I am not your expectations…
When the pandemic first began and we entered phase one I qurantined for close to two months because I have relatives who are immune compromised and I get sick easily myself. What people don't talk about is how lonely it is to quarantine. To combat that and keep busy I started making tik tok videos and doing yoga. Most of my day was spent learning new dances, meditating, and playing with my dog. I wasn't around people like I wanted but I was able to burn the energy I had built up which is what I needed to feel better. I started losing weight pretty quickly and it was weird for me. Even in the uncomfortableness of the body transformation, I was experiencing I couldn't stop exercising and being active because it made me feel so good and distracted me from the craziness going on in the world for at least an hour. I will say endorphins and the effect they have on the body is very real. Endorphins produce a feeling of euphoria, and that feeling can become addictive. I often would talk to my friend Cardi, a personal trainer, about it and how she manages not being basically addicted to it. She's a bomb trainer by the way when I started losing weight I reached out to her for some workouts because I wanted to target certain areas. Because like most people I have a vision in my head of what I want to look like and she helped me achieve that.
I've never had an issue with my body and how I look until I started losing weight. I know that sounds weird because to some people they automatically look at fat people and assume there's no way they can be happy with their size. We live in a society that pushes a narrative of skinny and slim being “it”. But realistically the average size in the US is between 16 to 18. As of yesterday, I have lost 50 lbs, a milestone I celebrate and mourn. Seeing your body drastically change does way more to your mind than your physical being. Until I started losing weight no one really mentioned my size, people didn't celebrate how I looked. So think about how I feel when all of a sudden my weight loss is being widely celebrated. At the same time, I'm mourning how I used to look because I don't recognize my new body and I don't have the same comfortability that I had before. I really had to practice mindfulness and recognize the feelings I was having and brainstorm the best way to deal with it.
The two months I was in quarantine is when I noticed just how much my body had changed and I talked with my therapist about feeling as if I let my body down per-say. I was internalizing the compliments more so as a judgment of myself. I had to constantly remind myself, "I am not your expectations" as India Arie says in I am not my hair. Like most people, I can easily get consumed by other people’s expectations of how I should look or act, and it really takes a strong will and knowing myself and my needs not to be affected by it. Per usual I tend to gravitate towards musical therapy to help me. India Arie spoke about this disconnection and people not understanding her in one of my favorite songs Private Party. Specifically, she talked about celebrating yourself privately and finding joy within yourself and how fulfilling it is. She sang in the second verse and chorus,
“Look at myself in the mirror
We're gonna have a conversation
We're gonna heal the disconnection”“I'm havin' a private party
Learning how to love me
Celebrating the woman I've become”
Like most India Arie songs (because who are we kidding, I’m obsessed) these words resonated with me well. Now that I have processed my feelings about it, I’m able to authentically celebrate myself and who I’m becoming.