I was recently introduced to the term “embodiment” in the context of body positivity, and it made something in my brain click.
I seem to have this weird mental pendulum. I will feel total enjoyment of my body, or it will swing to the other end where I focus in on the parts I don’t like and never be anything between.
These days, the pendulum goes to the latter less so. This has come from unpicking a lot of negative mental patterns of thought, even though they still crop up when my general self-image is low.
What I have come to realize is in those moments I see my body as something other than myself. It is an object forced upon me.
When I am enjoying my body it is just me.
I ’embody’ myself. I am big, and it feels good to be big. I am enjoying being me, in wholeness and completion.
Not mentally dividing my physical self up into components to judged as good or bad.
So much of learning to love myself as a big Fat gay man is learning not to carve off parts of myself to reject. It’s all me, and I love myself.