what lies beneath: my journey to embodiment

what lies beneath my journey to embodiement

Rebecca Weef Smith Photos by Patrick Falaniko

what lies beneath my journey to embodiement Rebecca Weef Smith Photos by Patrick Falaniko

NOT QUITE THE BEGINNING

My naked truth 10

Two weeks ago I posted this image and these words on the GOLDIE magazine instagram

“This is probably not the most attractive image to post on my Insta. It's a close up from last week's shoot with @falaniko. photo. I've been going through the images to try to decide which ones are edit-worthy. There are so many great images but as an editor my job is to work out what to highlight, what story can be told and how to best say that with both words and pictures.

Looking at my own body with an objective eye isn't difficult. I've spent most of my adult life distancing myself from my body. Focusing on individual parts with a critical eye rather than being in my own body was how I operated for years: “oh those bumps on those thighs are disgusting; that bum isn't the right shape; those arms are too soft; that overhang on that stomach is awful.”

Dissociation from my body was how I survived. Forcing myself to see and be me has been terrifying. Moving into a place where I can love what I see, and who I am, isn't a fixed position. It varies still from day to day. On good days I will view this body, my body, with respect and admiration. On bad days I see nothing but a project to be worked on to correct endless faults.

The scar on my tummy causes an unsightly overhang that acts as a barometer of my sense of worthiness. I am able to get rid of it if I starve myself and work on it every day. If I lose sight of discipline - eat biscuits, don't go to a class - it slips over my bikini line to remind me of my failings.

The scar is also a reminder of my beautiful daughters, of my ability to grow, of my strength and resilience and

of the times I've overcome huge physical and emotional challenges. This line has been cut through four times. Twice to give life. Twice to save mine. If I ever needed proof my body is my best friend it should be this mark. And yet still I battle with removing its existence.

I show beautiful photos of my body and everyone assumes I'm confident.

And some of the time I am. But I also want to share the reality of my yo-yo feelings because we all have them. No one wakes up every day feeling perfectly happy with who they are. Or if they do then I'd question where they are on the narcissism scale.

I am (we are) more than the sum of body parts and yet I hope to find the answers in scrutinizing those body bits which make me whole. My past experiences cannot be wiped from my body no matter how much I wish that were the case.

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This is what I have to work with. This is who I am. All of these photos from the shoot with @falaniko.photo so far are straight from the camera with no edits. I can see the beauty in me and in the immediate aftermath of the shoot felt totally amazing. I’m in the process of writing an extended essay on my body and this post is merely an opportunity to explore that. I’m weighing up what I want to share and how vulnerable I can be. I want to show that if I can reach this point of self-acceptance then anyone else can too. I want to lay all my fears on the table and get over them. We all judge even when we try not to. I judge myself the hardest but have realized that’s okay, it’s who I am. It doesn’t mean I don’t also love myself. The two positions can co-exist. I can both be amazing and worthless in the same body. It’s all just what it is.”

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The comments on Instagram began to appear quicker than any post I can recall sharing. Women who told me that they were so pleased to see a C-section scar and tummy like theirs; women who shared their own fears about their bodies; women who were in the process of learning to love every bit of themselves but felt guilty on days when they still felt the same old sense of failure… and on and on… all those collective doubts and mutual desires to embrace what it is that our bodies mean to us. The emotions, connections and intensity giving me a huge reason to carry on with my story in order to encourage other women to take whatever steps they may need to discover more about themselves.

And then came the message that the post had been removed due to a complaint about inappropriate sexual

content and a warning that I was being banned from posting or commenting on Instagram for 14 days. All the shame I had spent the last few years working on came f looding back. My body was a problem. It (I) was offensive. My naked truth was deemed worthless. I had been judged and dismissed. This wasn’t an image that had been detected by an algorithm but had been highlighted by someone (in all probability another woman) as offensive, as disturbing their boundaries of propriety. I was going to be punished so I understood the seriousness of sharing bits of my body – in this case my stomach with its freckles and scar – with an audience who, by and large, were engaging with what I had to say in a way that was positive and supportive.

I have tried to accept that being me annoys some women and when I get the

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backstabbing comments, or DMs asking why I am ‘showing-off again’, or women telling me I’m an embarrassment for yet another post where I haven’t got many clothes on, I try to smile and move on. It seems that “at your age” I should be over this “desperate need for attention”. These negative comments always directly refer or allude to my age. No wants to be confronted with the imperfections of a fifty-five-year-old nude woman, do they?

It’s disgusting, all this cavorting – put it away, cover up and shut up. I’ve been on the receiving end of this mixed message my whole life: You are the problem Rebecca; your body is at fault; or your brain is at fault for the way it views your body; your body should only be seen in a certain way and when it is (when you do as you are told) then your conformity will mean that you will be accepted by others and loved. I learnt that to be loved meant to give up the right to see

myself in a certain way and so I put away that notion and rebelled in ways which maintained just enough self-esteem that I survived but nowhere near enough to thrive.

After all my efforts of the past two years working out how to overcome the bodynegativity I have carried around since I was a child - work which culminated in this celebratory nude photographic shoot - I am smack bang in the pit of shame from whence I came and all because I dared to contravene a social media rule which doesn’t make sense considering some of the truly harmful imagery which goes undetected day in, day out across these sharing platforms.

Women’s bodies have been policed forever. We are used to it. I am. You are.

We make the best of it don’t we? Well, I don’t want to apologize for having

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this body any longer. I want to be able to live at peace in my own body with my own limitations. I want to feel who I am without having to dissociate when I look in a mirror. I want to see myself as strong and beautiful. I want to fully inhabit every inch of me and if I want to share those feelings of joy or pain, to shout about my insides and my outsides from time to time, then I am bloody well going to.

My removal from Instagram has shamed me and my natural instinct is to go away and hide whilst I cry, a lot. I needed to find a way to be safe, because obviously this is my fault and I have to be punished, to be made aware of my misdemeanours and find a way to be sorry enough so that I will be allowed back into the room with the adults.

I can still feel the humiliation from

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fifty years ago of being told if I insisted on showing off then what did I expect.

I learnt at five, maybe six, that short dresses and smiling was a dangerous combination. And yet still I fucked up and f lashed my knickers. If you were followed to the toilet and a grown man waved his penis in your face then you were leading him on by twirling. Men were only doing what you encouraged them to by your behaviour. I absorbed the idea that my body was dangerous and not to be trusted whilst at the same time being captivated by a skewed sense of my own embodied power.

To add to the deeply disturbing knowledge that just having this female body meant that I was responsible for adult males’ inability to contain their sexual drive I also inherited my mother’s fear of fat. I was a naturally skinny girl but even so I still understood that to have an appropriate body shape it was necessary to eat without pleasure. I

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recall spending pocket money on packs of three Limmits Custard Creams from the local Boots when I was probably eight and around the same age stole squares of mummy’s laxative chocolate in order to have a f lat tummy just like she did.

By thirteen I knew that men would love me if I closed my eyes and pretended I was somewhere else and that I could control my emotions even more if I limited myself to only eating certain foods. The breakdown I had at fourteen was messy, labelled in such a way as to make it my responsibility and in no way placed any blame on the adults in my life: I was wilfully choosing to make myself ill. My disruptive personality and rebellious insistence on being depressed had nothing to do with the world or family or culture or society and everything to do with my not wanting to grow up in the correct way.

In the lead up to my ‘O’levels I lived on

a handful of peanuts and ten grapes a day supplemented with a bottle of Lambrusco at weekends. And after drinking a bottle of wine I would do anything for anyone.

Come Mondays I would look in the mirror and the sight of my hideous self would cause me to throw up.

My loathing of my own body was tied to my sexuality as well as my more general confidence. I have always asserted I was a shy child, in retrospect I was a child whom shame drove to an undercover existence. I didn’t want to be seen. I couldn’t be seen. Alcohol gave me a curtain to wrap around my sins. Wine became my drug of choice for almost forty years. I drank to push down my own identity. I was a drunk so that I could agree to be whoever anyone wanted me to be. I drunk because I hated myself and in order to pretend that I didn’t care that I did.

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Early on in my life I lost any trust in my own instincts. Silly things like being told I wasn’t clever even after I had passed the eleven plus (“You? Surely they must have made a mistake”) or I wasn’t pretty because I didn’t have boobs (“you look like a boy but you’ll do as long as you stay quiet”) or I was too fat to have an eating disorder even after months of starving (“you’re not thin enough yet”).

Or it wasn’t rape because “you let him buy you drinks all night”. This particular occurrence was after I’d locked him out of the room and he’d climbed in through the window after I’d gone to sleep and it was still my fault. Even now I feel anxious about using rape to refer to that incident as I wasn’t beaten up or internally damaged and I did let him pay for my drinks…

Back then I don’t recall gaslighting was a term but I embodied the view that what I experienced wasn’t the truth. So many of us are programmed to be in the wrong that we have no idea of how to ever be in

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the right. By the time I was a teenager I had accepted that being me, having this body and this mind, was a problem.

I had no idea how to overcome my own unworthiness other than trying to please others by saying yes and squeezing myself into roles which were assigned by outsiders.

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It wasn’t actually that I didn’t think I had a nice body as I knew that I was in pretty good shape. I was thin, I loved dancing, and I conformed to society’s norms of a fashionable body, never more than a size ten unless I was pregnant.

But that wasn’t good enough because under that conventional exterior was an ugliness that lay in wait to trap me if ever I thought that I might be remotely pretty or attractive. I wasn’t allowed to be beautiful, that wasn’t the part I was destined to play. I was allowed to be stylish and creative but only in ways which were supporting roles. I was an extra who was permitted to wear fabulous frocks as long as it didn’t upstage the central characters.

It’s amazing I made it this far, but I have and I’m no longer prepared to keep quiet and live with the sadness of not supporting my own body. We are on the same side. I have realised this relatively late in life. Things are going to change…

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My body as subject rather than object 30

Don’t be fooled into thinking that the non-appearance of a negative body image implies a positive body image I feel most comfortable in my body when I’m naked and there is no one but me to see.

I have always been at ease in my own skin but that is not the same as body confidence or indeed confidence in any shape or form.

My identity is peppered with ambiguity, ambivalence and contradictions on a daily basis. There is very little about me that is fixed beyond my curiosity to want to understand who I am and why I exist.

Taking my body as a subject to study in order to increase my knowledge has made me focus on both my neglect and my excellence. I am at the same time

disempowered and powerful in the body I inhabit. That has always been so for me.

But as a post-menopausal fifty-five-yearold woman the scales had been tipped less towards embodied joy and more to gloom over both my own physical being and the way society would rather I hide my aged bits and disappear from view.

I didn’t intend to experiment with my own body but it seems I have made myself the subject of a piece of instinctive research nonetheless. When I was studying for a Masters in Applied Positive Psychology, Kate Hefferon was a bit of a crush of mine.

She introduced me to the idea of the benefits of Positive Body Image (BPI) and her book Positive Psychology and the Body: The Somatopsychic Side to Flourishing was my bedtime reading. Much of what I am now practising I learnt in Kate’s lectures and her writing, only at the time I didn’t really think to apply it to myself! I was doing okay with my body (or so I thought). Talking therapies had dealt with much of my past trauma and,

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well, flourishing within my own skin and bones was probably too much to hope for.

I’d been prepared to settle for managing and coping, and sort of accepting that I was never going to win any prizes for being a goddess. Anyway, at my age wasn’t it good enough to be finally dealing with my hangups about not being clever enough without wanting to be beautiful as well? That would have just been plain greedy. Plain I was used to but greed was abhorrent.

Kate Hefferon talks about how with high levels of PBI we also experience higher levels of psychological and social wellbeing, optimism and self-esteem, become more attuned to intuitive eating and have better sexual functioning. It has taken a couple of years for me to realise I want more of all of those, please. And indeed after applying various adapted (oh okay, made up by me) embodied interventions based on applied positive psychology, I have noticed that I have leaned towards being happier in my body with more smiles as I pass mirrors and even sometimes wanted to whoop at my sheer gloriousness.

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This piece of writing (not enough words to warrant a book, probably too many words for an article) isn’t intended to be sciencebased as I haven’t conducted any research and am a bit slapdash with referencing. I have been led by my body not my brain; I have listened and watched my own body as it has guided me to living with and within a body I now love. This is a process of relating my bodily lived experience in a way which I hope helps others to find a way to live in their own bodies with more ease. But if that sounds dull, it shouldn’t be. I want you to have a shit load of fun, break the rules and try out different things until you hit on the right combination for you and suddenly find you are having a ball. I want you to experience total adoration, to see yourself as amazing in every respect. I want you to make love to yourself from dawn to dusk and post about your self-love adventures endlessly on Instagram.

You don’t have to be old to give the things I did a go. Gender is irrelevant, you just have to give yourself a break from the cycle of demoralising chatter that tells you that you aren’t good enough to post selfies on Instagram and instead shout about how you think you are beautiful.

These words are an attempt to work out how I have got from hating to look at myself almost two years ago to being able to share images of myself on an almost daily basis on Instagram. How did I, a self-proclaimedphoto-phobe, achieve this without noticing at first that that’s what I was doing?

Well let’s see if I can work it out…

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How to get Positive Body Image Positive Body Image (BPI) begins with love and respect for the body.

Have I had much of that in the past? Given my memories of self-neglect, mistrust and lack of self-consideration it would seem not.

I have moved towards loving and respecting me in fits and starts for the last ten years. If I try to find a starting point I need to go back to my father’s death but the most interesting acceleration has taken place since I stopped drinking alcohol in January 2019. There has to be a connection, I didn’t I stop drinking to be good to myself or uncover any truths.

I hadn’t even planned to give up booze but it seems that I was listening to my body when it told me enough was enough and it needed a proper chance to see if sobriety was the answer. I didn’t know what the question was but guess I didn’t need to.

The last few months of 2018 I hadn’t been much of a friend to myself, I was drinking a bottle of red wine most evenings, I wasn’t exercising, I was crying a lot and not talking about how I felt to anyone. I had got back into a habit of hating how I looked even though I was pretending on the outside that wearing the right clothes was enough to cover up the self-loathing. I was working hard to make GOLDIE positively glossy whilst ignoring the doom and gloom in my own mind that told me I was fat, ugly and unworthy and should be discarded on the rubbish dump.

Today I look at myself naked in a full length mirror and absolutely appreciate the uniqueness of my body and how well it gets on with my mind: as an integrated unit we are no longer fighting for space; I can flourish on all fronts; I accept my body with all its flaws; I can focus on the good bits of the body – and my body’s history - rather than on the negative aspects; I choose to pay attention, to be mindful, to connect to my body’s needs.

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I even make a real effort to notice positive information (“you are gorgeous!”, “thank you”) and reframe the negatives (“showing off again!” ,“no, but I am showing up”).

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Overall I more often than not, feel beautiful, comfortable, confident and happy with my body and love all of me. I have also discovered more empathy for others. I have been known in the past to have a limited idea of what constitutes beauty. Those boundaries – thin, perfect, socially acceptable – have not only made me unhappy with myself but have made me unkind and judgemental. I have bitched and gossiped about others’ bodies.

I’m not proud of that. I have also allowed people to be located as ‘other’ because they don’t conform to a marketable and consumerist version of beautiful. Most of the time I knew I was in the wrong but I was too scared to put my hand up and shout lest I be rejected and ostracized. I didn’t know how to be an ally for others as I could barely be a friend to myself.

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Being more embodied has helped me form a stronger intrapersonal relationship but has also enabled me to create healthier relationships with others. I have discovered that being mindful and respectful of myself has made me less disparaging of others.

My fears that loving me more would make me selfish haven’t (yet) manifested. Some people have suggested I’ve become selfobsessed. I have suggested a) they mind their own business; b) there may be some projection issues to look at.

I think that I have been lucky enough to have experienced the preconditions that research has recognized as making it easier to attain PBI. I have met a handful of people in the last ten years who gave me the experience of unconditional acceptance of who I am. I had never had this before in my life. Those relationships, some intimate and long-lasting, others fleeting and micro, healed my past sense of being unlovable. I would not have been able to achieve selfacceptance without knowing how it felt to be acknowledged and affirmed from the outside. I know that we are told you have to love yourself first and show others how you want to be seen and treated, but personally I had to get some positive feedback before I could get going with any internal self-love.

I had to find a way to work out how to care about my body through the way that I was being cared about and treated by others. I couldn’t have achieved this on my own.

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Although I knew exactly how the media manipulated images (Photoshopping, lighting, etc.) in order to generate a false expectation of beauty, it was only when I choose to take part in creating a more diverse way of showing fashion and beauty, with my own magazine, that I got it and understood how I too had been tricked into believing that I was never going to be beautiful because I didn’t look like a model.

As I have expanded my landscape of what it means to be beautiful I can see where I had absorbed damaging views from an onslaught of visual imagery showing only one version of how to be and look as a woman worthy of love. We all have a responsibility to ensure that environments and cultures that define beauty do so with a broad base. Inclusivity needs to be more than a trend; it impacts all of our wellbeing.

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Whilst I’m not someone who has a religious belief I have allowed myself to concur that there is something spiritual in our perception of beauty. The unique beauty of others can make me emotional in a way that feels transformative. When I am able to truly integrate my selfness into the bigger picture of humanity, I feel as if I can transcend the limits of my smallness. The acknowledgment of my own struggles with my body and how I have overcome the shit that I’ve put myself through seems to be part of my purpose. All very wishy-washy and I’m embarrassed to even write it but maybe I am here for a reason. Has learning to live in my own body given me a sense of purpose?

One of the most powerful factors in my PBI growth has been discovering (mainly on social media) women who are passionate about their own body acceptance and who

lovingly share and support others as they stumble around for ways to love who they are without looking like a narcissist. If you are searching for a starting point then surrounding yourself with others who register high on the PBI scale is a great place to begin. I may carry a portable version of the body appreciation scale (BAS) in my bag and filter out new contacts who may look the part but whose scores don’t tally with their outsides.

In future I will only befriend those who have favourable opinions of bodies, both theirs and others (regardless of actual physical appearance); who choose to accept all bodies in spite of skin colour, weight, body shape and imperfections; who respect bodies by taking notice of their own and engaging

in healthy behaviours; and who reject unrealistic body images as portrayed across all forms of media.

I have made a promise to myself that I will continue to grow and expand my own sense of self along with doing everything I can to helps others to do the same. I’m not an advocate (which always makes me think of yellow creamy drinks) or an activist (which seems too energetic for me) but now I’ve discovered that being me isn’t that awful after all I’d really like to find more ways to help anyone who is in doubt about their own beautiful-gorgeous-amazingness to give up the negative baggage, stop the unhelpful self-flagellation and feel this good in their own skin. You don’t have to take all your clothes of in public and share naked photos but it works for me.

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But what if I’m really just an ego-centric attention seeker?

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This is my biggest fear. I’ve overcome it by intentionally putting myself into uncomfortable positions

Can you imagine loathing your physical appearance so much that for most of your life you would contort yourself to avoid being in photos? Or look in a mirror and on really bad days chuck up? Can you for a moment feel the depth of despair in who you are - and how you look - that would lead you to think that you have no reason to be alive, no use to the world? Numbing with alcohol or antidepressants gets you over hopeless times. But even on smiley-days, the background commentary can be one of selfhate, hurt and put-downs.

Anyway, that's just a quick glimpse into the abusive relationship I had with myself and the reason why I needed to defy the worry about going too far.

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Most of this work has been mine alone. A decision to change. To grow into the woman I hoped was there under all the layers of shit. Forcing myself to confront this stuff via more times in front of a camera than I thought I could stand has proved cathartic.

I still swing between thinking it's great to love ME and worrying that I am turning into an egocentric grasping ME, ME, ME person.

How do we differentiate between healthy self-esteem and not so useful conceit?

Do I really share to help or do I really just want to read all the lovely comments that others are bound to say? I am the sort of person who can tie myself in knots agonizing over these kind of issues.

What kind of self-obsessed, boring idiot looks at photos and thinks 'wow, I look so wonderful that I’m going to share them with everyone I know and write thousands of words about how much I love my body’?’

Guess that’s me then…. In case you’re wondering, my favourite photos are the monochrome ones that abstract my body to

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almost look like a landscape. I clearly see myself as arty at heart. The ones where I'm so joyful it's as if I've discovered a secret best reflect the way I want to leave you feeling when you have ploughed through all my words. I must remember to put a pink smiling one at the end so you are visually motivated to mirror my emotions and put down whatever-this-is-that-contains-thesewords-and-pictures, look in the mirror, and give yourself a big cheesy grin.

In many ways this journey to becoming confident in front of a camera has felt as if I've been given the secret key to a world that I thought would always be hidden from me.

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My intention this year had been to work with a variety of photographers to watch how they see me in different ways and what that reveals about who I am. Covid-19 sort of put a halt to those plans so most of my exploration this year has been with a tripod and self-timer. And that’s been interesting in its own way. I think we all have so many sides and there is always more to unearth in self-examination. I am an endless source of potential. And so are you. Why limit ourselves to so few roles in life.

This time last year I was still struggling with the concept of showing off and how conceited it was to post images of me. Today I no longer give a shit. I'm celebrating myself every day and intend to do so much more.

Being fab-u-lous isn't a sin. Discovering

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you’re truly a goddess really is okay. I had to find permission to adore myself in all sorts of ways, not least a nude photoshoot. I hope some of my ideas and suggestions may help you or at the very least make you laugh at my antics. There may not be any short cuts to PBI though I wonder if I had done a nude photoshoot years ago I could have achieved it sooner?

people to death. But how can I encourage others to share if I am not prepared to do so myself? It becomes a fine balancing act, which pushes me to look closer at what I’m trying to say. Am I prepared to get *real* about every aspect of myself, to bare all for this project? Photos are one thing but revealing my inner workings and my past is something else.

I'm not and probably never will be confident; it's not easy for me to walk into a studio and be really seen, I doubt this will ever feel natural to me. On a good day I am high on my own glow. I feel strong and powerful and lovely. Yes, this is pure ego.

Yes, this is explosive self-love with huge respect for myself. If that’s attention seeking then who really cares?

Normalizing my feelings and attitude to my body has desensitized me to viewing images of myself; I have come to appreciate my body as never before. Whilst previously I was comfortable in my own skin I was uncomfortable with confronting images of myself – naked or clothed. I can now look at myself with a relaxed assessment, I am no longer driven to negative comparisons. I don’t want to look airbrushed and perfect. I never did. But I have always been scared of being ‘seen’. I have had a deep fear of what a picture will tell about me. I'm probably not normal when it comes nudity: so many

My relationship with my body has been challenged by my exposure on social media; I am constantly aware of over-exposing myself, revealing too much and boring

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people associate nakedness with sex that the idea of wandering around without clothes embarrasses them; or they are so offended by their own naked flesh that they can't get why anyone would want to be nude; or they just think it's plain wrong. These are sometimes the same women that ask me how they can get my kind of confidence. Actually being happy to be nude and being confident are separate issues. I have always been quite okay naked even when I was shy and totally unconfident about what I had to offer the world.

When we create environments where it everyone is allowed to be gorgeous then that fear of it being somehow wrong to love our bodies isn’t relevant.

After taking part in The Real Catwalk last August, I became convinced that one of the best ways to get over the fear of celebrating our own body is to do it with others who are dealing with negative societal attitudes.

I've grown a very thick skin in the last 12 months and I am not so concerned about visibility or judgment: I've worked hard to feel this free, to have a strong sense of self, I'm sure as hell going to celebrate it wherever and whenever I desire. I'm not a positive body campaigner. I’ve done this for me; to show me what I’m capable of. However, if I can do it, so can anyone. I don't have a blueprint for how to love yourself; I don't have answers. However, I am more than happy to chat about your personal struggles with body acceptance or on general body matters.

I was petrified taking part in The Real Catwalk. The problem for me wasn't to do with liking or not liking my own body; it was about being seen and judged by others.

My feelings are that I needed the time I took to get here. I arrived at self-love at exactly the right time. I'm not going back, that's for sure.

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POSSIBLY THE MIDDLE

A list of ‘What my body says I need to remember so I don’t forget’ 60

I remember deciding that it was time to get over my fear of cameras and that the best way to do that would be to put myself in front of a lens over and over until I got used to it I remember realising that without alcohol in my system I was able to tolerate viewing my body and that I didn’t need a distraction I remember being surprised that I didn’t want to look away I remember going into a loo and catching sight of myself in the mirror and wanting to take a selfie because I looked so good I remember sinking to my knees next to a park bench in the rain and wanting to give up I remember shaking so vigorously my teeth ached I remember the feel of sun on hot skin and how I smelt of sweet toast I remember the feeling of sore muscles after exercising really hard I remember wanting to wear pointe shoes and then wondering why as they really hurt

I remember loving the fact that my body was so stretchy that I could put my foot behind my ear I remember looking at my stomach and wondering how it would ever stretch enough for a baby to grow I remember when stretch marks reminded me of silver embroidery threads I remember painting the scar on my stomach with gold food colouring I remember how the light in the South of France made my skin glow golden all the time I remember diving into the sea in Mallorca and the feeling of fish as we swam along together I remember feeling sad that I’d forgotten how to dive or even how to confidently swim I remember being so sure of my own attractiveness that as I watched a total dude emerge from the sea I knew that I would spend the night with him (I did and many nights afterwards) I remember holding the attention of a man so that no one else in that room existed I remember the feeling of being watched so closely that it was visceral I remember the frantic sound of a pencil on paper as he tried to capture my body in sketch after sketch I remember hiding behind a balloon in embarrassment at my birthday when the group photo was being taken and never wanting to be captured on camera feeling so shameful ever again I remember that it wasn’t my fault when I didn’t understand what was going on when an adult choose to disregard the fact that I was a child I remember that even in the confusion of all those embodied memories I am more than those events that happened to me

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I remember walking round the playground twice with my knickers in the pocket of my summer dress I remember swinging so high my tummy lurched I remember wishing my feet touched the ground I remember tight plaits I remember wrapping my arms around myself so tight I could hardly breathe I remember why I panic when my mouth and nose are covered I remember the taste of chocolate given for being a good girl I remember nice legs shame about the face 62

I remember don’t love you cause your feet’s too big I remember the squelch of walking home in warm wet wellies after being too shy to ask where the loo was I remember the squelch of warm wet knickers as the aftermath of sex chose just that moment to disperse I remember orgasms where I left my body and became part of something bigger than just me I remember sex where I left my body in order to survive I remember seeing an image of me that shook me as I was beautiful and I could see it and say it aloud I remember finally realising it wasn’t about me being ugly as I was growing up it was about the fear others who loved me had of what it would mean if I was allowed to be me

I remember standing in a studio surrounded by mirror and watching myself with pride rather than disdain I remember knowing that today I was loveable and it didn’t matter if I hadn’t been yesterday I remember the moment when I could admit to liking my body regardless of my past I remember letting go of the shame of being me and not being scared to show up naked and without pretence I remember deciding that it was okay to really love sex I remember when I realised you could choose who you had sex with and what you wanted from the encounter I remember leaving the studio after this nude shoot and feeling the most tremendous rush of power mixed with love. Like I’d just taken a drug and it had reached my brain with a great whoosh of energy that swept me into a state of heightened euphoria I remember thinking that I’d like to feel like this more often I remember dancing in my bedroom in a pale blue nylon leotard and never wanting the record to stop I remember licking the inside of my wrist and it tasting really nice I remember the first time I kissed a boy who wanted me not for any other reason than I was me I remember eating mangoes in bed after making love in the afternoon and the permanent stain on white sheets I remember how ice feels as it melts on my sun-scorched back and how a mug of hot chocolate feels in my freezing hands

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I remember sand in my bikini bottoms and snow in my mittens I remember the particular taste of one man’s body which still to this day is my idea of how a man should taste I remember being told over and over you are gorgeous and actually hearing it sink in so that it spread through me like a slow warm molten liquid that filled all the old cracks until I was no longer a gaping needy chasm of self-pity I remember standing at the airport running away from a boy who said he loved me and who cried when I said I had to go I remember every time I ran away so that someone wouldn’t realise I was a fake I remember all the times I said no but wasn’t listened to and all the times I said yes when I realised saying no wouldn’t have made any difference 64

I remember hearing my mummy tell my daddy that my periods had started I remember how it felt when my daddy stopped loving me I remember feeling that I was no longer special and that I wanted him to love me like before I remember that every period I had I hated my body more I remember the irony meaty smell of warm period blood I remember the thick clotty blobs of what would have been a baby I remember thin pale watery thin blood that went on for ever I remember crying in the bathroom for hours the first time a boy came inside me and someone saying through the bathroom door it’s not as if it was the first time I remember a woman saying my pubic hair came up too high and I had rabbit ear lips which hung down too low in front of a whole group of people

I remember being told that I was a baby for making a fuss about not wanting to be left alone with a drunk I remember the sound of a male friend being raped on the stairs as I sat terrified in another room I remember walking to the bus stop holding his hand and neither of us knowing what to say or do I remember being sick after taking too many or not enough paracetamol with neat vodka I remember the anxiety that the smell of whisky caused me and still does I remember scalding hot showers being a cure for everything I remember miscarrying at twelve weeks when I was seventeen and getting pregnant again at eighteen but choosing to pay for a termination I remember writing to a boyfriend after I’d got rid of the pregnancy and him being so upset that I hadn’t given him any say in the matter I remember wanting to be pregnant and not wanting to be pregnant I remember wishing that I could go back and make those babies live I remember being totally in awe of the fact that my body was able to produce live beautiful daughters not once but twice I remember every inch of me loving to hear mummy and it refer to me I remember tiny teeth marks from a bite on my shoulder I remember a red hot burning patch on a boob that was so big and hard that it bore no resemblance to my boobs before babies I remember the tight sensation in my nipples which occured just before the sudden whoosh of milk spurted out

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I remember wet patches when I thought about a baby that was elsewhere at the time I remember the sadness of not breast feeding any more I remember a tiny Irish midwife trying to remove the C-section staples on the sitting room floor and Tim having to have a go as she couldn’t yank them out I remember the taste of liver after having been a vegetarian for years I remember how good hot milk with milled flaxseed tasted and how it was supposed to make me make more milk I remember putting my hands over my ears to drown out the sound of a baby crying I remember the feel of the hall carpet as I walked a baby up and down and up and down

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I remember failing because the baby wasn’t growing well enough and my milk was inadequate I remember thinking that I was going to die when I had a ruptured ectopic pregnancy I remember feeling back in control of life as I got thinner and thinner I remember how good it felt to weigh 98 pounds I remember how bad it felt to weigh 120 pounds I remember I was sure that without a uterus I would no longer feel like a woman I remember making the surgeon promise that he would leave me my cervix and him laughing at me for thinking I had any use for it I remember the consultant telling me that it’s not uncommon for many women to lose their sex drive after a hysterectomy and implying that it let men off the hook for having to have sex with wives who were no longer attractive I remember thinking I would never have another orgasm and the devastating sense of loss that I felt

I remember even after the ability to come came back I missed that full bodied type of orgasm that left me seeing the world a brighter place I remember wondering what it would feel like to choose to be hurt for pleasure rather than just getting hurt unintentionally I remember having sex for the first time with a different man after having sex with the same man for over twenty years I remember the in-between-marriages space of being wild and free to have sex with whoever I fancied whenever I wanted to I remember making the same mistakes at forty-six that I had at sixteen I remember reading The Story of O I remember hailing a black cab and arriving at my lover’s with only my coat on I remember taking all my clothes off in a club when I was very drunk I remember pleading with a man I really liked to have sex with me just once to make me feel better I remember being grown up enough to understand that it was better for both of us not to give in to desire and that having an affair wasn’t the answer for either of us I remember the need to punish myself by not eating until I fainted I remember the need to reward myself for not eating by buying a new very tiny size dress I remember being amazed by my bruises I remember not wanting anyone to see how disgusting my body was I remember using hair removal cream on my face instead of a facepack

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I remember the pleasure that comes with the sensation of leg hairs being ripped out with hot wax I remember the horror on a man’s face that I had a ‘seventies style bush’ I remember holding hands with a boy in the seventies I remember feeling both drawn to wanting to be desired and repelled by the men who wanted me I remember the compulsion to say I love you sometimes after a certain sort of sexual encounter even though it wasn’t love but something else entirely that I didn’t have a word for I remember not having any sex for ages as AIDS seemed very close

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I remember times when I wished I wasn’t married so I could have had sex with someone else I remember wishing that I wasn’t the sort of person who was loyal and could only sleep with one man at a time I remember wanting to be sexually attracted to girls as I thought they were so beautiful but for some reason that didn’t turn me on I remember the sensation of turning to liquid and evaporating I remember having sex with a friend because it was his birthday and I’d promised him but left as quick as I could to go to another boy who I wanted more than anything in the world at that moment I remember avoiding meal times by having a bath and appearing after everyone else had finished eating and was ready to go to the pub I remember making a kind older male friend have sex with me because I wanted to get my own back on my boyfriend who had dumped me in front of the whole bar

I remember not caring who fucked me as long as the ex would get wind of it because I thought he’d be jealous I remember getting a call with the results of a sexual heath test in the middle of a work meeting I remember not wanting to get divorced because the sex was so good but in the end that wasn’t enough to keep me sane I remember being told that after 40 you shouldn’t go on top as you looked saggy I remember forgetting that it was important not to look saggy as I was having too much fun I remember cutting the inside of my thighs with a scalpel in the toilets at art school as I had put on weight I remember being given slimming pills for breakfast I remember that you shouldn’t swallow because it has so many calories I remember how it feels to drink too much red wine I remember being sick over and over again for days until I was empty and purified I remember the pride I felt for having a tummy that went in and hipbones that stuck out I remember pinching the rolls of loose flesh on my stomach until I was a patchwork of tiny bruises I remember rows and rows of bruises on the back of my legs just from sitting on chairs I remember the back of my legs stinging from a slap I remember hiding under the bed until a family friend had gone away but being tricked into thinking that it was safe to come out because I heard the front door close when in fact they had only pretended to leave

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I remember thinking that if I did as I was told it would all be okay I remember knowing I was right but finding it easier to accept I was wrong until in the end I didn’t believe I had ever been right in the first place I remember thinking that I really shouldn’t enjoy sex I remember thinking how can I still desire and love men I remember thinking how can I ever trust a woman I remember feeling that I could never ever trust myself I remember trusting myself enough to do a handstand I remember loving the feeling of freedom that hanging upside gave me 70

I remember the feeling of being here and not being here I remember wondering if I spent more time upside down my body would reset itself I remember wondering if it was possible to learn to love yourself after so much time hating yourself I remember deciding to try to do things differently I remember choosing to act as if I did love myself I remember writing his name on my bikini line in black marker pen I remember wanting more even though I knew it would make me unhappier I remember wishing I was the kind of person who would make do with less I remember looking in the mirror and gagging at my reflection I remember arguing that no one put butter on a roll that they had with soup

I remember thinking that if I was a size ten I was a failure I remember wishing that I was better at suicide I remember being secretly pleased that I hadn’t been very good at suicide I remember that I always have a choice I remember that even with the weight of this history there are other stories I can tell I remember and that I have loved more than I have not loved I remember that all of this has made me the person I really love and admire now I remember that I am gorgeous I remember that I can be as gorgeous as I want for the rest of my life I remember that I’m not defined by any of my past I remember that I can rewrite the story and the ending is always up to me I remember that loving myself is easy and I don’t need to feel bad for having ego needs I remember that loving my body feels really good and that I have given myself permission to enjoy every inch of me I remember that my body holds all the memories even those that I choose not to remember I remember standing naked in the sun and feeling as free in my body as I did at five years old before I needed to hide my shame with a birthday balloon I remember smiling at the camera and knowing that everything is going to be just how it should be I remember choosing to remember all of this so that I know how hard I have worked and how far I have come

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DEFINITELY NOT THE END

A conversation with my body 76

So how do you feel about my sharing naked photos of you?

Well, as it’s hard to separate myself from your intentions, I register your doubts without being able to know if they are how I feel. Nonetheless I’ll give it a go. I think I’m really quite amazing and I’ve always been proud of what I look like and what I can achieve. If it takes others to validate that for you - if you can’t trust what you see or the signals I send to your brain – then that’s okay too. I get that you have spent years ignoring what is in front of your eyes and instead listened to your inner critic as well as allowing those in your life who have told you they love you to dictate who you should be. I prefer it when you are able to put your trust in me but like the positive feedback and the fact that you are kinder to me when you can see yourself as gorgeous.

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What is it about that word gorgeous that works for us?

Well, you could probably tell me more about that than I can you! I just know that when you have gorgeous applied to you it makes your para-sympathetic system switch on and everything about you softens in response. The more you believe me to be gorgeous the genuinely happier you become and in turn that has made you more compassionate to your physical needs. It’s much more comfortable for me to be on the receiving end of your kindness than your loathing of me. So if hearing that you’re gorgeous and repeating it to yourself as a mantra does the trick then keep saying it.

I know I’m gorgeous - you don’t need to convince me. It’s your mind that stands in the way, not my feelings. I’m totally in awe of my own beauty. I’m not weighed down with layers of shame or guilt. I’m as free as I want to be when you stop with all the negative crap you want to load on to me.

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Sounds as if you are more than a bit cross… do you need to vent?

Well, now you’ve asked yes. You have been really quite a cow to me for years, I’ve done my best to support you with all your twists and turns but it’s not been easy. All those years of neglect, abuse and punishment. But I stood by you because of course I’m on your side. All you had to do was look at me. Just clear your mind of right or wrong and selfgaze from a position of love. But anyway, we are nearer that now than we have ever been before so I don’t want to dwell on the past. Although if you think you can put me through all that again I’d have to reconsider my position as your greatest ally.

Is saying sorry and thank you enough? … Chuck in a bunch of white tulips and we’ll call it quits. That’s a yes.

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Let’s talk about the future then, what next?

I like this new feeling of strength and think we should do more together to increase our power and focus less on our flexibility.

Do you remember years ago when that yoga teacher told you that you were too bendy for your own good? It’s true, you have to work on giving in less to others’ views and more on standing your own ground. I can help you with that. We need more muscle, less folding to fit in small spaces. I like taking up more room, I like being seen. I’m happy to be confident and attract attention. I know it’s still not natural for you but if you let me take charge of the wheel on occasions you will feel more able to relax and be less vigilant.

I know that there are still pockets of fear, of residual anxiety about showing off, and that isn’t going to ever disappear totally, it is very much who you are. But I don’t want to go back to the invisible sad times of neglect and unlovableness. We are beautiful. We are gorgeous. We are a shining example of what can be achieved when body and mind combine forces. How many times do we see women’s minds pulling in one direction and their bodies pushing in another? How sad does that make us feel? Well let’s show that it doesn’t have to be like that even if it’s so deeply embedded that it has been going on for fifty years. Let’s be harmonious.

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85 One last question, what do I need to know today?

Stop telling yourself that you don’t have a right to be seen and heard or that your experience isn’t valid or needed. If it helps, create a file with all the comments that women have shared which tell you how by sharing your feelings about living in this body you have helped them to live more at ease in theirs. If you need a further reminder get GORGEOUS tattooed on me. I don’t mind a label. I don’t need written evidence to know the truth but if that’s what it takes to get those juicy feel good hormones flowing through our veins then go for it. Oh, and one last thing - you can never have enough orgasms darling…

Will posting selfies on Instagram make me a narcissist?

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I need to revisit this as it’s still bugging me.

What is the difference between narcissism and healthy self-respect/love/admiration and how do I know where I am on the sliding scale? If I quote the research here I can pretend I’m clever and understand it without actually coming clean that at this age and stage I don’t care if the world thinks I’m an ego-centric attention seeker. Okay, that’s not true - I do go and cry in the loos when I’m called some variation of that, but I quickly assign the comment to the fuck-it-bucket and move on to posting more photos of myself looking gorgeous.

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But if you want a quick psych overview…

According to Budgeon (2003), we live consciously on the surface of our bodies which are the sites of our identity. Social narcissism led to Frank’s (1995, 1996) concept of the ‘mirroring body’ suggesting that selfhood is constituted through surface imitations of surrounding images; we copy what we see and mirror the images internally so that a narcissistic preoccupation with appearance, image and style dominate the regulation of the self. The exterior of the body becomes a ‘work of art’ to be decorated, adorned and regulated through ‘body regimes’ such as dieting, slimming, exercise and cosmetics (Turner, 1996), and a commodity to be displayed, attractively packaged, marketed and sold (Featherstone, 1982). All very Instagram then, that space where I perform my identity (Butler, 1993) emphasizing the importance of my body’s outward appearance for micro-social

interactions (likes and comments). For Goffman (1971), the self exists ‘on stage’ – IG is my stage and I perform an assortment of roles for an audience of others who also relish being on display.

However, mirroring and performative bodies on display are not all equal under the gaze of the postmodern consumer in a mass culture where certain kinds of bodies are more acceptable than others: When I share my old body with scars, cellulite and stretch marks, the intimate textures of my personal identity are deemed a less legitimate self than the young, beautiful, firm and well-toned surfaces of the ideal body. In displaying unfit goods I am a deviant, an affront to perfect marketing and consumerism. My body isn’t close enough to the ideal and therefore has a lower exchange value purely because of my age.

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Given this high level of negative outside appraisal I doubt that there is much chance of me becoming obsessed with how I look as a measure of success. Even on the really great days where I am convinced that a halo of beauty hovers over my head I’m going to be dismissed as having a lowly status in the looks department. So probably no chance of reaching the top ten in the ego charts then.

Aesthetic discrimination will position me as an outsider which suits me just fine as I really don’t want to play with the plastic crowd.

My need to invite ‘the gaze’ (Mulvey 1989) both male and female does rely on me positioning myself as an object. But I don’t feel powerless or under surveillance, or indeed an object of possession, when I display myself on social media. Yes, at times I feel judged but that is both good and bad.

Another contradiction. On instagram we are both the viewer and the viewed at. The power processes collapses as it is no longer premised on a simple one way vision of looking.

Lesson learnt: it’s okay to enjoy posting photos of myself on Insta and that isn’t going to make me a narcissist.

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Some of the steps I took along the way Thinking:

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n I set the intention to move from a place of distrust to one of trusting that my body has my best interests at heart – “OK babe you’ve got my attention, I know you know best, I’m getting out of the way so you can do your thing”. The first ‘thing’ my body told me to do was stop drinking. I really didn’t want to listen to this one but I’d agreed to listen, so I gave it a go. If I hadn’t quit alcohol I would still be trapped in a cycle of unworthiness and unlove. My body had the answers I needed already, I just had to shut up long enough to hear what it had to say. n I now listen to what I’m feeling before jumping in with an opinion based on what I’m thinking - not easy for me as I overthink everything, (what on earth is anyone reading this going to think, well no one probably will read it so just write...) Making myself feel more meant I cried a hell of a lot in the first few months of choosing to practise this. At times I also noticed how felt-anger wasn’t

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where I had thought it was but was situated in the space at the back of my knees. I could let go of feeling angry not by ruminating on the feeling but by consciously sending the back of my knees love. Laughter at my own silliness dissipated negative emotion every time. n I focus on the parts before I leap into the whole. I have always thought I had stunning feet, so I asked: what is it about my feet that makes it easy for me to love them? Can I include my ankles? What about other parts of me that make me feel similar sensations?

Can I expand those positive emotions to other bits of my body? n Micro self-love worked for me until such a time as I could join up all the bits to love I saw in the mirror. In order to track those connections I drew a very basic body in my diary and when I noticed that I felt fabulous about any particular body bit I stuck a gold star on it! After a few months I was aware of where my body image issues were stuck. For me it was my thighs and my face.

n I asked odd things like “dear clever, emotionally able feet, can you please have a word with my face and teach it your compassionate wisdom?” Try doing that whilst looking in the mirror; at the very least you will laugh so much that you realise you like yourself more when you smile. And I became aware that I really do love my smile. n Some of the ways I chose to be kind to myself have become new habits – I no longer feel obliged to stay up later than my body wants so if going to bed at 7 pm is how I feel then I will do so. Also if I want to eat my breakfast cereal for supper rather than a suitable evening meal, I will. Whilst I’ve never been a conformist I have always swerved towards people pleasing, being more in my body and less in my head has shifted that. Sorry not sorry. n I have been doing mindfulness meditation for years but I often go through times when I ‘forget’ how much it grounds me. I’m not fanatical about meditation but it does get me into my body and out of my head.

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Feeling:

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n As I body-mapped my feelings about my body I made a big discovery: I need feedback from others to see myself in a better light.

I finally let myself acknowledge how much I needed external validation. Perhaps I shouldn’t need to be told by others I am beautiful (is it healthier to not need that approval?) but I do. I need the outside world to confirm my self-worth; please don’t hold back if you want to tell me I’m beautiful, I’m not going to complain of being objectified. n Finding big and small ways to celebrate being in my body has become normal. I look in a mirror and no longer put myself down.

When I step on the scales I allow myself to feel whatever I need then kindly remind myself it doesn’t matter. I tell myself I am a Goddess even though it sounds stupid. I accept all compliments with a thank you and leave it there. I make time and space to enjoy my body and recognise that I still have so much to learn from it. And then take the piss out of myself for sounding so ridiculous.

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n I’m happy to make others feel good because that makes me feel good too but I’m no longer doing that at the expense of my own self-worth. If someone can only see me as a way to make them look and feel better then they can fuck off. n I take my love and admiration for myself both seriously and as a joke. I take my embodied history in the same way. I am not making light of my past but even the really dark stuff is not without humour. n I have spent loads of time this year concentrating on how it feels to love, noticing love as a physical sensation as well as an emotional one. I have let myself love more and not felt embarrassed to tell friends I love them. I’m sure my vagus nerve is healthier because of this self-love commitment and it’s win win as I’m in an upward spiral of feel-good-hormone-soup comprising oxytocin, serotonin and dopamine. You can never have too much loving in your life and in your body. n I know that falling in love with myself can’t be taken for granted just like any other relationship and that I need to pay attention (oh how I wanted to use STAY ALERT). I will continue to discover more about me through imagery and words as that’s what I do best. I couldn’t have done this at any other point in my life. I didn’t have enough material.

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Relating:

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n I had to let go of relationships which relied on me agreeing with someone else’s out-dated view of who I was. This was very painful. And really, really tough going.

There are now people who I can only see in very controlled circumstances. I quickly learnt that anyone who I felt I needed a drink after spending time with wasn’t (and hadn’t ever been) good for me. These were the same people who made me feel fat, unlovable and invisible. n I have chosen any new friendships based on how I feel not how I think. If after spending time around someone I am full of beans then let’s hang out more. If I notice that anyone makes me feel like hiding in the cupboard under the stairs then no matter how much fun they seem, how clever or how witty, then I’m not going back for a second look. This is a golden rule for me now both IRL and online. n Social media – namely the GOLDIE magazine Instagram - helped me to find kind, caring, gorgeous people who are creating inspirational and encouraging accounts to help others find their own way to body acceptance. I followed hashtags like #bodypos and #selfllove and went out of my way to applaud others efforts. Witnessing and affirming others felt good. Realising that I wanted to be someone who made other people feel good about their bodies was uncomfortable but once I let it seep through my shitty negative fear of ego it was just about all right.

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Doing:

n I did a lot of fake-it-till-you-make-it.

I wasn’t going to give in which was why I made myself do The Real Catwalk in Trafalgar Square even though I hated the thought of it. Prancing in a bikini in public with strangers was hideous whilst I did it but exhilarating enough after it was over to want to do it again. n I knew that at some point I was going to have to get over my terror of being photographed and see myself in photos without hating them. I have deliberately and wilfully faced this fear over and over for the last year and I have learnt to enjoy the process. If someone points a lens at me I can now relax and be me – most of the time, I still have days when I don’t want a reminder. To reach this stage I had to take so many photos of myself and ask everyone to take photos of me all the time. As experiments go, it was very tedious for the few people who spend the most time with me. n I wrote an embodied gratitude letter to my body with all the reasons that I was thankful for its strength, for the times it had been my friend, for its dependability and durability.

I have the letter in my bedside drawer.

Sometimes I read it before I’m going to sleep and it makes me smile.

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n Writing the ‘I remember’ list was both painful and liberating. Ultimately it really organised my thoughts and from the list I choose some sentences that I needed to put away for good. I took those and wrote them on post-its, tore them into pieces and dropped them in a bin on a walk. Other memories I needed to forgive myself for.

Rather than actually disposing of them I visualised putting them in a pretty bag with pebbles and setting them free out to sea.

Some words I needed to forgive others for; again I used visualisation to add all the hurt to a bonfire and let go of my feelings as the smoke drifted away. n I went through a stage of writing positive body affirmations all over scraps of paper and having them in every bag or in notebooks or in pots on my desk. They ended up like BPI confetti and verged on manic. I’ve had a clear out recently and chucked most of them out with the exception of one cheque book covered in tiny words. Honestly every cheque, back and front, looks as if it’s been embroidered by a teeny person with ego issues.

n I made a list of acts of kindness I could do for myself and my body, things like getting a manicure or putting on body lotion or choosing to wear lipstick even if I wasn’t going out or doing yoga or buying a special shampoo just for my use. I had a jar that I could pick from to do nice things just for me whenever I felt like it. n Physical activity has always been vital to my emotional health. I have to move my body every day. I did a lot of yoga until lockdown but couldn’t get on with digital classes. Now I‘m doing a mix of training which includes boxing and I’m loving it. I’m always curious to try out new ways to move. Some stuff I go back to again and again; others aren’t for me, but I enjoy experimenting. I’ve learnt that my body lets me know what I need at any given time so I don’t judge myself if what it asks for is to learn to run after years of not wanting to or even keep nudging me to get on a bike.

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n Dance. Dance. And then dance some more. A day doesn’t go by where I don’t bop around the kitchen. Any sort of dancing does it for me. I did 5 Rhythms Dance sessions a few times and that really got me in touch with embodied emotions in a big way. At the time I wasn’t prepared for the intensity of those unlocked feelings so didn’t return. I will do again now I’m in an improved state of mind. n One of my favourite guided meditations is a classic body scan where I send love to every inch of me from the surface of my skin to the cells that make me up. I really linger over this and enjoy the sensations of each part I’m focusing on. Sometimes I send each part a kiss, sometimes warmth, sometimes I imagine I turn from blue to pink as I love each bit of me. I make it up as I go along depending how I feel. Sometimes it may just be one bit of my body that needs some extra

love and if that’s the case I will focus on that aspect. This doesn’t have to be long and can be done anytime and anyplace. n I also did an embodied variation of My Best Self where I wrote about all the ways my body is amazing, how gorgeous I am and how much I love who I am at my best. Lots of this was about how I look - I’m allowed to appreciate looking good as well as feeling good. At my best I’m fabulous on the inside and the outside. n I’ve no idea if becoming a vegan has massively contributed to my health and wellbeing but since eating a plant-based diet, I have had no pain in my feet and being pain-free has helped me stay more in touch with my body as well as being happier. Food has taken on a less emotive position and I no longer eat to please anyone but myself.

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n I chose to take more notice of my sexual needs and to take responsibility for having an orgasm when I want one. Basically I masturbated more and for the first time in my life I own a vibrator, although I’ve yet to be convinced that it beats a manual wank (I purchased the vibrator during lockdown alongside a portable steamer to de-wrinkle my clothes. Both are life affirming but not to be confused, though the steamer brings me a great deal of hot sweaty pleasure too!)

How I feel about being me now 110 I have tried to walk the line between loving me ‘just enough’ and narcissism but I know the balance has been tipped towards too-much-self-regard on more than a few occasions this year. I figure that I’m making up for all the years of low self-esteem.

Perhaps sharing these words and these nudes are too much – a whole project about me! Is this a way to share what I’ve learnt or blatant showing off and attention seeking? I’m sure someone will want to share their opinion of my over-inflated ego with me and do you know what? I don’t fucking care. As we now say out loud in our house “another one for the fuck-right-off bucket”.

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I remember seeing these naked images of myself for the first time and crying. This is me? This is how I am seen? This is my naked truth. I’m no longer content to be invisible.

I no longer need to hide. I love clothes but nothing beats feeling gorgeous underneath all of that dressing up.

My relationship with my body has been one of the most significant in my life and has had the greatest impact on my wellbeing.

Like many others I have had a turbulent association with my body with thoughts, feelings and behaviours that have played out in my history of mental ill health.

Body image comprises of the perceptual – how we picture our body in our mind, the affective – how we feel about our body’s appearance and function, the cognitive – our attitudes and thoughts about our body, the behavioural – how we display our relationship with to our body, and our overall subjective satisfaction.

If I were to take a snapshot of my PBI today I am picturing my body in my mind just as you see me in these nude photos: beautiful, happy, content, free, relaxed and self-assured. I feel bloody brilliant about my appearance and how my body works; I think my body deserves love and admiration. In sharing my body in this writing and these photos I think my behaviour shows quite clearly how I see myself, how I now think and feel so very differently from all the years

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where I was in hiding. If I were to rate my bodily subjective satisfaction it would be 8.5/10. I still have work to do on that, but I think that’s fine as I wouldn’t want to be a 10. Where would I go from there? My body and I have years ahead to adventure and plan and play. This is nowhere near the end of the story.

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For years my PBI had a negative influence on my relationship with myself as well as with others who I loved and the way I lived in the world. It’s not much fun being around someone with a distorted view of her own body. I am so regretful for the impression I created for my daughters and the damage I did to them because of my own skewed way of inhabiting my body. It wasn’t easy being my daughters. I can’t change that but I can attempt to change myself now and hope that in setting a new example, I can in some way balance that past.

These months of retraction into a smaller personal space due to the Covid pandemic have once more shifted my view of myself.

Early on I was unwell with what was most likely the virus and I have had the same emotional dips and troughs as many others.

I had already been listening to my own body more but being ill physically heightened that awareness and connected me once again

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with the effect of my physical health on my mental health. At times during lockdown I was overdoing being busy and verging on manic, knowing that a crash was around the corner but not wanting to stop it. I have a lot to learn still.

I started writing these words in response to having my hand slapped by Instagram, I shall be back to posting my life on the squares as soon as they let me back in.

However I’m pretty sure it won’t be long before there is another reason to take down one of my posts or bring me down a peg or two for contravening the rules of acceptable content creation. I believe in celebrating all bodies, in sharing the diverse and inclusive beauty that is in each and every one of us and deserves to be seen. I don’t want a plastic, manipulated vision of aesthetic values anywhere in my life. I want to see divergence in order to learn to be more appreciative: I want to be awestruck when I look at a body that isn’t like mine; I want to fall in love with the nuanced differences that make people unique; I want to look in wonder at visions of loveliness that show how varied we are; I want to remember that underneath all the layers we all have the same requirement of love, respect and attention.

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Thank you instagram for giving me the kick up the arse I needed to write 14,000 words in four days

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NOTES: Not quite the beginning: 1) In its present form, Instagram's community standards prohibit nudity. “We know that there are times when people might want to share nude images that are artistic or creative in nature, but for a variety of reasons, we don’t allow nudity on Instagram.

This includes photos, videos, and some digitally-created content that show sexual intercourse, genitals, and close-ups of fully-nude buttocks. It also includes some photos of female nipples, but photos of post-mastectomy scarring and women actively breastfeeding are allowed. Nudity in photos of paintings and sculptures is OK, too.”

2) Limmits were a popular range of meal replacement products in the 1970s, along with such staples as Nimble bread, Ayds fudge squares and Energen Rolls. All were popular in my house.

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3) The term "gaslighting" has been used colloquially since the 1960s to describe efforts to manipulate someone's perception of reality. It has been used to describe such behaviour in psychoanalytic literature since the 1970s. The term originated from the 1938 play (and 1944 film adaptation) Gaslight, where the protagonist's husband slowly manipulated her into believing she's going mad.

4) Applied Positive Psychology focuses on the scientific study of happiness, wellbeing, purpose, and strength. I studied for a MSc at the University of East London in 2014. My dissertation researched the links between happiness and fashion 5) Kate Hefferon is a Chartered Research Psychologist and Honorary Reader at the University of East London. Kate has dedicated her academic studies to understanding the role of the body within well-being across a variety of populations, topics and interventions.

Recent papers : Fleetwood-Smith, R., Hefferon, K. & Mair, C. (2019). ‘‘It’s like… it’s me’: exploring the lived experience of clothing attachment during wear. International Journal of Fashion Studies, 6, 1, 41-62.

Walters, R. & Hefferon, K. (2019). Strength becomes her’ – resistance training as a route to positive body image in women. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health. DOI: 10.1080/2159676X.2019.1634127

6) Positive Psychology in Practice (2012) Positive Body Image (BPI) Hefferon,K - page 809 7) Positive Psychology And The Body: The Somatopsychic Side To Flourishing (2013) Hefferon, K. 8) Tylka, T. L. “Positive psychology perspectives on body image”. In T. F. Cash & L. Smolak (Eds.), Body image: A handbook of science, practice, and prevention (2nd ed., pp. 56-64). New York, NY: Guilford Press. 2011 9) The 13-item Body Appreciation Scale (BAS; Avalos, Tylka, & Wood-Barcalow, 2005) assesses individuals' acceptance of, favourable opinions toward, and respect for their bodies.

10) Plus-size model Khrystyana Kazakova founded guerrilla fashion show The Real Catwalk to showcase bodies of all shapes and sizes, welcoming and celebrating everyone – regardless of gender, colour, ability, sexuality and size and championing messages of positivity and acceptance. I took part in the 2019 catwalk in Trafalgar Square.

Possibly the middle 1) Joe Brainard's I Remember, published in 1970, was a departure from the conventions of traditional memoir. The list documents the 1940s and '50s in Oklahoma as well as his life in the '60s and '70s in New York City.

2) I Remember inspired Georges Perec's Je me souviens (1978) which was dedicated to Brainard.

3) Weef recently introduced me to both these texts and my body told me that it had the list I needed to remember all ready stored in its cells.

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Certainly not the end 1) According Wikipedia Narcissism is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one's idealised self-image and attributes. The term originated from Greek mythology, where the young Narcissus fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water. Narcissism is a concept in psychoanalytic theory, which was popularly introduced in Sigmund Freud's essay On Narcissism (1914). The American Psychiatric Association has listed the classification narcissistic personality disorder in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) since 1968, drawing on the historical concept of megalomania. Narcissism is also considered a social or cultural problem. Narcissism is not the same as egocentrism or egoism.

2) Krizan, Z., & Herlache, A. D. (2018). The narcissism spectrum model: A synthetic view of narcissistic personality. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 22(1), 3) Identity as an embodied event: S Budgeon - Body & Society, 2003 - journals.sagepub.com 122

4) The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics. Frank, Arthur W. Originally published October 1995 (Second Edition 2013) 5) For vagus nerve, see Fredrickson, B. Love 2.0 (2013) 6) Introduction to The Body and Society: BS Turner - 1996 - London: Sage publications 7) The body in consumer culture: M Featherstone - Theory, culture & society, 1982 - journals.sagepub.com 8) Bodies that matter: J Butler - 1993 New York: Routledge, 9) The presentation of self in everyday life: E Goffman - 1971 - Penguin books 10) Visual pleasure and narrative cinema 11) L Mulvey - Visual and other pleasures, 1989 – Springer 12) A positive psychology intervention is an ‘evidence-based, intentional act or series of actions (behavioural strategy) meant to increase (away from zero) that which causes or constitutes well-being and flourishing in non-clinical populations.’ https://mappalicious.com/2018/02/03/a-definition-of-positive-interventions/

Acknowledgements: Thank you to everyone who has listened to me, shared their views and supported my growth, both on social media - our Instagram community is amazing - and in real life the last few years.

I especially want to thank those friends who have taught me that loving yourself is more than okay: Gigi, Rhoda, Lupe, Amanda, Tamzyn, Kaisa, Rachel and Ava. Thank you Patrick Falaniko for showing me that I can stand in front of a camera naked and survive. And more than survive I can thoroughly enjoy the experience and love the photos.

Thank you Weef for getting your pencil out 9 years ago and drawing me ever since. As well, of course, for putting up with me on a daily basis and designing pages which I love.

The greatest love in my life is for my two daughters, Hannah and Martha. They don’t have it easy with me as a mother. Who wants to know the inside out of their mother’s life or see her thoughts spill out daily on Instagram?

But they not only accept who I am, they encourage and support me. They read my words (even editing and proof-reading them at times), are generous with their feedback, and get why I do what I do even when it is painful for them to read. I love them with my whole being. Thank you is too small.

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Patrick Falaniko is a London based photographer whose work enables women to celebrate themselves and rejoice in discovering their innate Goddess. The Goddess Studio is a judgement-free zone and safe place for all women to be themselves. Prior to launching his studio, Patrick was a creative director in advertising and fashion for over 25 years.

“I never meant to make a stand about discrimination,” he explains. “I was born brown and plus size so being inclusive is part of me. I just want to make lovely art. But every day I get messages from women who want to feel beautiful, who want to express themselves, to be seen and accepted. So I’ve switched up the art to accommodate and boudoir was where I landed. There probably isn’t a more joyful way to make a living” Rebecca Weef Smith has never had a proper job – according to her mother – but has collected a mixed bag of skills along the way. Her most recent academic success was completing an MSc in Applied Positive Psychology and publishing her research on Flourishing Fashion. She is the editor and cofounder of GOLDIE magazine and her ambition is to be on BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour.

“At 56 I have no more idea of who I want to be than I did at 16,” she says. “I wake up and make it up as I go along just like I always have.

Somehow the way I live my life has sort of worked out for the best but there’s never really been a plan. I doubt that having overcome my camera shyness and crippling low self-esteem will change that much, but you never know”

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‘I had to look back in order to move forward’

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