January is a month that makes me cringe when it begins. While we have all been looking forward to the end of 2020, January brings a lot of pressure and set up for failure. I know I should reframe how I think about January, but I just haven’t gotten over that wall yet.
Right after holiday decorations go down, and we’re in that lull right before the new year, you can begin to hear the whispers of goals, making changes, and our ever so beloved; “new year, new you”. It crushes my soul to walk into a bookstore to the display of all the diet fad books right up front.
Blender Marker Transfer of a Digital Photograph on to Multi-Media Paper, 2021
It feels a lot harder this year than any other year before. 2020 had most of us out of the gym for months. My grocery store was often empty, and I know it was harder for others to find food. My depression was worse than ever, and “new year, new you” was as popping as ever. I unfollowed several trainers and fitness influencers on social media, even ones that I personally knew, because their language around diet and exercise was damaging.
My health goals for 2021 is to move my body in a way that feels good, whatever that means for me on that day. I want to eat food that feels good for me and fuels the movement my body does. I want to give myself time to read and relax and make art, because that has made me happiest in the last few months. My relationships will have a high priority in my life, because my people are what keeps me around. If all that is falling into place, if my body changes in that time, then it happened because I was doing the things that fed my soul and not starve it.
Having to unlearn a lot about diet culture and how I have framed my own thoughts on my body are giving way to a freedom to be settled into my own body. Instead of trying to find ways to mold my body into something I would never be, I’m starting to learn that I am enough. I’m enough now, I’m enough when I was heavier, I’m enough when I’m lighter. We are all enough, as we are right now. Not for what we “will” be.