“I want my body back.”
“Make sure you get your body back!”
“When are you going to start to try to get your body back?”
Did I miss something?! Like, where the fuck did my body go? I had a baby and my body left me and now I have to find it?
No. The answer is no.
First of all, we all know the pressure on women’s bodies in general is ridiculous. But the pressure put on post-partum mom’s is even more ridiculous. And we talk about it as if we have lost our bodies and need to somehow work our asses off to get them back, all while caring for another human and all the things that goes along with.
Here's the fun part – YOU WILL NOT GET YOUR BODY BACK, and you shouldn’t want it back. And this isn’t some “love your body how it is now” type of thing I am pushing over here. I totally get wanting to get in shape and workout again and get some strength back.
But you will not get your pre-pregnancy body back, ever. Your body is different now and it will never be the same.
Your pre-baby body was beautiful and amazing and strong, but your post-baby body is even more beautiful and more amazing and even stronger.
You made and grew a whole ass human, an entire human being. And then after doing all of that, you gave birth to that human. Your body has been through trauma, it will never be the same, and that is a beautiful thing.
You created a whole entire other life. You will not get your old body back, but you can become even stronger and more amazing in what you move forward with, because your body has already done one of the hardest things on earth.
You shouldn’t want that old body back. You now have a superhero body.
So, let’s change the narrative and understand that our bodies will come back stronger, more efficient, wiser and better. And let’s also stop spreading the pressure to get our body back, or even the pressure on women to have a perfect body in general. Let’s actually just learn how to stop commenting on women’s bodies at all – that is a big work in progress, but it can be done and the world would be a much better place.
And along the same lines, learning to love our bodies and enjoy what they have done is a huge learning process, but can also be done and should be done. If you are a mother and searching for your body somewhere, take a moment to really appreciate all your body has done for you the last ten months, and what it is still doing for you now. It is quite incredible when you really think about it that way.
And I am not trying to say none of us will ever worry about what we look like and somehow figure out how to just love our imperfect selves – I get that it is not that easy, and we are going to have things we want to fix or flaws we want to cover up, and that is ok. You can work on all of that too. Just please try to always remember how far your body has already come and start to appreciate it for what it has done, all while you are working on it too.
What a beautiful thing – to have a body you love and appreciate.
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