Whose Voice Am I Hearing?

A few years ago, a man I was dating reached over, grabbed the squish on my stomach, and said, "We'll take care of this."

I wish I could tell you I looked him dead in the eye and told him to fuck off.

I didn't.

I froze.

Then I laughed it off, the way so many of us do when someone says something hurtful and our nervous system can't quite decide whether to fight, flee, or pretend it didn't matter.

It mattered.

More than I wanted to admit.

Sometimes, even now, I still think about texting him and telling him exactly where he can shove that comment.

Not because I need his apology.

But because some part of me still wants to stand up for the woman who didn't know how to in that moment.

Here's the part that feels even more embarrassing to admit.

I know the research around body image.

I coach women for a living.

I know a woman's worth has absolutely nothing to do with the size of her jeans or the shape of her stomach.

And yet...

One careless sentence found a place to live inside me.

Especially now, as my body continues to change in midlife.

Things jiggle that didn't used to jiggle.

My waist isn't where it used to be.

I work just as hard, sometimes harder, and my body responds differently than it did ten years ago.

Thank you menopause.

Here's another twist.

I'm blind.

I don't stand in front of a mirror picking myself apart.

Instead, I know my body through touch.

I notice the softness around my middle with my hands.

I notice the way my clothes fit differently.

Or don't fit at all.

I notice how my body takes up space.

For a long time, I assumed that made me immune to the kind of body comparison so many women experience.

In some ways, it has.

I can't walk into a room and scan every other woman, silently ranking myself against them.

I can't lose an afternoon staring at photos of myself, wondering if I should suck in my stomach or stand at a different angle.

Honestly, I think that's been a gift.

But shame doesn't need eyesight to do its job.

It has found other ways in.

Sometimes my hands tell a story that isn't entirely true.

Sometimes I can convince myself my stomach is bigger than it actually is.

Sometimes the story shame tells me is that my body must be the least attractive one in the room, despite having absolutely no evidence that's true.

It turns out shame doesn't require a mirror.

It just needs a story.

And most of us have been handed plenty.

Some of those stories come from our mothers.

My mom has spent most of her life worrying about staying thin.

She wasn't trying to hurt me. She was surviving the very same messages I was growing up inside.

Some stories come from partners.

Some from magazines.

Some from doctors.

Some from social media.

Some we've repeated to ourselves so many times they've started to sound like our own voice.

That's the part I've been untangling.

Whose voice am I actually hearing?

Because when I get really honest, it usually isn't mine.

My own voice doesn't tell me my stomach makes me less desirable.

My own voice doesn't say my body has failed because it no longer looks twenty-five.

My own voice is actually pretty damn grateful.

This body has carried me through every chapter of my life.

Through childbirth.

Through motherhood.

Through losing my vision.

Through grief.

Through heartbreak.

Through dancing in my kitchen.

Through incredible sex.

Through laughter so hard my stomach hurt.

Through every version of me that has ever existed.

It deserves better than to spend the second half of its life being treated like a problem to solve.

Maybe what I've been grieving isn't the loss of a younger body.

Maybe it's the fear that a changing body means I'm somehow less worthy of desire.

Less worthy of being noticed.

Less worthy of taking up space.

Less worthy of feeling sexy.

When I write it out like that, I can hear how much of it was never mine to begin with.

It's a lifetime of messages about what women's bodies are supposed to look like and when we're allowed to feel desirable.

Here's another truth that makes me hold my breath as I admit it.

I still want to feel desirable.

There. I said it.

Midlife hasn't erased that part of me.

If anything, it's made me more honest about it.

I still want to walk into a room and feel beautiful in my own skin.

I still enjoy being noticed.

I still want someone to look at me, and feel that unmistakable shift in their energy.

Not because I need it to prove I'm enough.

Because it's fun.

And I refuse to apologize for that anymore.

For a long time, I thought wanting that somehow made me shallow.

Now I think it makes me human.

But here's what I've been learning.

Wanting to be desired and needing someone else to make me feel desirable are not the same thing.

Those are two very different experiences.

And the difference matters.

I've written before that sexual desire isn't separate from life desire.

It comes from the same source.

The same aliveness.

The same vitality.

The same life force.

Because this body isn't just something other people look at.

It's the place where I experience my life.

Pleasure.

Connection.

The warmth of the sun.

The comfort of my daughter's hug.

A deep belly laugh.

Heartbreak.

Joy.

Grief.

Wonder.

Every damn thing that reminds me I'm alive.

When I feel connected to that part of myself, I don't spend nearly as much time wondering whether someone else finds me attractive.

And from that place, being desired becomes something I get to enjoy… not something I need in order to feel whole.

Do I still get caught in the old stories?

Abso-fucking-lutely!!!

There are still days when I pull on a pair of jeans and immediately start negotiating with myself.

There are still moments when someone takes a photo and I feel that familiar tightening in my chest.

There are still times I catch myself wondering what other people see when they look at me.

And then there are other days when I honestly don't give a shit.

Those days feel like freedom.

Not because I suddenly think my body is perfect.

But because I've stopped believing it needs to be.

Maybe people are looking.

Maybe they aren't.

Either way, I'm learning not to abandon myself.

I'm still learning to recognize my own voice.

Some days I hear mine right away.

Other days I hear my mother's.

Or an old partner’s.

Or decades of messages about what a woman's body is supposed to look like.

The difference now is that I know those voices aren't me.

I don't have to believe everything I hear.

And every time I choose to come back to my own voice, I take one more step toward feeling at home in this body.

Not because it's the body I had at twenty-five.

Not because it's firm.

Not because it's perfect.

Because it's mine.

❤  Leah