The Pleasure Is All Me

The weather has been stealthily getting warmer and the evenings longer which means we are beginning to spend time outside again. This also means the unwelcome return of Summer insecurities. For years I have been bombarded, as we all have, with the propaganda that there is a certain kind of body that you need for Summer. That you need to get “beach body ready”. Now having done a lot of research and work on this on body image, I know that this is bollocks. Why then have I been feeling so rubbish about myself? Why am I not embodying what I preach?

I was feeling super guilty and miserable for feeling this way and then along came this brilliant post from Beauty Redefined on Instagram.

Image Description: Black text on a white background which reads "If you only love your body when you love how you look, that is not love. That is objectification. - Lexie & Lindsay Kite, Ph.D @Beauty_redefined | # morethanabody" The following phrases and words are underlined in pink: love your body, look and objectification. And the words look and objectification are all in caps lock.

The caption under this image had many glorious points which I encourage you to read but one of them was as follows - “If you take “love your body” to mean you have to love how your body LOOKS, that is the most fleeting, fickle, love imaginable. You’ll live with heartbreak every day. If your body only deserves your love when you like your appearance, that’s not really love, is it?”

Now as we know, I’m not advocating for body love or body positivity as I don’t think it’s realistic to love your body all the time but something hit me really hard about just focusing on looks. That’s what I have been doing. I have been gauging my whole progress with my body image against how I feel about the way look in the mirror or photographs. I have only been taking one aspect of myself into consideration - the outside.

I really think this is the key to why I haven’t been embodying all this knowledge, research and new beliefs about body image. So far, the focus has been on how I feel about how I look and not on how I feel to be in this body, to be me.

Since June, I have been working with the wonderful Jane Gauntlett on a new theatrical experience all around pleasure. Through this project I have been introduced to pleasure activism and the work of Adrienne Maree Brown. I originally thought it was all about the solo sexy times, and while that has its place, it’s more about how finding pleasure in our own existence is fundamental to bringing about real change in the world.

Pleasure by its definition is a feeling of happy satisfaction and enjoyment and here are many things in my life that give me this feeling - crafting projects, cups of tea in mugs with substantial handles (if you know you know), finding the patch of sunlight on your bed and lying on it, blowing bubbles in drinks using a straw and a million other things. However, whenever I draw up a list of the things in life that bring me pleasure, my body, or myself, never makes the list.

So this month I have decided to sort of mash these two things together. I think I have spent a lot of time looking at why I have been miserable in my body, the history of that and the experiences that have reinforced it so now I want to explore what I am with more of a positive lens. I am going to turn my eyes inward and focus on what about being in my body brings me pleasure. What things can my body do that bring me joy? If there is nothing that springs to mind, then why the hell is that? How can I reset that balance? How can I begin to feel that being Amy and living in this body is one of life’s great pleasures?