part post. In my next post I’ll unveil a few self-discoveries made as I piece this thing together.

By Penny Greening