Hating Your Body is a Complete Waste of Time (Just Ask My Tumors)
Aside from my occasional bouts of hippie fever, I’m entirely conventional in many ways, the least fortunate being that I’ve spent a good portion of my life turning my dissatisfaction over my body into a science. At any given point in my life, I could answer “what would you change about your body?” with a detailed wish list of ways my body had disappointed me.
Most of the noise of that negative self talk was silenced when Aaron found out he had cancer. There was something about seeing his heart and his brain and his blood with my own two eyes that put me in absolute awe of the human body. I mean, 12 hours after another human being had put his hands on my now-husband’s brain, we were laying in bed watching the Lord of the Rings. If that isn’t a testament to the miracle of the human body, I don’t know what is.
A humbling dose of "Perspective"Bodies are incredible, and instead of shaming mine over its lack of cleavage and comically large feet, I have started to treat mine as well as I treated Aaron’s.
So it makes total sense that when I’ve decided to finally love my body unconditionally, it decides to give me a little punch in the face by letting me find four tumors in my left breast. And after three doctors and one surgery to confirm that they are benign and to get them out of there, I’ve come to two conclusions: big boobs are totally overrated, and every moment I spent hating my miracle of a body was a complete waste of time and energy.
In my past I’ve been a middle school girl who hated my nose and tore photos of Christy Turlington out of magazines to share with my imaginary plastic surgeon.
I’ve been a high school girl so in awe of and terrified of a basketball team of beautiful Amazons who pushed my six-foot body around the court that I prayed every night for an extra growth spurt. Let me repeat: at six feet tall, I would pray to the Lord my Heavenly Father for a growth spurt because I was getting my butt kicked by a group of athletic supermodels who intimidated me with their hair and their skills.
I’ve been a late-blooming teenager so horrified by my inability to fill out a prom dress that I spent a small fortune on padded bras filled with everything from foam to water. Yes, water.
I’ve been a college girl so self conscious and socially awkward that I spent four years trying to disappear, leaning on one leg and curling my shoulders forward to make myself shorter, rationing every bite of food and punishing myself with hours at the gym until I could count my ribs and feel my hip bones digging into my mattress at night.
This is the kind of stuff coolness is made of, kids. NOT.I’ve been a young professional who thought nothing of treating weekday hangovers with weekday happy hours, sneaking cigarettes in the middle of the day and trading the recommended 8 glasses of water per day with 8 glasses of Diet Coke.
And in between I’ve spent innumerable hours saying horrible things about myself. For instance, did you know that I have fat knees? It’s true, you’ll never see my bare legs. Ever. Did you know that I have a weak chin? That my ears are way too big and also shaped kind of funny? That I have wispy Jesus hair that is neither curly nor straight? That I have adult acne and my teeth are too big?
No matter what kind of a girl I was in my past, today I am a 29-year-old woman who has her honest weight on her driver’s license. I read (hippie) nutrition books that help me see food as medicine rather than as an enemy. I exercise consistently enough that my blood pressure elicited a “holy shi*t!” from an impressed nurse. I sometimes still accidentally rip the belt loops off my pants by trying to force myself into things that don’t fit.
It turns out that 5Ks and cycling are much cooler than flip phones and Lucky Strikes
Making memories with family - also very very coolIt’s all a process.
I think you’re all beautiful and perfect, but I want to know: where do you fall on the unconditional body love scale?
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22 Comments
 | We never realize how great we have it, until we don't anymore. Very inspiring words, I will try to remember them each time I look in the mirror and open my mouth to complain. I am healthy, my family is healthy, I have every reason in the world to be thankful. Thank YOU so much for reminding me of that extremely important fact!!! I'm always afraid that when I'm old and it's "too late", I'm going to look back on my life and regret how I lived it. By that I mean education, travel, spending time with family. Your article made me realize that I'm going to end up looking back and regretting how I WASTED my time lamenting over my butt and muffin top, instead of being GRATEFUL of my health!!! |
 | Nora...you have a beautiful, amazing way of describing the very real and challenging things going on in your life! And your genuine humor comes shining through! Thank God above that these rumors were benign and you have delt with all of this with such grace and courage! You and Aaron are the most courageous two people in the universe and are my inspiration every day! You are Beautiful in so many ways! Thank you for sharing! |
| I love my ChickAdvisors! Thanks for all of your lovely words. You all amaze me. |
| you ARE gorgeous! I love love love my body because it does so much for me, is strong, and allows me to live life so fully. i'm so grateful to be healthy, it has the effect of wanting to take better care of myself, which makes me healthier and on and on. |
 | Thanks for writing this Nora- you're seriously so brave and inspirational! I can't believe all of the changes you've been through in the past few months- just crazy! I totally agree with the notion that when you love your body, no matter what you're going through it always helps. |
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 | Love this. |
 | Nora you scared me when you said that awful word, again! You sure have gone through a lot over the last little while, but boy have you ever learned how to make the best of what God has handed you. That's all we can do and you know, even though it may not seem like it at times. God only gives us what he/she knows we can handle. Some of us can handle a whole lot like you, others not so much. When I was told I had brain scaring and would never be the same, that my memory would be damaged for ever. Yes at first I cried, but then I just told myself ok lets go on and just see what you can do from here. I no longer care what other people may think of how I look, or if they even think I'm kind of stupid at times for the things I say, or do wrong now. This is just who I am now and I guess this is who God wanted me to be, so I just take each day as it comes, fat bum, skinny bum, wrinkle here wrinkle there, I don't really care as long as I know I have my family, my friends and the health that I was bless to keep, that's all that matter's now to me. Keep your head up like you have bin doing Nora and the both of you will be just fine. |
 | Nora, this is beautiful and you are gorgeous. This just proves that every girl feels bad about herself and we all need to get over it. The funny thing is, it's the people who are confident in themselves that are always the most attractive even if on paper they don't have much to brag about. |
 | Thank you so much for sharing. You give such a unique perspective to a problem that so many people struggle with. |
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