Wellness: Acceptance key to healing
When I was a teen I spent a lot of time in my room listening to 45’s and dreaming about escaping the small rural town I grew up in. As part of my escape plan I covered my bedroom walls in album covers, posters and magazine ads depicting successful people living a so-called happy and glamorous life. What I choose not to see at the time was that all the women on my walls were super skinny and mostly white.
I grew up in a lower-middle class family without a lot of discretionary income so food was used as an inexpensive way to treat the family. I fondly remember the greasy battered fish and fresh cut fries from Chipperfield’s that accompanied “I don’t feel like cooking” Friday night take-out. When there was tension in our house one of my parents would come home with ice cream or candyas a sugary peace offering. I grew up snacking while watching 7 pm sitcoms. The techno vision processed food commercials supported and normalized our eating habits. As a result, I grew up a chubby kid who shopped in the Pretty Plus section of Eatons.
In high school a guy I had a crush on declined a date with me stating “he would never date a fatty”. This was a crushing pivotal life moment that resulted years of chronic under eating and over-exercising. I was formally diagnosed with anorexia when I was 15 years old. I ended up looking like one of the models on my wall, but my life was far from glamorous or happy. I was praised for my appearance but inside I felt lost and lonely and the boy still didn’t ask me out.
In my mid-20s I pursued an education in dietetics where I was celebrated for my thinness despite the unhealthy ways I had to maintain it. I was an expert at counting calories, fat and carbs while making it look like I was eating enough. There were many foods on my “never” list and I felt virtuous in my willpower to avoid them. Under the guise of health, I was able to justify restricted eating in a socially accepted way.
In my 30s anxiety started to show the cracks in my veneer and with those cracks came the realization that I was controlling food because I was afraid of all the feelings and trauma boiling inside of me. In the late 90s and early 2000s I was surrounded by a culture that promoted female thinness, servitude and silence. My desire to fit in, keep up, stay small, and succeed overtook the anxious voice inside trying to show me where I was out of balance. I went seeking solace in a socially enforced yet unrealistic expectation of women.
My 40s found me thin, anxious, sick and tired so I decided to embark on a healing journey to save myself from myself. My journey started with an article in Chatelaine that talked about disordered eating and body reclamation. The author shared her tarnished relationship to her body andhow being a live model healed how she viewed and lived in her “not so perfect” body. I was intrigued and scared to do something so brazen. Nonetheless, six months later I ended up naked in front of artists in a home art studio on the 4th Line. It was a nerve- racking, vulnerable, and empowering experience that I repeated six times. The surface tension between my mind and my body softened yet the whispers of my heart suggested something deeper was needed… radical self- love. What a frightening yet ultimately freeing truth. I could write a book about my self-love journey that spanned many, many years and brought me to my knees and stood me back upagain. For brevity I will share that it included emotional expression, leaps of faith, deep soul mining, learning and trusting therapeutic modalities, and learning how to connect and trust my inner truth while simultaneously believing in something greater. It isn’t over and it hasn’t been easy, but I’m a happier and more loving person because of it. In my heart there exists a gentle acceptance and respect for my changing body that feels easeful and quite frankly freeing. I no longer subscribe to societal expectations of women’s bodies especially as we age (I love my greying hair, wisdom lines, and rounded belly). Instead of controlling my caloric intake I focus on nourishment from whole, minimally processed foods. I eat mindfully when I’m hungry and I enjoy “never” foods with conscious, loving awareness. I’ve found ways to nourish the other parts of me that were starving though dance, art, singing and gardening. It’s a daily practice of noticing, loving, taking responsibility and breathing wholeness and freedom.
Nicole Hambleton is a wellness coach, meditation, and energy medicine practitioner living in Mulmur. Follow her on Instagram@purpletentwellness.
