What's Really Going On, or, Skinny Girls Have Body Image Issues, Too

I'm nearly finished with my Curvy Yoga Certification training, and I'm starting to think about setting up workshops and series classes and all that fun stuff. In fact, I spent a good chunk of tonight working on a couple of marketing materials like flyers and brochures.

And you know, as I've been working through the materials from each module and completing the homework, I've become so much more aware of my own body image issues.

Looking at me on the surface, you might wonder, what the hell is she talking about?

Yeah, I've lost a LOT of weight in the last few years. Like, more than 30 pounds. And I've managed to keep it off, too, for the most part.

I find myself practicing some very physically intense forms of yoga. (Although not hot yoga, noooo!) And I've developed a lot of strength as a result of that - hell, I've got real muscles! I can hike again! I can bike! I can swim! I have energy!

But the other day, I put on my jeans, and I put on my shirt, and I looked down at my belly, and I just squirmed around a whole lot inside.

I had a BELLY. Ugh!

There it was, sticking out of my shirt like this grotesque blob... It rolled all the way down my front, down into the waistband of my jeans. It was flabby. It flopped around. It was ROUND.  The more I looked down at it, the more I felt like I couldn't possibly go out in public like, well, like THIS. Children would run away screaming. Adults would point and whisper. I was a horrible person because I had a floppy tummy.

For more than a few minutes, I had this picture in my head of a super-slim Jennifer Aniston with her flat, non-existent belly and I was jealous. So jealous.

Why did I have this huge, enormous, gross jiggly belly full of flab to contend with on this particular morning? Why, why, why? Why couldn't I be slim and fabulous like Jennifer Aniston?

Before I could beat myself up any more over my belly, I stopped to remember something that I had read for Curvy Yoga training. And it was something like: no matter what part of my body I hate on this particular day, what's really going on is never about my body.

Woa.

Reality check!

Yup. That's me with my big belly. Reality check, anyone?

 That was a clear sign to me that maybe I needed to slow down and figure out what was really going on that morning. Because whatever I was angry about, it wasn't my belly.

After I dropped the boys off at school, I spent a little time in quiet meditation, and hey, a few things came up as I sat in stillness.

None of them were about my body.

They were more along the lines of: oh my God I have so many bills to pay and I have deadlines coming up and I feel like I don't know what I'm doing half the time and I'm scared and my job is driving my crazy and what if my husband doesn't love me anymore and what if I teach a really sucky yoga class tonight and and and....

So I was feeling all of these insecurities about other things that had absolutely nothing to do with the way my body looks, and I was just internalizing them all into a temper tantrum about what my body looked like.

What did I do about it? Stay tuned....