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you watch, read, or listen to something, it might be time to take out the
toxic. Tools 1 and 2 listed in Chapter 5 offer concrete ways you can
minimize toxic body shame in your daily life.
Pillar 2: Mind Matters
If pillar 1 is the equivalent of a body-shame yard sale (except we don’t
want anyone else to buy this junk), then pillar 2 is emptying out the attic
and basement and considering what we might do with all the amazing space
we’ve freed up. Once we have stopped imbibing body shame on a daily
basis, we can begin to explore how our old ways of thinking have kept us
stuck in cycles that dishonor our bodies. Body shame not only shapes how
we see our bodies; it also clouds the lens through which we view our lives.
If living a radical self-love life is a process of thinking, doing, and being,
then “mind matters” asks us to try on some new mental attire. Let’s call it
the season’s latest collection on the radical self-love runway.
Over the years, we have collected some crappy beliefs about our bodies.
We’ve been taught that our bodies are entities to control and subjugate. We
have treated our bodies like machines that are always on the fritz. In Eve
Ensler’s 2011 TED Talk, “Suddenly My Body,” she details how she spent
most of her life disembodied, never considering her body a part of her
being. 5 This remained true until she wrote The Vagina Monologues during a
period in which she describes herself as becoming a “driven vagina.” Still,
her body was outside her. She saw it as a utensil, an instrument she used to
get things done. It was when she got cancer that she realized her body was
not an implement at her disposal but a part of her. Her body did not have
cancer; she had cancer. Eve discovered that she and her body would have to
integrate if she wanted to fight the disease that had attacked them both.
They needed each other. The concept of “mind matters” asks us to
reconsider our relationship with our bodies. How do we end the Cold War
with it and become allies in achieving our best lives? This pillar of practice
is about reconciliation. In her poem “Three,” Nayyirah Waheed captures the
fullness of the second pillar in five perfect lines: “and i said to my body.
softly. / ‘i want to be your friend.’ / it took a long breath. / and replied / ‘i
have been waiting my / whole life for this.’ ” 6
Guess what? Your brain is part of your body! Why am I yelling this?
Because too often we treat our brain as though it’s a separate operating