Worthy

We threw out our scale a few weeks ago.
In fact, I haven't weighed myself in a month, and it wouldn't be that big of a deal if I didn't think about it, every, single day.

See, weighing myself and seeing a number that corresponded with the idea I had fo no logical reason decided to be the most virtuous helped me make sense of my life.

I struggle a great deal with feeling worthy.
As in, I don't.

I won't go into the litany of things from my childhood and young adulthood that destroyed my sense of personal value, but I will boil it down to the three sentences I hear inside my own head more than any other words:

"You don't matter."
"Who do you think you are?"
and the biggie...
"It's okay for everyone else, but not for you."

These tenants run just about every decision I make, and back when I had a full blown eating disorder, I created an elaborate system of behaviors that governed whether I could feel worthy that day.

Doing 2,000 sit ups=worthy (no matter if it took two hours and rubbed all the skin off my spine leaving me with a bloody scab I had to cover with make up).

Not going for a walk because I had too much homework=unworthy

As an adult in recovery, I have worked really hard to  listen to my body and approach my behaviors with curiosity over judgement and forgiveness over shame.

But I still had my scale.

Is it any wonder that, after we threw out the scale, I began to have a real problem with my self worth?

I was unaware of how so much of what I chose to feel about myself was decided by that arbitrary, whimsical number.

I could read all day about how weight is irrelevant to health, muscle versus fat density, body positivity, and HAES, but the information never traveled further than skin deep.

Nevertheless, I am experiencing a reckoning.

I,
-
a thirty five year old woman with multiple degrees, several completed manuscripts, a husband, a son, good friends, a safe neighborhood, and a view of the ocean a ten minute walk from my door,
-
DO NOT KNOW IF I AM WORTH ANYTHING BECAUSE I CAN'T TELL HOW MUCH I WEIGH.


Now, my first reaction is to berate myself for being so stupid, superficial, and easily manipulated by our fucked up media and society's perceptions, BUT,
that is one of the fundamental parts of the problem.
I am far too quick to judge myself as faulty or stupid or morally corrupt for fastening onto something so arbitrary, but isn't this an important moment for me?
Realizing that my inherent value has nothing to do with a measurement, and more importantly my brain doesn't know how to imbue itself with worth if a body isn't involved, is a big deal

But now what?
How do I change these destructive habits I have practiced for so many years? How do I teach my brain to throw out the veritable lego kingdom built out of millions of bricks of doubt and coping mechanisms of thirty odd years?
Is this really why  throwing out the scale was so scary I couldn't actually bring myself to do it?
Is this why I didn't actually do it until my husband handed it to me and told me to take it outside and junk it?

Ugh.

So here I am, a girl standing in front of a mirror, asking it to love her.

No strings, no scales, no immediate pay off.

No caloric equations that will somehow placate the mind into believing something was managed.

No balancing of scales of any kind, no measurements, literally, just a girl and her mind, a girl and her body as vehicle, as sensory receptor, as child creator and sustainer, just a body for god's sake!

Nothing more, certainly,
but finally, nothing less.