A New, Better Kind of Best

If your body has changed and everyone seems to have an opinion about what you should do with it, I want to show you what happened when my own opinion finally became the strongest one.

This is not going to be a standard post about self-image or body positivity. I don’t even know if anyone has it the same way as I do, because in my real life I don’t know anybody like that.

Almost every woman around me is unhappy with something about her body. They think they need to be thinner, lose weight, exercise more, or find the right diet so they can finally look better to themselves.

This is not the story of seeing myself as ugly or fat and then finding a new approach that helped me finally accept myself. Nor is it the story where I tell you that I found a great exercise that made my body look more desirable.

I want to tell you about gaining weight before turning 40 and finding myself not only content with this surprise, but even grateful for it.

I have never been on a diet in order to lose weight. I also had an athletic body all my life, and I am not afraid to say that, according to Western beauty standards, I looked good.

Thinness Was Never the Goal

I thought this was just good genetics and that I was the lucky one who didn’t have to exercise in order to stay thin. The truth is that I was actually exercising all my life, with breaks when I didn’t do much movement and always felt kind of guilty about them. But appearance was never the reason.

Even from the athletic-body point of view, yes, there were certain parts of my body that could have looked better, more toned, smaller, whatever. But these were mostly the ideas of other people around me, not mine.

I wasn’t working hard to get a six-pack. I was content with the lines running from top to bottom. They were even visible when I was pregnant. I didn’t need stronger arms. They were thin, and that was fine for me.

As time went on, my biggest reason for exercising became getting rid of the pain I was constantly in. And because I had been exercising for so long, I also simply thought it was something that had to be done.

We don’t own scales at home. The only time I actually cared about my weight was when I was around twelve and our Russian gymnastics trainer decided to put the scales in the gym doorway. We went in through it, and our task was to go out lighter. I remember weighing 28 kg at the time. The reason I cared was not my appearance. It was fear of the trainer. Thankfully, my family did not take the same approach. They prepared me good, fatty food at home after every training.

I also didn’t care that I gained 20 kg during pregnancy. I didn’t really see it on myself anyway.

I don’t know how much I weigh now.

What for?

When Rest Started Asking for More Space

For those of you who are interested in more of my background, you can read about my childhood in rhythmic gymnastics in The Sport That Broke Me, and more about my long relationship with chronic pain in Trusting Your Body’s Wisdom Begins with Being Held.

The more I got to know myself, understood psychosomatics, found out about my high sensitivity, went to therapy, found safety and became a mother, the more the thought of not exercising at all started to appear.

I had actually tried everything to get rid of my back pain, and nothing was helping me long term. At the same time, I was entering a phase of my life where I started to prioritize rest.

When my daughter was young, I was still doing at least sun salutations every day. I had a very attuned holistic personal trainer. I was even learning pro-am Latin dancing.

But the need for rest slowly and persistently kept asking for more space. Structured movement made less and less sense in my situation.

Eventually, I transitioned to no structured exercise at all.

Just please don’t imagine that I was lying on the couch all day.

I was a full-time mother, doing everything around our house, taking care of my body inside and out, breastfeeding long term, doing what I call My ShaMANIC Dance, and doing multiple practices that supported my lifestyle.

And as many of you already know, all of this led me to where I am now: I no longer live with back pain.

When My Body Became Soft

Last year, I also started to notice that my body was changing. I was not so thin anymore. I saw my belly growing and even my arms getting bigger. My ass and thighs got more cellulite. And when I look at older pictures of myself, I can see that my face used to be thinner too.

I am sure many women, and even some experts, would tell me that this is because of my age and hormones, and that now I should do everything possible to get my weight under control. That this is a sign of something bad, something unhealthy or simply undesirable, and that I should get back on track.

I was thin all my life, so I should keep it.

But my view of myself is different.

My body went through enormous pressure, both physical and mental, both personal and coming from society. It created a completely new human being, delivered her, and breastfed her for more than five years. It went through a long healing period, and healing takes energy.

Thanks to all of that, I feel that my body is finally safe enough to become soft.

I don’t need to be rigid and strong and constantly bracing. I am not carrying other people’s emotions and all their burdens on my shoulders anymore. Literally.

I am curvy. My body looks like it is supposed to look, naturally.

I never saw my mother or her mother being skinny either. They were always talking about themselves as if they were fat and their weight was too much. So perhaps the expectation placed on me to remain the skinny one in the family did not make much sense.

I am not talking about a dramatic change in my body within one year. I am talking about going from picture-perfect, according to the standards I grew up with, to what I see as a normal-looking body for my age.

And here is another part that matters to me: my body is healthier than it has ever been.

Most importantly, it does not hurt every day. My skin is doing what healthy skin is supposed to do. My blood test results improved without any prescription medication.

Finally, My Own Opinion

My body was there, holding me through my childhood experiences. It was there when I was treating it in ways that were not healthy for it, and it was there when I was overusing it.

My body held me through every single illness. It kept me pain-free after surgeries. It always recovered.

It went through all the fears with me. It was objectified more times than I remember. And all of this while being highly sensitive.

In this case, when it comes to body image, that means I am usually the first one to notice something unusual about myself and then ruminate about it until I reach the stage of total desperation.

It also means that I notice the smallest reactions from other people around my appearance, and I can take critical judgment extremely deeply and personally.

I was criticized for having a big stomach when I was a child. Later, I was admired by men for having perfect breasts.

So you can imagine that other people have always had their opinions about my body.

And now I am the sensitive one finally having my own opinion. One that is stronger than ever because it was created by my authentic self, in the best environment possible for me.

Research on sensory processing sensitivity suggests that highly sensitive people may benefit especially from positive and supportive environments.

This is what that means for me.

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I am definitely grateful to my body. There is no reason why I should push it to do more for me, or make it go through more struggles for me, whether through less nourishing food or more exhausting movement.

This is the time for me to appreciate it, to love it every single day, every time I look in the mirror.

Yes, it is different. There are reasons for that.

I know my body was always doing its best for me, but what if this is simply a new, better kind of best?

And what if this is how I am supposed to look when I am living in a way that is good for me?

I definitely do not care about cultural standards that are far from what I see as normal. I am not going to stress my body over someone else’s opinion.

I am more than enough, and that is true even from the physical point of view.

I now know much more about listening to my own needs, and I am sure my movement style will continue to evolve, together with everything else that is evolving in this safe and healthy state I am finally in.

Me in Rome.