“Now I see that if I were truly to be myself, I would break my family’s heart.” — Mulan, “Reflection” by Christina Aguilera
It can be overwhelming to live in a body when countless social and cultural influences send messages that that body is something to be “solved” rather than celebrated and enjoyed. While this is true to some degree for everyone alive, transgender and nonbinary individuals face even greater challenges, experiencing higher rates of mental health disordersexternal link, opens in a new tab, including eating disorders, compared to their cisgender peers.
This struggle can primarily be traced back to the damaging effects of a phenomenon that psychologists call “minority stress,” the mental and physical toll that people face due to being labeled as a member of a non-dominant social group. Victimization, prejudice, and discrimination can profoundly affect one’s sense of self and well-being.In fact, and in opposition to what we’re most often told, trauma and oppression may have a greater impact on physical health and mental well-being than weight or lifestyle choices.
Messages from diet culture, media, medicine and our family systems may loudly decry bodies not “in line” with specific standards, implying that some bodies are inferior, worthy of shame and should be changed to conform to those standards—even if that is impossible. Everyone absorbs some of these messages, which can shape our trust in our own bodies.
“Shame works because it so often speaks the voice of the dominant culture and those who have had the most power in your life,” Kinavey and Sturtevant write in Body Trust. “Shame is on the side of control, compliance, and being afraid.”
As humans, we don’t like being afraid. Instead, we instinctively seek safety. The human need to find safety through meaningful connections is an integral part of Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT), founded by Paul Gilbert in 2000external link, opens in a new tab. Per Gilbert’s theory, our bodies are designed to alert us when we are in danger so that we can seek safety. Although these protective functions evolved to keep us safe from threats to our physical safety, they can be activated by non-physical threats. For example, when we believe our bodies do not meet socially prescribed ideals, our minds process those feelings as direct threats to our safety, and we may experience the feeling of shame, causing our brains to internalize these messages to create safety strategies to cope with or minimize them.
A key first step towards self-compassion is feeling safe from harm. We can achieve this by identifying what we need and believing we deserve it. No one is better suited to support ourselves than ourselves. Self-compassion motivates someone like a good coach, with kindness, support and understanding rather than harsh criticism.
We can start by identifying our values and asking if these external messages align with them to become more self-compassionate. Metaphorically speaking, values are like maps that guide us toward our final destination, while goals represent mile markers along the route. Ideally, your goals and values align. For example, if you love nature, your “values map” will point you toward goals like visiting a national park, rather than the Mall of America.
When we don’t live in alignment with our core values, we suffer.
Therefore, one key act of developing body trust is learning how to identify what matters to us, seeing if we live by those values and striving to meet our own needs.
