To my self-conscious friend,
As I sat and watched you critique your body in front of the mirror for the umpteenth time this weekend, I started noticing my own responses to your self-hate. I was, as most friends usually are, in a complete state of denial. “No, your hips are not too big. No, you do not have fat cheeks. No, your shoulders are not too broad. Stop saying all of this. I think you are beautiful.” I reacted the same way I believe a good friend should react, rejecting any self-conscious thoughts you voiced. You see, I thought I was just being helpful, refusing to listen to your less-than-happy relationship with your body. I adamantly continued to tell you how beautiful you are in my eyes. And, truly, I mean every word.
That is why I was confused when your attitude towards your body did not change. No matter how many times I denied your insecurities, no matter how many times the phrase “Stop. You are beautiful,” came out of my mouth, you continued. That is when I realized the flaw in my approach.
For some reason, we have it stuck in our heads that if we do not deny self-hatred and instead validate how a person feels, we are somehow agreeing with what they are saying. I recognized, watching you and interacting with you, that I need start validating your response to your own body. Even if I do not agree with you when you say you are fat, my response should not be “No. Stop.” My response should be acceptance or silence, giving you the space to recognize and stop your own self-hate. When we are so used to hearing the rejection of our own self-consciousness, we stop listening. We become numb to positive rebuttals, and we stop believing them because they are just a tape-recording of what people think we want to hear.
I realize that I need to stop responding to you how you assume I will, because at this point, I am a broken record. I can validate and listen to your feelings without agreeing with them. So instead of putting up a wall, refusing to listen to your body-image unhappiness with which I do not agree, I should be opening the door to conversation and perhaps even helping you make a change that you would want. Reinforcing is such an important part of this conversation. I should find the words to tell you how beautiful you are while still listening, accepting and validating your own worries.
If your relationship to yourself is a rock wall, let us say that the very top is complete self-acceptance and the ground is complete self-denial. As you look in the mirror and judge yourself, you are only a few feet off the ground, dangling in your harness, stuck. If I position myself at the top, you will see self-acceptance as too difficult and too long a climb. If I constantly reject your self-consciousness, the reach to self-acceptance will seem too far to even try. My duty as a friend is to be near the middle, far enough up the wall to challenge your self-hate while still close enough to reach down and give you a hand.
So from now on I will try to be half way up this rock wall, validating your responses to your own body, not rejecting them. I will continue to voice how great I think you look in those purple jeans that you believe are too tight and I will continue to let you know how important you are but this condemnation of any self-critique will stop.
All my love,
Your Friend
