How to take joy in your body

December 1, 2014 3:24 PM

What are some everyday ways to inhabit my body more positively? For a lot of my life, I have felt disconnected from it or have had negative feelings towards it.

tl;dr version: what are some everyday ways of taking joy in my body?

Longer version:

31, F.

For much of my life I have felt like my body is a problem to solve, rather than a part of me.

Without wanting to write a whole epic memoir here, suffice it to say that I came of age in an atmosphere filled with body negativity. Your body was only ever something you needed to work hard to control, de-hair, keep thin, keep pretty. It wasn't part of you, it was something you worked at constantly to make sure it appeared acceptable to others.

I've come pretty far in the intervening years. I am more confident, I feel like I have made progress when it comes to accepting myself. I mean, I'm not trying to change myself anymore.

But I still feel like I have problems connecting to my body. I still see it, somehow, as something to control or, if I can't control it, it's something to hide. Most of the time, I feel like I am trying to hide my weight or sweat or hair growth or what have you. I don't feel comfortable wearing revealing clothes. I don't relax physically with other people.

I don't feel like I inhabit my body with any sense of joy. The only times I do that are when I masturbate, and when I am hiking (I live in a city, and maybe get the opportunity to go hiking once or twice a year). I really don't like structured exercise classes, because I spend most of the time thinking about how terrible I am at it compared to everyone else, and how bad I look. I've tried yoga, but it was expensive and boring. I like dancing, but I always get into a funk afterwards at how stupid I must have looked while I was dancing and what everyone else must have been thinking. I like running, but have recurring knee and foot issues.

So I am looking for everyday ways to accept and take pleasure in my body. Hope you can help Mefites! I hope this question isn't too esoteric or unclear.

posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (29 answers total)

Response by poster: Have you tried other low-impact, solitary forms of exercising, like cycling or lifting?
posted by Anonymous at 3:31 PM on December 1, 2014

Total low-key, everyday way I do this: putting on lotion after I bathe. You're doing something good for your skin, it should smell good and feel luxurious, and you have to touch yourself all over to get it on. Especially if you're someone who lives in your head a lot, like me, it can be grounding to realize you *have* a body.

If I need a little more and have more time, I take a bubble bath and make sure I scrub every bit of my body while I give thanks for what it does for me. I always feel really calm and good about myself afterward.
posted by fiercecupcake at 3:37 PM on December 1, 2014 [10 favorites]

This year marks the first year that I've really, truly enjoyed having the body that I have and I attribute it 100% to finding some forms of exercise that I enjoy and that make me feel strong. Right now my favorites are barre, hiking, stand-up paddleboarding, and skiing. I'm not really great skills-wise at any of these things but I know the basics and every time I go I feel a little bit stronger, a little more in control of my balance, a little more skilled, etc.

Out of all of these, I would say barre is the only one where I initially felt embarrassed and like people could be judging me, but eventually that fear went away as I found that barre is so popular these days that there's ALWAYS someone newer than me in the class, and honestly everyone is so busy lift-tone-burning that they really cannot pay attention to anyone else. But, like, with hiking or paddleboarding, I hardly ever see anyone else and skill level isn't really apparent anyway. And in skiing, you will probably be skiing around other people of your same level just by the nature of how the trails are rated (in other words, you won't see any pros on the bunny slopes).

I have also put away the scale and instead measure my progress by spending a good amount of time once a week just looking at my body in the bathroom mirror, flexing my muscles (yes, really, like a dudebro), poking and prodding sore areas, studying the changes in definition since the last week, etc. My clothes still fit the same but this weekly inspection has made me more aware of the muscles I am building and has made me admire my figure more rather than criticize it. It sounds cheesy, but it really has changed my outlook on viewing my body as a powerful creature rather than a source of flubby embarrassment.
posted by joan_holloway at 3:43 PM on December 1, 2014 [10 favorites]

(I live in a city, and maybe get the opportunity to go hiking once or twice a year)

You can absolutely "hike" in a city, but what you get out of it (psychologically, at least) may depend a lot on what it is about hiking not-in-the-city that makes it "hiking." I also live in a city, but I go for long walks after work several times a week. Can you do this? Try it? See how it goes?
posted by rtha at 3:49 PM on December 1, 2014

I don't like exercise classes either, really, I find they make me self conscious and sometimes annoyed and they're often boring. I like yoga but I do find that the classes make me compare myself to others, which is no good, so I do it at home.

But I do like being active-- I think the things that make me most joyous in my body are biking (especially on dedicated bike paths--biking in traffic makes me nervous which takes away from the joy of swooping down a hill) and rock climbing. Both are something you can do by yourself (well, climbing it helps to have a partner, but it's not completely necessary if you go to a gym) and are fun and very physical.
posted by geegollygosh at 3:51 PM on December 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Hang around your apartment in your underwear (or naked), and in underwear you like and is fun for you to wear even if it shows your "imperfections". Other skimpy but comfy loungewear works too. You can spend an evening doing this, lighting candles, watching a movie and drinking tea.

Bathes and all involved bathing rituals are great for this too. And it makes you feel so much more clear-headed afterwards.

You say yoga was boring but I suggest trying different styles, teachers, studios and classes. There is so much that goes into making the atmosphere and experience of one class different from another with yoga. And it's definitely one of the best ways to experience your body as a fun place to be. Also, maybe try a more casual studio where the people in the class won't seem so fit and perfect.
posted by Blitz at 4:08 PM on December 1, 2014

Years ago I took a sensory awareness class from a woman named Marlene Zweig in Denver, Colorado. If you're in Denver I highly recommend her... Here is a list of practitioners of the school she was affiliated with around the country. She is on there too with a little write up. The class was called Sensory Awareness. Here is a link to a website for the organization. I think it might be what you're looking for.
posted by BoscosMom at 4:09 PM on December 1, 2014

Dusting powder. It's completely superfluous. It only makes you feel sweet and feminine and wonderful.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 4:13 PM on December 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

You might look to see if there is an ecstatic, conscious, or intentional dance class in your area. At the ecstatic dance class I've attended in my city, the mirrors are covered and the rule is that you don't really talk to one another. You just dance to the music however you want, barefoot. It's a great workout, and can be really energizing and judgement-free. You can take or leave as much of the woo as you like.
posted by megancita at 4:15 PM on December 1, 2014 [3 favorites]

One thing I try to do: I try to eat well. By that I mean I try to eat things that I both enjoy and that are good for my body, health-wise. Enjoying food in a way that will not cause me regret later is a powerful way to connect with my body and like it and be good to it.

because I spend most of the time thinking about how terrible I am at it compared to everyone else, and how bad I look.

It sounds to me like one thing going on here is that inside your head is an echo chamber of old social messages that won't be wiped away just by you enjoying your own body. Here are some things that helped me get free of a lot of those internalized negative messages:

In therapy, I did a series of nude self portraits. That was very enlightening. It was also fun -- enjoyable.

I used to read all those "stars without makeup" articles you see in various publications to help me get free of this bizarre idea I had that I was actually supposed to look like the cover of a magazine or something.

I sought out the opinions of men who were expressing interest in me. I asked them to explicitly tell me why they thought I was attractive.

This was a very eye-opening exercise because they all had very different answers. Older men saw me as "a pretty young thing." Younger men saw me was exciting because I had more experience than them. There were different body parts they like, and it was more dependent on their mind's eye than on something about me. The things men found sexy about me were quite diverse. This did not at all fit with my expectation that X thing was what made me/women in general "hot."

And it was a very enjoyable thing to have men look at me and tell me what they liked about my body or what they found sexy. Most of these men were men I never actually slept with. It never went that far in most cases. Yet, I got something of enormous value out of it -- including a new appreciation for my own body. I learned to see myself differently and to feel different about my body through just asking such questions and listening as objectively as possible to the answers, many of which I found profoundly surprising. In short, I enjoyed those discussions and learned to enjoy my body in ways I never expected.
posted by Michele in California at 4:24 PM on December 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

My favorite way to do this is to take a nice long hot shower, wrap my hair up tightly in a towel and then use lots of lotions and creams and all sorts of pampering stuff and then --

And this is the part where I really FEEL myself inhabiting my wonderfully soft and warm body --

I climb into a freshly made bed, unwrap my hair and hang about in my comfy bed, fully nude, until my hair is pretty much dry.


Mmmmm, it's just such a nice way for my body to enjoy being my body.
posted by waterisfinite at 4:26 PM on December 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

It sounds like the difficulties you're talking about have to do with the body-as-a-thing-to-be-looked at, i.e. things like weight, sweat, and hair growth are aspects of a body that would be mostly irrelevant absent thousands of years of social and cultural cruft arising from folks looking at one another, forming judgements, and propagating same*. Therefore, it might be helpful to find ways to force yourself to focus on other aspects of the body that I submit are way more interesting: the body-as-tool and the body-as-incredible-machine.

One's body is useful. I started to become much more invested in taking proper care of my body when I started bike-commuting, because, like anyone else's, my body turns out to be an excellent machine for safely and efficiently getting done some of the shit that I need done. Maybe you can find some way to make some necessary task more reliant on using your body at something nearer to full capacity (strength, endurance, dexterity, etc.) than it's hitherto been, and also find some way to be aware of this fact. The former could mean something like the usual stairs-instead-of-elevator advice, or it could mean using a bicycle instead of a car/public transport sometimes, or doing by hand some physical task that you normally farm out to a machine, if you find you have the time (these tasks can be good excuses to zone out in various ways), or by taking up some art form, like knitting or banjo-playing, that requires precise, practiced use of some body part, etc. The point is to sort of meditate on the fact that your body just performed useful work; it's your friend and can be relied on in a wide range of contexts.

(The extreme end of this is even kind of cool: maybe you'll find some physical task that really grabs you, and get very into it, and your body will become very well-adapted to that task, in the manner of a long-distance runner's low RHR or a virtuosic onanist's hypertrophied dominant arm. )

Like your other friends, your body is actually sometimes unreliable and complains in various unpleasant ways in response to various stresses. I'm slightly younger than you are and this just started happening to me in comparative earnest sometimes. The interesting effect of e.g. sometimes having my muscles ache, or starting to get hangovers when they're deserved, is that I'm suddenly aware of my body as an intricate machine shaped by awesome forces. Go take your pulse and calculate how many times your heart is likely to beat before it won't. (Think for a bit about how basically unreasonable and delicate that shit is and then take your pulse again.) Go watch this documentary or something like it. Watch some sports (probably Olympic-type individual sports, or like tennis) and focus on the bodies, incredibly well-adapted to a particular thing, doing their thing; also watch people when you're out and about, but not in the usual people-watching way. Watch them like an artist in a life-drawing class, or something. Hell, take a life-drawing class. See how the parts fit together and how things vary and are the same. The idea is to develop a way of looking at bodies that emphasizes the structure and function instead of viewing them through the lens of a whole bunch of grafted-on, received "aesthetic" standards that are way more about social control and domination than they are about actual aesthetics. A less fraught way of looking at bodies might translate into a less fraught way of inhabiting one.

*Or unless you're dangling from a ledge by your fingertips, or in some sort of environment with extreme temperatures, or something.
posted by busted_crayons at 4:40 PM on December 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

What specifically do you enjoy about hiking? What specifically do you enjoy about masturbating?

If you gain pleasure from strength and self-sufficiency, try lifting weights. Your body will look so good naked from the definition of your muscles. And you'll be so strong! Stronger than some dudes in the gym lifting near you. If your body is strong, it's self-sufficient, it's capable.

If you gain pleasure from seeing new things, or breathing fresh air, try more outdoor exercise of any type. Kayaking? Rowing? Organized photo walks in small groups? Or try just walking to the movie theater the next time you go, even if it's 7 miles round trip.

If you gain pleasure from touch, try a swing dance class. Most don't require you come with a partner, and the point is to partner up with another newbie and figure it out as you go. Or try to join an "all you can get" massage place like Massage Envy to have a regularly scheduled session of hands touching you. Or even a nearby massage therapy school?

If you gain pleasure from solitude and rumination, try meditation. It allows you to examine your thoughts without being ruled by emotions about them.

I too very much struggle with my relationship with my body. I too hate organized exercise classes. I too hate regular yoga. (I love bikram yoga, though, which is like meditation.) I too hate dancing classes of any type, though I love to dance. What I do is lift weights with a personal trainer. Being stronger than most other women in the gym makes me love my body, and I actually enjoy trying to achieve new weightlifting goals. And I meditate. And I get 90-minute massages as often as my budget allows.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 4:41 PM on December 1, 2014 [3 favorites]

I love going to a women-only spa. I don't know where you live, but maybe there is something like this where you are? It's amazing because it's totally relaxing, makes your skin feel wonderful, and is clothing optional. Everyone just wears what they are comfortable in, which ranges from totally bare to a bathing suit that went all the way to the knees. Women of all sizes and ages go in the buff, and it's cool because you get to see how we're all just human, you don't have to look perfect to enjoy hot water on your skin.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 4:45 PM on December 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

...other low-impact, solitary forms of exercising, like cycling or lifting?

...finding some forms of exercise that I enjoy and that make me feel strong

Just want to add my vote to exercise. I used to feel exactly like you. I used to HATE my body, wished it away, thought of it only as the enemy. Finding exercise I enjoy and pushing myself has changed my attitude completely. My body is an amazing machine that enables me to do all these incredible things! I can push it to the limit and beyond, feed it good stuff that makes it more efficient, work on specific performance issues and see it get better, it's aaawesome. I'm kind of ashamed that I didn't realise what an amazing tool I had at my disposal all these years.

I still have to depilate it, I still have thunder thighs and tiny tits, but these things bother me very rarely now, cuz my body is a frickin' miracle machine!
posted by ClarissaWAM at 4:50 PM on December 1, 2014 [4 favorites]

Exercise with the goal of improving your body's function instead of it's appearance.

I started a weightlifting plan a few years ago. At the time, I did it because it was the new hip way to "get the bikini body you want in just 6 weeks" or whatever. That didn't necessarily happen, but all the sudden my body could do or lift things that it had not been able to do before. I was totally in awe of the crazy, complex machine I had spent my entire life wandering around in, what it was capable of, and the potential it had to do more cool stuff. I stopped caring what it looked like (to a point...) because I was focused on using it to DO STUFF. Appearance became the byproduct instead of the goal, and it was WAY easier for me to feel connected to (and happy with) the way my body worked and felt than the way it looked.

There isn't any reason it would have to be weightlifting, but I think it's easiest to start feeling this way when you have a fitness (not appearance or size or weight) goal. If you like hiking, you could train for some big crazy hike that you could not do now or really do anything where you will be able to see measurable fitness/functional progress.

(on preview...pretty much exactly what ClarissaWAM said)
posted by mjcon at 4:56 PM on December 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Nthing exercise. Lifting heavy weights will make you feel stronger (there's something to be said after you finish a lift and go...Oh heyyy! I just put 130 something pounds over my head and down again and that felt good!).

If weightlifting's not your thing, then pick some goal and work towards it. For the longest time, I wanted to be able to hold a handstand for 1 minute then eventually be able to do a handstand walk. It doesn't need to be big, but just something for you to get used to how your body moves and works. At the gym, I am guilty at staring at the super lean people because it's just so pretty watching the human body move like it's supposed to.

I'm having my first year of actively being frustrated bordering on hating my body and that's mainly because I've spent so much time this year being sick and recovering from being sick that I no longer know what my body can do. Seems like a lot of what I considered easy exhausts me and if I push my body "too" much, I end up feverish with some sort of infection or another.
posted by astapasta24 at 5:22 PM on December 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

I really don't like structured exercise classes, because I spend most of the time thinking about how terrible I am at it compared to everyone else, and how bad I look

I started training in a martial art recently. My goal was sort of similar to yours. I wanted to "reclaim" my body after a string of health problems. When I began I was about 15 pounds overweight, depressed, weak, and for the first month or so I was terrible at it. But I stuck with it for a while and now I'm actually able to do the more difficult moves. I don't get tired midway through class. I go twice a week now whereas once a week completely knocked me out before. My point is, everyone sucks at the exercises when they're starting to work out. If you want to work out, you have to power through that awkward period. The only difference between you and a person who has been going to the gym regularly for a year is one year of elapsed time.

Structured exercise is a great way to own your body, but you can't expect immediate results. It helps to have some realistic expectations going in. You and I are probably never going to be world class athletes, but who cares? Set some short-term goals for yourself and work towards that. My goal was to get to a particular weight, but I've met that already so now I'm focusing on strength.

I can't speak for your classmates, but it is very unlikely that anyone at the gym cares how bad you look doing your exercises. Actually, I've found the converse to be true. Gym regulars have given me polite tips on what I'm doing wrong. Some gyms attract douchy people but most of them are focused on their own thing, and the rest of them aren't deserving of your time. This is all in your head.
posted by deathpanels at 5:57 PM on December 1, 2014

Using my hands and my bodily strength to build something for other people has been extremely rewarding because it's allowed me to see the parts I used to view as flawed as inherently badass. I say my hands because for as long as I can remember I've had some weird complex about my hands. But you know what? My weird little kid hands that people used to make fun of because they're attached to someone rather tall? They're super good at sorting vegetables at the local food bank and even better at deftly creating the designs that help get that food bank more support. Wouldn't trade 'em even if I could. I like seeing my body as a tool, rather than just a shell I inhabit. Maybe the same would work for you.
posted by Hermione Granger at 5:57 PM on December 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Try doing a Body Scan. Think about all the amazing things your body does for you. Digests your food. Pumps your blood. Regulates your temperature. Protects you from getting poked in the eye.
posted by IfIShouldEverComeBack at 6:12 PM on December 1, 2014

I love the workout I get when hand planing a board flat or using a rip saw for an extended period of time. Hand tool woodworking doesn't require safety gear or expensive dust collection equipment. You expend calories while producing useful objects, gaining hand skills and insight into all the material properties of wood. I'm no expert but every time I finish a project I feel more powerful. See if you can find a local course to get started.
posted by bonobothegreat at 6:46 PM on December 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Hanging out in the hot tub at my local YMCA is something that helps me with this and doesn't require effort. Your YMCA may vary, but mine has the hot tub inside the women's locker room, which is full of women of every age and shape (and many different nationalities) walking around buck naked. One time a woman even complimented me on my leg hair (prefaced with "I'm not trying to hit on you") which was weird but also awesome and hilarious. And aside from that, hot tubs feel nice and are an easy way to do something nice for your body. I feel about the same from using the hot tub as from lifting weights or doing a yoga class.
posted by needs more cowbell at 9:22 PM on December 1, 2014

I'm a strong proponent of the "spend lots of time naked or in your skivvies" camp. Hang out with your body. See it's reflections in your shiny household objects. Watch as it does the work it does. Learn it better.

I, for example, throw on my Taking Over the World Pumps and clean when I'm home alone.
posted by Grandysaur at 11:40 PM on December 1, 2014

Best thing I ever found to help with the process of conversion from a collection of faulty parts to a six foot capable ape: shrooms combined with clothes-optional festivals.
posted by flabdablet at 12:35 AM on December 2, 2014 [2 favorites]

...I really don't like structured exercise classes, because I spend most of the time thinking about how terrible I am at it compared to everyone else, and how bad I look...

...I like dancing, but I always get into a funk afterwards at how stupid I must have looked while I was dancing and what everyone else must have been thinking...

The mains issue seems grounded in your hyper vigilance about how others perceive you.

I used to feel foolish in exercise classes. Now, I enjoy taking new classes where I will look like an idiot. Why? Before going, I remind myself to show up with a good sense of humour. I allow myself not to be perfect. And that promise to allow myself to laugh at my stumbling ways is incredibly liberating. Once I started recasting those classes (or those dancing like a fool moments) from "everyone is judging me" to "I'm allowed to learn and make mistakes and even have fun doing so", I noticed that not many people are paying all that much attention to me. And those who do notice me struggling smile back when they see me laughing.

We're all humans, and we all know what it feels like to feel self-conscious. Chances are, most people around you have a lot more empathy than you give them credit for.
posted by Milau at 3:02 AM on December 2, 2014

I haven't tried it yet, but my friends who've experimented with rock climbing (mostly at the indoor places around here) have found it pretty transformative. Everyone sucks at it at first, because it's a skill and because you have to develop the muscles to do it, but it's focused totally on the functionality, rather than appearance, of your body, it's absorbing and thinky, and you have a tangible accomplishment (hey, I got to the top of the dingus!). It's pretty empowering to accomplish a thing like that. Also, it can be outdoorsy at your choice.

For me personally, the best things have been running (which I totally suck at and which I realize isn't an option for you), and going to gender-separated bathhouse type spas. Like, if you have a bathhouse near you, especially a Korean-style one, that is just awesome. You go, you hang out near a bunch of totally normal non-model people and soak until all of the tension is out of your body, you maybe pay a little old lady to abuse your sore muscles, you cook yourself in a sauna. No mirrors, certainly some comparison and self-consciousness at first because NAKED, but lots of relaxation and body presence and feelings of self-care. SO GOOD. It is maybe jumping in at the deep end, but if you've got a female friend you trust, a spa day at a bathhouse can be really, really nice.
posted by bowtiesarecool at 6:22 AM on December 2, 2014 [2 favorites]

Sleep nude or in ur skivvys on sheets that feel amazing to you (Egyptian cotton?). Then wake up and hang out there for a while and feel how good it feels. Maybe make this a ritual...set your alarm for a half hour before you need to get out of bed for you time. Give yourself this time and space to do this.
posted by PeaPod at 8:27 AM on December 2, 2014

You don't mention where you live so this may not be helpful- I think you would really benefit from taking Gaga People (Not to be confused with "Gaga Dancers" which is for dancers.) Gaga People is for regular people who are not natural dancers. It's a movement class where the instructor does not give you specific moves to do. Instead the instructor tells people to embody the 'quality' of certain movements. It's all improvised and there is no audience (no one is allowed to watch either.) There are also no mirrors allowed so no one can watch themselves or others making it completely judgement-free. The class helps regular people become more in tune with their bodies. It's more popular internationally though and unfortunately there are only 3 states in the U.S. That currently have classes for non-dancers.
posted by rancher at 2:23 PM on December 2, 2014

A bit late to the party here, but I came across the post and wanted to contribute. Sex toys! I'm surprised that nobody mentioned sexuality, and I suppose it can be kind of fraught because it involves someone else and if you pick the wrong person, they (grrr) could just as easily make you feel bad about your body as good. But, even as a solo individual, you can have a field day shopping for fun sex toys on Amazon and experimenting with the fun things your body is capable of.
posted by htid at 2:01 PM on December 6, 2014