Oct

26

By Kate Daigle

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Categories: body acceptance, body image, pregnancy

Loving the shape of a mother: the beauty of a postpartum body and the struggles it can spark

Women in today’s society are sent message after message about how they should look.  What generous gifts these messages are!  According to Western society, women “should” be not too tall, have tanned, unblemished skin or perfectly alabaster skin, shiny modern hair, and of course, you can never be skinny enough.  When a woman becomes pregnant, an event that is the most natural and beautiful process a woman can embody, the messages she is sent about her looks are intensified:  you can’t gain more than xxx amount of weight!  You must wear pregnancy-flattering clothes!  You must not ‘let yourself go’ (my favorite)!  When is a woman just allowed to be?  Allowed to experience the magic of another person growing inside of her without being told she needs to “do this and be that” for the whole nine months?  There also appear to be rules that change when a woman gets pregnant — I have had several pregnant friends lament about the way complete strangers come up to them and put their hands on their belly.  Would anyone do that to you if you weren’t pregnant?

I was recently introduced to the site The Shape of a Mother, which is an inspirational, and amazingly real forum where new mothers “of all ages, shapes, sizes and nationalities can share images of their bodies so it will no longer be secret. So we can finally see what women really look like sans airbrushes and plastic surgery. I think it would be nothing short of amazing if a few of our hearts are healed, or if we begin to cherish our new bodies which have done so much for the human race. What if the next generation grows up knowing how normal our bodies are?”.  The intent of this site’s creator is to throw away the shame that be felt when a new mother is not comfortable in her new body — often due to the influence of society’s messages.  When actresses and celebrities are “losing the baby weight” within a few weeks of having a child, it’s difficult to not feel insecure about your own post-baby body.  But this is not Hollywood, and this site is a safe place for women of all backgrounds to share their stories.

The site is filled with photos of “real bodies”, adjusting to life after giving birth.  These pictures might shed light on parts of the body that would normally be hidden by clothes out of shame or embarrassment.  Here, they are proudly expressed, openly celebrated, and joyfully worshipped.  Women of all ages share their stories — not only of body insecurities and observations, but of what their pregnancy and birth experience was like.  Women share photos of their children, their bodies, their families.  They emphasize what is most important to them: health, family, love.  Some share about wanting to hide their post-pregnancy belly or stretch marks, and with encouragement from other new moms, these women find support for being thankful for the gifts they have received from their experience.

One new mom shares: “The only message I have from this post is to love your body, not matter what size and shape.I realized how much time I wasted on wishing I was thinner. Because when I look back, I dont think about how much I hated the way I looked, I think about how my daughter has grown and how smart she has become and how beautiful she is growing up to be. Be your own kind of beautiful, because we are all beautiful!”

The Shape of a Mother is a light amidst a swirling and menacing hurricane.  The honesty shared here is hard to find; society doesn’t talk much about the reality of accepting a post-baby body.  I am inspired by these women and know that this website is a wonderful resource for women who are thinking about getting pregnant, who are pregnant, or who are adjusting to life as a new mother.

Oct

18

By Kate Daigle

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Categories: journal therapy

Scribing the Soul: a narrative into the authentic catharsis of journal therapy

I recently had the opportunity to attend a conference put on by People House in Denver entitled “Scribing the Soul: Transforming your life through the power of writing”.  One of the things that I love about my profession (as well as one of the most overwhelming aspects) is that there are continually  options for extended education in the form of workshops, conferences, classes, certifications, courses, etc etc.  I am often in awe of all that the Denver community (and beyond) has to offer!  This particular conference caught my eye because it combined two of the things that are closest to my heart:  writing and therapy.  They are like two peas in a pod, they way that those two topics intertwine and play off of one another.  I anticipated the conference with bated breath, as I hoped it would be a space for me to “reconnect with my writing self”.

The conference featured keynote speaker Kay Adams, LPC, RPT, who is the founder and director of the Center for Journal Therapy and who is also a best-selling author, speaker, psychotherapist, and one of the living masters in the field of writing and healing.  Kay is known as the “voice of journal therapy”, and as I listened to her talk the first evening, I was entranced by her poetic words as much as I was moved by her commitment to the therapeutic power of journal therapy.  I was inspired.  I knew that my hunch was spot-on, and that I would be re-introduced to my writer’s self, a soul who is always inside of me but who has been muffled for the past few years.  Kay spoke of keeping a journal since she was a young girl, and continuing to keep one for years after and still to this day — feats that I find not only impressive, but quite enlightening to her belief that writing heals our souls.

Kay posed a challenge:  ”Write what your heart thinks”.  Wow, what a door to step inside of, and I wasn’t even sure I was quite ready to clear that doorframe.  I haven’t journaled for many years, maybe eight or so.  Before I took this break (insinuating that that this is just only a break), I was an avid journal keeper, often filling pages and pages with my daily thoughts, hopes, fears, insights, and behaviors.  Then I experienced a very challenging time in my life, during which I journaled all of the time but then suddenly stopped.  Now that I think back on it, the end of my journaling for that period sparked the beginning of my healing.  Why did I stop journaling?

I don’t believe I’ve ever truly stopped journaling.  These days it appears in writing in the academic form or in blog format such as this.  I have dreams of penning my own book in the next couple of years, and I am certain that it will not be in either of those two formats!  My heart is always thinking, but not often do I write what it is telling me.  Am I afraid to know its words?  Was that challenging time in my life too intense to bring me back to the written words of my soul?

Kay and the other practitioners at the conference teased these thoughts out of me and onto the page.  I was posed the phrase: “I am one who…” and finished the sentence in my journal.  As I reached into the depths of my being (not necessarily cob-webby, but could use a little shining up), I felt come forth: “I am one who embraces curiosity and strives for imperfect balance and happiness;”  ”I am one who yearns for love of my self, or perhaps to rediscover that love.”  I realized as I was ‘scribing my soul’ that this openness wasn’t quite as terrifying as I had originally convinced myself it would be….it was actually quite liberating and refreshing.  Which, dare I say, might have been the purpose of journal therapy all along??

The Center for Journal Therapy, founded in 1988 embodies a mission to make the healing art of journal writing accessible to all who desire self-directed change.  The Center trains professionals to be journal therapy practitioners through the Therapeutic Writing Institute, and sends them out into the world to help others heal through journal writing.  Each practitioner has his/her own interest or niche in journal therapy, and we got the chance to take three different workshops with the practitioners.  I chose first to participate in my colleague and friend Carolyn Jennings’ workshop “Writing Our Wings of Recovery“.  Carolyn and I are both impassioned by eating disorder recovery and she has penned her own inspirational memoir Hunger Speaks, which is a poetic recount of her journey towards recovery.  In this workshop, as well as the “Body Stories” workshop I attended with Debbie McCulliss, I learned valuable tools for body image awareness and eating disorder recovery that I can directly apply to my own clients’ journeys in therapy.  Debbie challenged us to write about “what story does my body have to tell me?  what message is it trying to tell me?”, along with many more provocative writing prompts that will encourage my clients as well as people everywhere to examine their beliefs about their bodies and to free any built-up constraints though journaling.  She left us with: “The body provides innate wisdom and plenty of opportunity to write.”  I am ready to listen.

I could write for hours about what I learned, experienced, and took with me from this conference.  I think the most important key, one that can be applied anywhere and by anyone, is that writing does not need to “be” a certain way, or to “do” a certain thing.  Just write, and your heart will guide your way.