I AM AS IS, AND DON'T AT ALL WANT TO CHANGE

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

ABOUT THE BODY, SHAME AND CHANGE

I am going with the children to a large playground, about a kilometer from the house, next to the school. In parallel, I recall once again the lines I saw yesterday, which were very popular before among the girls on VKontakte: “I am as I am and I do not want to change at all …” It seems like the “correct” words that it is important to accept yourself as you are, but I still feel the catch. After all, these words are often addressed to loved ones who fall into despair from some completely unpleasant character traits of the one who loves this "I am what I am!"

And there is also the cynical "a fool will love me, a good one, and you try, love me a bad one!" In these lines I see such a subtext: I will behave towards you like a bastard, and you bear with me, otherwise you will not accept me for who I am.

I go and think that I didn't just go out for a walk with my daughters. I put on a light sports T-shirt, shorts and sneakers in order to run … I go out to the old stadium behind the school building - the school, by the way, is functioning, but the stadium looks abandoned. Once upon a time, in the 10th or 11th grade on it, I played with my classmates against a team from this school in the framework of the city championship between high school students. I remember well that the score was typical for yard football, something like 11:10, we lost, and the winning goal was scored in the last added minute. Immediately after the whistle, Zhenya Sarana rushed to the judge with accusations that he deliberately dragged out time (and we were already waiting for a penalty shootout) - it was not for nothing that the judge was from the same school! And we, too, were outraged, but Zhenya shouted the most …

Such are the memories. Now I am 33, I found that my body is sunk, the former lightness and mobility is lost, and the T-shirt bulges out my tummy, combined with not the most graceful posture. At 15, I took part in regional athletics competitions, took second places in the region (I could not hold out a little bit to the first), ran like a madman, and my value as a defender in the football team of the Faculty of History was not in the ability to take the ball (it was pretty average), but in speed and tirelessness, as a result of which I replaced 2-3 players on the defensive. But many years have passed. Now acceleration is accompanied by rapid fatigue and long breathing recovery. I do not like it. I want to be flexible. I want to be fit, fast, energetic, lose five kilograms of commercials (or replace fat with muscle).

Yeah, dissatisfaction with yourself, rejection of your body? But what about "unconditional self-love?" …

I am leisurely running along the path, alternately listening to my body and emotions, then switching to thoughts about the post, which I will write in LJ.

Change is a natural process. Any change in the type of activity requires certain changes in order to engage in this activity. It is also true that our activities can change us. Therefore, “I am what I was ten years ago, and I do not want to change at all” - this is either about an extremely rigid (sedentary) personality with infantile features, or simply a challenge dictated by the unwillingness to “cave in” to someone …

Changes are taking place, and the question for me is who is more often at the head of this process: me or the world around (or the psychological field, consisting of people and my relationships with them).

What motive are you guided by in choosing to change or choosing to remain “the way you are”? Why should I now run, sweat, try to restore a long-lost form? Body and health care? Concern about being attractive to women? Hatred for an imperfect, "fatty" body? How do I feel when I run and realize the tension in the muscles, the shortness of breath? The internal interlocutor again intervenes: “How can you distinguish your real shortcomings from those that have been suggested to you from the outside? You see, for example, photoshopped beauties and beauties in magazines; muscular macho and lithe tormentas on the beach - don't you want to have the same bodies as theirs?

But this inspires you with propaganda, advertising … Where is yours here - and where is it inspired?"

Yes, I like beautiful bodies, and the line between “mine” and “suggested” lies in the feeling of shame. Do I feel ashamed of myself and my body in particular when I see Apollo and Aphrodite? Am I committing a betrayal of my body, renouncing it at the moment when I see someone else's, more perfect? Do I have dislike or any other negative feelings towards other people with "not good enough" bodies? … This, however, applies not only to the body, but also to any other aspects in which we find our imperfection.

So, the criterion for acceptance is the presence or absence of shame. for being so “wrong” and, as a result, a lack of desire to shame someone else for his imperfection. There is a big difference between "I do this because I am ashamed to be like that" and "I do this because I enjoy it." And I am pleased to feel joy and pleasure during my leisurely run, which periodically turns into a step or even hangs on the horizontal bar next to the track. It's just pleasant, and there is no desire (which was well known before) to achieve a result as soon as possible, to get rid of this or that "shameful" trait in myself … I may not like something in myself, but what I do not like is not causes excruciating shame.

I stopped, wiping the sweat from my face - it was evening, and the stuffiness was terrible. Typical summer stuffiness in Khabarovsk, when moisture from the Amur and the surrounding swamps / rivers / lakes hangs in vapors in sedentary air … Another important criterion comes to mind.

Whether or not there is a feeling of guilt in front of oneself for "having reached this state?" What launched your body, then how you had to constantly monitor yourself? Shame tells us about our complete and total insignificance, while guilt is the punishment of ourselves for specific actions.

But I keep thinking about what is the motivator of our desire to change ourselves, our body or character. What about the motivation not to do something, not to change? Can I say: "Well, yes, I have such a body / habit, and I will not change anything, I feel good as it is." Or, as my inner criticizing interlocutor tells me, can this be just self-deception, an attempt to drown out shame and guilt? Trying to convince yourself that everything is fine, since the willpower is not enough to change?

I see the answer in this : what price are you willing to pay for the decision “I am what I am and I don’t want to change”? Any choice has a price, because by choosing one, we close before us another. The willingness to pay the price for a choice is expressed in the absence of excuses to oneself. If you choose to wash once a week and not brush your teeth because you like it so much - fine, but do not be surprised that no one wants to stand next to you. If you are offended, you complain about the “rejection” of your unique personality by others - you are not ready to pay the price for your uniqueness.

Are you ready to part with a person, but keep the features of your behavior? Or, on the contrary: to change something in yourself, but to maintain the relationship? … If “I am such / such as I am, accept me this / such!” accompanied by resentment, devaluation and rejection of others and their feelings - there is no real acceptance in this, there is only a claim that the world sags under us. But alas, the world generally does not have the habit of sagging under someone, it is more likely to break the one who demands the opposite. Or simply will not notice this "you must always reckon with me !!!"

So, the acceptance criteria that were deposited in my head when I was returning home with the girls on a stuffy Khabarovsk evening: I am not ashamed of myself and I am not ashamed of others; I do not blame myself and others; willing to pay the price for choosing to change or not change. All this does not prevent you from being dissatisfied with yourself in something specific and working on it. Or simply accept yourself without gnawing for "weak will," "insignificance," and so on.