Guys that don’t feel like guys can jam their genitalia into a guillotine and change genders. If there’s one thing we can learn from Franco’s (now Francesca’s) cryogenically frozen frankfurter, it’s this: Guys that don’t feel like guys have an easier time mutilating their mashed potatoes than convincing themselves they love their bodies. Which is [...]
Guys that don't feel like guys can jam their genitalia into a guillotine and change genders. If there's one thing we can learn from Franco's (now Francesca's) cryogenically frozen frankfurter, it's this:
Guys that don't feel like guys have an easier time mutilating their mashed potatoes than convincing themselves they love their bodies.
Which is why, if I see one more Instagram influencer preaching body love and self-acceptance by way of conscious thought, I'm going to go John Wick in the Red Circle Club.
Loving your body isn't forbidden. There's nothing wrong with loving your body if you actually love your body. But if you don't love your body, then you probably shouldn't try to consciously convince yourself you do. It won't work. It may even backfire, fostering further self-hatred.
Let's restart this from the ground up with a second-string thought experiment, so you don't have to think about dismembering your member, bulldozing your ball-sack maiming your mane, disfiguring your figurine, butchering your buddy, dismantling your mantle, splicing your scrotum, amputating your appendage…
Think of someone you're wildly attracted to.
Katy Perry?
Jennifer Lopez?
Anthony Mychal?
Once you have a person in mind, set a five minute timer. Your job, within the next five minutes, is to permanently rewire your brain and forever find this person uglier than Sloth Fratelli.
Can you?
You can't.
You can't consciously alter your brain's sense of beauty. You make “attractive” and “ugly” switch places in your mind. Likewise, you can't consciously convince yourself you love your body if you don't love your body.
This isn't how your brain works.
And trying to make your brain work like this may do the opposite of what's intended…
Like slamming shots of Sauza to forget your problems, only to wake up with infinitely more problems because of what you did when you couldn't remember your problems.
There's divide between your conscious-self and your nonconscious-self. Despite what your helium huffing conscious-self thinks, your nonconscious-self is the workhorse; your feelings aren't under direct conscious control, which why your sense of beauty isn't bipolar.
If your conscious-self were in control, you'd be able to change your feelings in a blink, with one single thought. Doesn't work that way. If it did, I wouldn't slam shots of Sauza every weekend.
When a conscious thought butts heads with a nonconscious feeling, there's tension — a cognitive dissonance, of sorts.
One of the ways your brain resolves this tension is with proof.
You have a fence in your backyard. Every time you've tried to hurdle the fence, to this point in your life, you've ate grass. One day, you tell your friend: “I can hurdle the fence.”
“I've seen you eat grass every time you've tried to hurdle the fence,” your friend says, “I don't believe you. Show me.” Once you make the claim, the burden of proof is on your shoulders. Spotlight is shining. You have to try to jump the fence.
If you try to jump the fence and succeed, your friend will say: “Okay, okay… impressive. There might be something here. I have reason to believe.”
If you try to jump the fence and fail, your friend will say: “I knew you were lying. You can't hurdle the fence, you idiot. You never could. Stop trying.”
If you don't prove your claim, you can end up reinforcing your nonconscious feeling. Talk about whiplash.
In relation to body love, “jumping the fence” could mean many things, but, in general, it means acting as if you loved your body. Acting as if means doing things you currently wouldn't but would if you loved your body.
This ain't easy.
Because acting as if almost always involves a third party. Doing the truffle shuffle alone, naked, in front of bathroom mirror isn't acting as if. You can do this even if you hate your body.
Acting as if is more like taking your shirt off at a beach, puffing out your lats, and not feeling insecure, even though a female is snickering in your general direction. She is snickering at a seagull eating a french fry, but that doesn't matter because you think she's laughing at your physique and your psyche goes FRRRRrrrrrRrrrrrt.
Meanwhile, your nonconscious-self laughs.
“See? I told you so.”
Maybe you can fake it until you make it. I can't. I'm an introvert. I avoid judgement and criticism (unless I'm behind a computer screen). I prefer the oh so obvious (yet anticlimactic) alternative path to body love: Building a body you're more capable of loving.
Here's why.
First, easier?
Eating spinach instead of Cheez-Its and doing push-ups in your bedroom with the door closed is easier than standing on a stump and lassoing your abdominal linguine through the ether to the delight of others.
Second, better?
Everyone assumes a lack of body love is aesthetically driven, which may not always be the case. What if you don't like your body because of how it feels?
I'd rather square up against a Komodo dragon capable of kung fu than sit on a leather couch. I hate the feel of leather couches. They're the worst. Why should I try to convince myself otherwise?
Maybe you hate your body because your (current) body is worth hating. Do you have chronic aches and pains? LOVE YOUR BODY OH WAIT COVID-19 IS DEADLIER IF YOU'RE OBESE TOO BAD YOU CONVINCED YOURSELF TO LOVE YOUR BEANBAG BODY AND NOW YOU'RE IMMUNOCOMPROMISED GOOD LUCK.
Anyways…
Building a body you're proud(er) of doesn't sound sexy, but you know what?
This is how it's done.
Much like fat loss pills and most quick fixes existing within the world of conventional fitness, waking up one morning and suddenly loving your body is an alluring concept… that doesn't pan out the way we want it to.
I'm willing to bet most high preachers of “body love” and unconditional self-acceptance are getting pwned by the hindsight bias. They've created a narrative that overvalues their conscious role in the outcome.
I triple dog dare you to find a preacher of body love that HASN'T
[a] built a body they were proud(er) of before they started to feel (and preach) body love, [b] received an abundance of external validation for some reason or another, or [c] always felt comfortable in their skin.
And if none of those three apply, then, chances are, the person preaching body love is, at minimum, somewhat attractive by current cultural standards. There's something unsettling about Kate Upton being at the forefront of the body positivity movement.
Kate.
Upton.
Yeah.
Just gonna go out on a limb here and say it's easier to feel positively about your body when you have the face of a supermodel.
Could be wrong.
But I don't think I am.
Doesn't matter, anyways. Because no matter how you slice it, learning how to love your body requires more action than thought. AJ Jacobs once said something along the lines of: “It's easier to act your way into a new way of thinking, than think your way into a new way of acting.”
This is another reason why “fake” body love can backfire.
Taking action is easier (especially initially) if you lean into “negative” feelings, like fear, disgust, and shame. You don't have the impetus to call your mom with any semblance of regularity, but you drop everything and visit her when she's in the hospital.
You rush to the hospital because you're motivated by fear, not love. The pain of loss is more powerful than the pleasure of gain.
Don't deny your dislike for your current body. Instead, embrace it. Use it. Parlay it into a powerful positive force.
Don't get me wrong…
You probably should love your body, even if your current body is eons away from your dream body. After all, you're a crazy moist machine thingy that's capable of voluntary movement.
And you have sphincters.
Sphincters!
Unfortunately, you're battling years of cultural conditioning and subliminal advertising. From a young age, you've been taught to feel ashamed and embarrassed of what you look like. If shedding this baggage was as easy as making a conscious decision, you'd have done it long ago.
So don't feel further damaged, broken, and whatever when your body love seance doesn't work. Yeah, yeah… another form of whiplash. When you feel insecure as a result of being unable to feel secure. They're saying I should love my body, but I don't… what's wrong with me?
Nothing.
No one wakes up, looks in the mirror, and says, “Hot damn, I'm looking good. But today, like the previous 234136 days, I will perceive my body to be a painful unsightly hemorrhoid.”
Doesn't work that way.