It’s not about trusting your body. It’s about letting go.
Just this week I heard one of my clients reiterate her resistance to progress in recovery because she “just can’t trust [her] body.”
What she means is, she can’t trust that she won’t gain weight from nourishing her body. It means she can’t trust her recovered body to be a size she likes.
And this is where trust is misplaced. Because recovery isn’t about trusting your body to do what you want it to do and be the size you want it to be.
You may gain weight in recovery. Your recovered body, may not be a size that you want.
When I was a “budding” therapist, I used to try to motivate clients toward recovery by talking about how their bodies would be more stable when they are regularly nourished, than when they are deprived. When you move out of your body’s way, it will settle towards it’s set point and chill out. While this is true, it’s also not true.
Bodies are complicated. So much more so than we even know. And while set-point is a real thing, supported by research, I no longer want to align with the eating disorder mindset by asserting that bodies won’t change after they have been chronically nourished. I don’t want recovery to still be about weight.
Further, your body is not static but constantly fluctuating and changing.
As a mother to four children, my body has gone through a hell of a lot of change
over the decade I spent birthing and nursing them. While pregnancy was an active choice I made, I witnessed how incredibly drastic my body could morph and shift in incredible ways.
Now, as I enter middle-age (turning 40 soon!) my body seems to be accelerating toward even more change. This time, it is not change I am choosing. I can honestly say I don’t love the combination of acne and wrinkles. And hormone shifts are no joke. My body is also shifting and morphing its shape. While it’s far more subtle than pregnancy and may be unnoticeable to others, it is indeed, changing.
So when I think about trusting my body, it’s not trusting her to always be what I want her to be or even show up for me in the ways I want her to. As I am aging, she’s getting less predictable and more demanding, and I’m assuming that only gets more challenging with time.
My relationship with my body is one of mutual respect and care. Respecting and caring for my body is a form of trust. But that trust is knowing she is doing the best she can to take care of me and has nothing to do with her size.
The bigger trust is not placed on my body, but rather in myself. Being in a place with body peace and food freedom, I trust that whatever my body does, I am ok. And I am ok, because I know my worth and contributions in this life are not related to the size of my body. My internal sense of self is stable, even as my earth-suit is always changing.
So I told my client who “just can’t trust [her] body” that, “It’s not about trust. It’s about letting go.” Recovery is relinquishing control in service of freedom. Recovery is understanding that your body has the right to change according to her needs and wellbeing. Recovery is understanding your body, by design, does, and should, continue to change across your years on this blue planet. Recovery is trusting that you are ok in the changes of your body, your life, and this world.