Fat as defiance
Among the many, many, many… subconscious reasons I had for holding onto excess body fat, one of the deepest and most pervasive was defiant rage.
My body fat was basically expressing my defiance to a world (and to parents) that told me that, as a female human, I had a duty to behave, look and speak in a certain way. I was also not permitted to behave, look and speak in other ways due to the constraints of my gender.
So while on the outside I was doing and saying, and even thinking, all the right things as required by society of women, such as… ‘oh, I must lose weight, I’m not the right size, I should be thinner, I must do everything I can to be thinner, I must be on a diet, I must exercise, I must reign in my appetites, I must be smaller, I must be lesser, I must not eat this/that…, I’ve been so good today because all I’ve eaten is…, I’m too fat to be attractive to that man I like, I need to get thinner to be more attractive to that man I like…’ etc, ad nauseum.
1. Written on the body
My body-brain meanwhile was screaming a different story. Like a child who refuses to stop yelling in public while a desperate mother tries to cover their mouth and keep them quiet. Or like a man who insists he is not at all aroused while his penis is clearly engorged and hard, my body was shouting my authentic truth in the most obvious way – via the excess fat on my body.
While I was sticking yet another diet plan to the fridge door, my body was yelling, ‘Screw you world! Screw you and the stupid limitations you’re trying to put on me! Screw you and the ridiculous, narrow box you’re trying to make me fit into. Screw you for telling me I need to jump your stupid hoops in order to be acceptable. Screw you for dictating how I should look and sound. Screw you for dictating what size my body should be. Screw you for denying my divinity. Screw you for ignoring and belittling all the amazing gifts and talents I have to offer. Screw you for suggesting my only value lies in my physical appearance. Screw your misogyny. Screw you for suggesting I am lesser. Screw you for silencing me. Screw you for limiting my choices and opportunities. Screw you for undervaluing my contribution. Screw you for minimising me in every way – including physically. I reject all your stupid labels and boxes and decrees and values and limitations… and I will display this rejection of these things on my physical body. I refuse to conform to your narrow and miserable standards. I refuse to tow your line. I will not fit myself into your cookie cutter. I will write my defiance on my body, on my belly, on my thighs, on all the parts of my body where I hold the fat that you say is so profoundly unacceptable. SCREW YOU WORLD! I love my belly fat because it speaks my rage and defiance!’
The realisation that my body was speaking my truth in this way is one I’ve made relatively recently. I have been uncovering and uprooting subconscious beliefs that were contributing to the excess fat on my body for a number of years and, although removing other beliefs had helped, I still had more fat on my body than I wanted. I knew there must be something else that I hadn’t uncovered yet. There must still be reasons for the weight to be there — if there weren’t those reasons, the weight would not be there.
2. Your body speaks your mind
My conclusion is this, as long as you suppress and do not express your core authentic truth, your body-mind will do it for you.
There are myriad ways for the body-mind to express our truths and some of them we’d probably prefer to avoid, for example, unconscious communication can be anything from nail-biting to teeth-grinding, a skin rash, nervous twitch, eye tic, or lip chewing all the way to the other extreme that includes self-harming with razors, anorexia nervosa and panic attacks.
Of course, as I’ve said, a common way for our body-mind to express our truth is via the weight we carry as well as where on the body we carry it.
3. Open your subconscious treasure chest
The solution to all this non-conscious and undesirable self-expression? Madonna was right. You’ve got to consciously express yourself – fully, loudly, proudly. And there are limitless ways that you can do this, such as writing, music, painting, poetry, drama, dance, yoga, film, cooking, building things, raising a child, caring for animals, volunteering, picking up litter… whatever. We are creative beings. We exist to create and to express through our creation. Moment by moment, we are constantly creating and recreating our world with our thoughts, words and deeds.
Even the seemingly smallest decisions you make are expressing something about your truth. When you’re in a shop buying a t-shirt and there are several colours to choose from. The fact that you choose the red one instead of the green one is an expression of something within you, although you may not be consciously aware of what. Perhaps you’re not feeling very grounded and your root chakra needs support, maybe you’re feeling sexy or wanting to be noticed, maybe the red reminds you of happy Christmases as a child, etc.
In sum, in order to change some of the less desirable ways our body-brain is choosing to express the truth that we are too fearful to do consciously, we must go on that journey of exploration into ourselves.
We start by unpacking the symptom – which is whatever is showing up in the physical body — and follow the winding trail of breadcrumbs back to the root cause in your subconscious. What might you find there? Unexpressed pain or trauma, the burden of family secrets, the weight of an unpalatable truth, unexpressed feelings of shame, regret, rejection, abandonment, fear…
The treasure chest of your subconscious is full of wonders that are unique to you and they’ve made you who you are. Shine a light onto your inner world and watch how this reflects into your outer world.