Identifying the Real Wound

Today I’m going there.

There are parts of my story I don’t share because they’re dramatic.

I share them because they matter.

Throughout my life, my body has changed many times.

I’ve lived in smaller versions of my body.

I’ve lived in bigger versions of my body.

I’ve experienced being treated differently as my weight shifted.

For a long time, I thought my struggle was with my body.

Looking back, I don’t think it ever was.

My struggle was with what people projected onto it.

Comments disguised as concern.

Jokes disguised as honesty.

Advice I never asked for.

Over time, I began to notice something.

The comments people made often revealed far more about their relationship with bodies than they did about mine.

That realization brought me a great deal of freedom.

It also gave language to experiences I hadn’t fully understood before.

One of them happened during the passing of my biological mother.

Traveling to Aruba to attend her funeral wasn’t an easy decision.

Our relationship wasn’t simple.

There was love.

There was hurt.

There was distance.

There was grief.

I carried all of it with me.

Long before I boarded the plane.

One thing I’ve learned about myself is that I have a very sensitive nervous system.

When I’m carrying something heavy…

my body often carries it too.

I’ve made peace with that.

Because that’s how God created my body.

Instead of criticizing it…

I study it.

I try to understand what it’s carrying.

I ask what it needs.

I support it until it settles again.

I have a deep love and respect for my body.

Not because it has always looked the way I wanted.

But because it has faithfully carried me through every season of my life.

While I was grieving…

a lot of people took the opportunity to comment on my body.

“Don’t eat too much birthday cake, you’ll get too big.”

It was one of the hardest birthdays of my life.

Two days later, I would bury my biological mother.

I wasn’t thinking about cake.

I was trying to gather the strength to stand beside her grave.

“You’ve gained weight, haven’t you?”

“When I was younger, I used to be fatter than you.”

Each comment left me with the same realization.

Other people felt like my body was open for discussion.

Without my invitation.

Without my consent.

Looking back, I now understand why that felt so deeply unsettling.

It was a boundary violation.

I remember confiding in friends afterwards.

They were incredibly loving and supportive.

Some suggested,

“Let’s just watch what you eat.”

Others said,

“Let’s work out together.”

I knew they meant well.

But I also knew…

That wasn’t the heart of what I was struggling with.

I wasn’t at war with my body.

Weight loss wasn’t my focus.

I was focused on burying my biological mother.

It wasn’t my weight that was hurting me.

It was the boundary violation.

One thing I want to make clear is this.

I believe our bodies deserve reverence.

They deserve dignity.

I don’t comment on other people’s bodies.

Not because I think everyone is perfect.

But because I don’t know their story.

I don’t know their genetics.

I don’t know their overall health.

I don’t know the medications they take.

I don’t know the circumstances they’re navigating.

And I don’t believe I need to know.

Respect isn’t something people should have to earn by explaining themselves.

I’ve never felt entitled to make someone else’s body the topic of conversation.

Which is why the experience felt so incredibly confusing to me.

I knew something about it felt deeply wrong.

I just didn’t have the language for it yet.

Looking back, I realize I wasn’t looking for a solution.

I was looking for protection.

It was watching my brother model how to respond to a boundary violation that changed something in me.

When he witnessed someone mistreating me, he didn’t explain it away.

He responded by placing a boundary.

Watching that made me realize what I had actually needed all along.

It wasn’t weight loss.

It was boundaries.

Not because my body needed fixing.

But because my dignity deserved protecting.

Looking back, I don’t believe healing came from changing my body.

It came from protecting what I knew to be sacred.

That is the contemplation I’d like to leave you with.

Maybe the thing you’ve been trying to fix…

isn’t the thing that’s actually hurting.

Perhaps it looks like…

Weight management.

Body image.

Plastic surgery.

An eating disorder.

Perfectionism.

Achievement.

People-pleasing.

Unhealthy dynamics.

We often become consumed with changing what is visible…

while the deepest wound quietly lives somewhere else.

Sometimes healing doesn’t begin by asking,

“How do I fix this?”

Sometimes it begins by asking,

“What is it that’s actually hurting?”