Nothing Looks as Good as Integrity Feels

February 2014

I am standing in the bathroom, my body Is trembling just a little as I inspect the piece of mail I just received. It is a letter from the Social Security Administration, with a new card, stating my name has been officially changed from my married name of Heidi Houser back to my maiden name of Heidi Andersen.

This task was the last in a line of administrative hurdles that represent my divorce. At this point, I am relieved and ready for a sense of completion.

Standing in the bathroom, preparing for a shower, my bra falls to the floor, and that’s when it becomes clear to me. 

The bra size, 36 HH… double H… Heidi Houser… those were my married initials. There was no way I went through this entire two year name changing process and my bra size STILL reflects my married name.

In this moment, I make the decision that I have been pondering for some time. It is time to get a breast reduction.

I wrestled with this possibility over the years, as I suffered from long-term back issues related to the relative size of my breasts compared to the rest of my body shape. Two main things prevented me from making this choice in the past. For one, I deeply desired to nurse my child. Secondly, I feared this choice would appear incongruent to my professional image as a psychotherapist who specialized in body acceptance and liberation from societally dictated image ideals.

It was clear to me that my decision was health related at this point, more than the desire to gain any privilege that might come from having a more proportioned body shape. However, this appearance privilege did occur to me as a potential benefit as a middle-aged, divorced women that had been recently thrust back into the dating scene.

***

Summer 2014

I am in the appointment with a plastic surgeon. I feel strange and shameful about being here related to my professional values, but I also feel hopeful about unburdening my body from the heaviness of my Heidi Housers. My doctor assesses me and shares that I am an excellent candidate for the surgery. However, I am told that my insurance will not cover the procedure unless I lose weight.

I am flooded with rage.

This is not the first time I have encountered weight stigma in a doctor’s office. The medical model, with its rampant weight stigma and fatphobia, typically assessed my weight status as Overweight. I encountered many doctors who focused on this number over other health measurements.

But I don’t believe in the white supremacist BMI bullshit. I have an integrated understanding of the ways this weight category measurement is harmful.

However, here I am, stuck with a choice. Do I forgo this surgery due to inability to pay out of pocket? Or do I play the medical model game, find a way to decrease my weight, and get insurance coverage.

There is no way I am going to go on a diet. My whole career has been about helping clients understand the harm that comes from dieting and breaking out of this mindset. I have dieted in my personal history and am through with weight cycling. I am also deep in the process of writing a book about expanding our understanding of beauty from the current cultural definition to a soulful definition, with the undercurrent of seeing beauty as a social justice issue challenging internalized self-objectification, prejudice, and oppression.

I do have another option.

I am aware of a mood stabilizer that I took in my twenties that led to weight loss. I make the choice to start this medication to get my body to the required weight for surgery coverage.

This choice… a pivotal moment in time… sets me on a path of unconsciously engaging in the eating disordered behavior of weight suppression with medication while simultaneously sharing the opposite message through my professional work.

***

November 2015

I am standing in front of a room full of family, friends, and colleagues, celebrating the release of my creative project, the Reclaiming Beauty Journal and Wisdom Deck. I am filled with gratification about completing this project and what I am sharing with my community.

I had my breast reduction one year before. It was an excellent choice.

I delight in the liberation from back pain and the freedom I feel in my body.

I no longer suffocate in my own breasts in forward folding yoga poses.

I feel confident in my clothes.

I feel beautiful in my fuchsia book release party dress.

I dance wildly every chance I get.

But I did not stop taking the weight suppression medication. I lost a significant amount of weight from this medication, and am feeling terrified that if I were to stop this medication, I would regain the lost weight, and lose the privileges associated with being in a more idealized body, privileges that feel desperately necessary to me as I have just begun to dip my toes back into the process of dating with the hopes of finding a partner. My new crush is even here in the audience.

I am so proud and eager to share what I have created. I am also anxious and shameful about the lack of congruency with my message. No one knew my secret. However, the hidden nature of the lack of alignment did not prevent my shame.

***

Winter 2017

I am deepening into my personal and professional values of Health At Every Size. The idea of weight suppression through medication as an eating disorder behavior comes more fully into my consciousness. Somehow, I have been in denial around my own behaviors, as I was not engaging in restricting, binging, overexercise, vomiting, or laxative abuse. For over ten years I am around people struggling with eating disorders all day with my work, yet my own behaviors are completely out of my consciousness.

I bring this behavior into the light. I name it as a problem. I am no longer willing to live out of alignment. I want to feel full congruency with my Reclaiming Beauty message. Integrity has more appeal to me than being in a thinner body. I discontinue the use of the medication, and begin the journey towards my natural size and shape.

I grieve the thin ideal. I grieve the privileges I had at a smaller shape and size as my body returns to its preferred set point. I discover the Embodied Recovery model, and feel some profound healing through this weaving of a somatically integrated approach to recovery. I deepen into my practices that support a sense of full, present moment embodiment. I allow my body to shift and change as it heals from the perceived famine state created by the weight suppression. I watch my belly grow before my eyes. I feel my fears of unlovability and aloneness arise and practice how to be with these parts of myself in a more self-compassionate way. I love my body through the whole process.

***

Winter 2021

I am standing in the bathroom, and notice the faint surgery scars beneath my breasts.

Here at my natural size and shape, my relationship with food is based on an attuned understanding of what foods nourish me. I am able to gain clarity about the health issues that need supporting rather than focusing on weight. Embodiment practices are my medicine. My offerings as a body-centered therapist deepen with authenticity. I find love based on the beauty of who I am as a human. I am more at ease in my self-love, so I can offer my partner a pure and easeful love from my heart rather than a desperate love that is seeking approval.

I delight in the liberation from societal dictates on beauty, and the freedom I feel in my body and spirit.

I no longer suffocate in my own shame.

I feel confident in my clothes.

I feel beautiful some days, and others I do not. I bring curiosity to the shifts as I am grounded in a weight neutral stance.

I dance wildly every chance I get.

I am grateful for this initiation into integrity. I send a prayer asking for forgiveness from those who I may have unintentionally harmed through my lack of congruency. I recognize that as I learn, I am doing better. I commit to continuing to refine alignment with my Reclaiming Beauty message. I hope others will share their own parallel process.  I see the beauty in my journey.

Nothing looks as good as integrity feels.