The Lazy Genius Podcast - #143 - Your Body Is Not Flawed

Episode Date: February 3, 2020

I believe in a world where it is fun and not loaded to talk about our bodies because our bodies are awesome. Full disclosure: I haven’t always felt this way, not by a long shot. I understand the difficulty here, so let’s move into this topic together. Stuff Mentioned I got on my soapbox last week thanks to an episode on Living Without Food Rules. It’s a RUHL good time if you missed it. Sarah of @thebirdspapaya is one of the most powerful voices I’ve encountered around thinking about our bodies. Reading her words was a turning point for me. Download a transcript of this episode. This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi there. You're listening to the Lazy Genius podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today is episode 143. Your body is not flawed. So I got on a soapbox last week about food rules and diet culture. And today I'm going to stay there just a tiny bit longer. I have more things to say. But I want us to talk today about our bodies. I know. It's like so fun. It's not loaded at all. But I really do believe in a world where it can be fun and not loaded to talk about our bodies because our bodies are awesome. Full disclosure, I haven't always felt this way. Like not by a long shot. So I get the difficulty here. We're going to move through this together though, okay? First thing, the thing that made me realize I had turned a corner on how I felt about my body and all bodies. It came a few months ago when I was reading a post on the Instagram account, The Bird's Papaya. She, Sarah is her name, is one of the most powerful voices I have encountered around this topic, by the way. I'll put a link to her account in the show notes. She posted a photo of herself, I think in her underwear, which she often does, underwear, swimsuits,

and showed her stretch marks and her cellulite and all the things. It was a post about a mental turning point where she wasn't obsessed with fixing her body or even praising her body. We often think it's like one of those two. Either we're stuck in a cycle of trying to, to get something smaller or something's bigger, you know, working hard to hit some arbitrary ideal of what we're supposed to look like. Or we become obsessed with convincing ourselves that our bodies are amazing as they are and we can love both kinds of bodies the same. Here's the subtext, though, to that second attitude and it surfaced in this Instagram post. The turning point for Sarah was that she suddenly saw her body as neutral. She wasn't trying to change it, nor was she working hard to

convince herself that it was beautiful the way I was. She was completely neutral. It was simply her body. I wish I could find the post because it was so well written, but I couldn't find it. But I remember when I read it the first time and I scroll through the comments, someone with very excellent intentions to cheer her on in this mentality said something like, yes, love your body, flaws and all. And when I read that, I saw red. That was a turning point for me because I realized that our bodies aren't flawed. The subtext of the whole, like, love your body movement, which is really great and valuable, and I'm not knocking it. I mean, that's your body. But if it doesn't have a certain shape, that it's inherently flawed. Good for you for loving it anyway, but there is something wrong

with it. And I'm here to tell you that there is not. There really is not. We have been told for years that a certain body shape is the standard. And if we fall short of that, well, too bad. There's movement now in realizing that it's okay to fall short, but I want to challenge that the standard we're falling short of is an arbitrary, harmful standard in the first place. Having a round stomach isn't a flaw. Having cellulite isn't a flaw. Having saggy skin, whether you've had babies or not, is not a flaw. Being apple or pear or whatever fruit magazines tell us we are is not a flaw. In fact, we don't have to even dress our bodies as apples or pears or whatever either. The point of all of that stuff is to give our bodies the illusion that we have the ideal shape.

A smaller waist, perky boobs, a flat stomach. I'm guilty. I buy swimsuits only if they have tummy control bottoms. I actually bought a couple of swimsuits during Black Friday because that's like a weirdly amazing time to score deals on swimwear, even though it's like wintertime. Maybe that's why. But I bought a one piece, just like a regular tank swimsuit. and when I put it on, I loved it on the top half. The colors were great. The cut was really fun. It felt

like me, but it was missing that tummy control. There were no like roached panels or thicker fabric to keep me sucked in or anything. I was just like round and out there. I was really sad because other than the shape of my stomach and the suit, I really loved the suit, but I knew I'd need to return it. And then I realized what I was saying. I was saying that my stomach in the shape and size that it is, is flawed, that it's not good enough to show in its truest form. So I kept the suit. I'd like to say, you know, who cares what my stomach looks like? Well, I have for years. And I assume everyone else does too. But the more I live in the space of naming that my body isn't flawed, the more neutral I am about my body. I'm not hiding. I'm not showing off.

I'm just living. I'm just wearing what I like to wear. And I'm not worried if the different parts of my body that used to bring so much like stress on me are not a certain way. My body's my body. I don't have to convince myself that it's good despite its flaws. It's not flawed. My body isn't flawed and neither is yours. That's why I love following the bird's papaya. And a few other accounts that she has exposed me to, there are women out there who are dressing how they dress and showing what they show without trying to like zip up their parts into a faux shape or just our shapes, completely neutral. No flaws. No shape is better than another shape. The world has been working hard to convince us that that isn't true for as long as I have been alive. But it's not true. It's just not true.

And this isn't some like be brave situation where you step out in your swimsuit or in that strappy dress despite the shape of your body. No. There's no despite here. Despite implies a flaw. And there are none. There are none. So this is a very short, but very important episode to tell you that your body is not flawed. Don't love your body despite what it's been through or even because of what it's been through. Again, that makes us think that there's some continuum and wherever we fall on it is fine, but it requires like some work to convince ourselves that like we're still beautiful even, you know, because of these things. And no, there's just like, there's no beautiful despite or beautiful because. There's just beautiful. They're just bodies. It's

all neutral and human, and you don't have to hide because what you look like is great. End of story. So I hope that as you move through the day today, as you get dressed this week, as you like find your angles when you take a selfie, as you reach to put a pillow in front of your stomach when you're sitting on the couch, that you remember that your body isn't flawed. You don't have to hide because there's nothing to be embarrassed about. There's nothing to be embarrassed about. And I know it feels complicated because I've said this before. You don't want to be the person who's like the trailblazer and being brave. It feels like a lot of pressure.

But maybe bravery isn't really the answer. Just being a person is. Your body isn't flawed. Thank you very much for listening. If you are new to the podcast, the last two weeks have been super preachy, which happens on occasion, but not usually two episodes back to back. I appreciate your attention and sharing these words that I hope do make it more pleasant for you to just be a person and whatever room you're in, the less we try to convince ourselves

of our worth, the more energy we have to do what matters to connect with people, to pursue what makes us come alive, even making dinner without losing our minds. It's all connected. So I hope you feel the release in your thinking and your energy as you begin to let go of the idea that your body is flawed and feel as much of an unburdening in that as I have. It really is truly a great way to live. So that's all for today. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Kendra. And until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. See you next week. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that. More dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life? Because when you're living a B or B plus life,

you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to becoming you wherever you get your podcasts.