“Our work is not to change what you do, but to witness what you do with enough awareness, enough curiosity, enough tenderness that the lies and old decisions upon which the compulsion is based become apparent and fall away.”
― Geneen Roth, Women, Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything
I have a vivid memory from my childhood.
I was friends with 3 sisters who lived on my street.
One day we were hanging out at their aunt's house and she made a comment that not only impacted me in that moment, but for most of my adolescence.
She said "Amanda, you're so tiny...the only things that are big on you are your nose and your eyebrows."
Now, I was aware that I had a big nose...but big eyebrows? That was news to me.
I remember the feeling of embarrassment—my face getting flush, my palms getting sweaty.
I was ashamed...of my eyebrows.
In retrospect it seems like such a silly thing to be concerned with. But in that moment it opened a Pandora's Box—a box full of negative emotions.
Feelings of being different, of being undesirable, of being "less than".
It was the beginnings of self criticism, the beginnings of trying to "fix" myself.
That day I went home and got out the tweezers.
In a frenzy I plucked and I plucked until I was left with well...a picture is worth a thousand words as they say.
(Yikes!...That center part wasn't really doing me any favors either...🤨)
In a way, my eyebrows were a physical representation of how I felt about myself.
I didn't think I was "enough", that I was "worthy".
If I tweezed just a little more, then they would be perfect—then I would be perfect.
But there was always "just a little more".
And I never reached "perfect".
It wasn't until after high school that I finally let them grow out (and only thanks to the intervention of a friend who threatened me with physical violence if I didn't stop tweezing...😆).
But the feeling of "not good enough" lingered with me for much longer.
Even though I appeared "changed" from an outsider's perspective, I was still obsessing in front of the mirror every day.
I was still searching for problems that needed "fixing".
I was still judging myself incessantly.
Because my problem wasn't ever the tweezing.
There isn't anything inherently "wrong" with tweezing your eyebrows.
The tool isn't the problem.
The action isn't the problem.
The mindset of shame is the problem.
Acting out of self hatred is the problem.
After many years of emotional work, I can now tweeze my eyebrows from a place of both self care and self love (though in pre-quarantine days I would outsource this to the eyebrow salon on my block).
The tweezers are no longer a vehicle for self loathing, but simply a self grooming tool as innocuous as a toothbrush.
So often fitness and weight loss behaviors get demonized by the public.
Weighing yourself regularly is "unhealthy".
Tracking your food is "obsessive".
Filming a workout set is "narcissistic".
But what happens when we remove judgement from these actions and see them simply as tools, devoid of morality?
We can step on a scale without shame.
We can take progress photos/videos without criticism.
If we stop judging the actions and instead bring awareness to the emotions that are driving the actions we can use these tools from a new place—a place of self love rather than self hate.
And when we love ourselves, we take much better care of our bodies.
We eat better. We move more.
We can bring about real lasting change by using curiosity and kindness instead of shame and criticism.
So stop demonizing the scale.
The real "enemy" lies not within the tool, but within our mind.
The mind that says you need "just a little more fixing" before you'll be enough.
But you're already enough.
Bushy eyebrows and all.
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