Reflections beyond the mirror

Tending to one’s body from a space of love, hope, and self-directed desire, and not to perform for the benefit of someone else’s colonising gaze is a prerequisite for any kind of encounter with joy. Representation pic

As I lay upon the red towel we use instead of a yoga mat, my legs first outstretched, then, seconds later, folded, with my knees moving towards me, then sprung upwards so they were poised above my face, I marvelled at the grace with which I was able to orchestrate these movements. It's been a year since I first asked my partner to share his exercise routine with me. I've written before about how I struggled then with many of these strength-training exercises. My core was limp, my arms couldn't support the rest of me during a side-plank, and each time we began, I would feel a sense of dread. Had I not had my partner beside me, patiently motivating me, easing me into the whole affair, tricking me, on occasion, into continuing with my clumsy attempts, I would perhaps not have persisted. One year later, I'm so thankful that I stuck with the programme. Exercise has now become a part of my every day. It's something I make time for almost every morning. It's changed my life.

Most significantly, unlike every other previous attempt, this time around I didn't get into it to ‘lose weight'. I could easily have, but my partner had suggested that this form of motivation was dubious. He wanted me to focus instead on being fit and enhancing my stamina. This meant I made absolutely no record of how much I weighed before we began, nor do I remember my ‘vital statistics'. Within the first few weeks I could already tell I had shaved off some centimeters off my waistline. Clothes felt a bit looser. But none of that mattered to me, or I didn't allow it to matter. Instead of torturing my self-esteem by looking for external manifestations of ‘results', or even relying on other people's gazes to inform or validate my suspicions about being healthier, I concentrated my energies on my perception of myself.

After a shower, for instance, I now retreat to our bedroom and, as I hover before what is my moisturising station, I listen to music and, once the beat enters my soul, I dance, too. We don't have a mirror in our bedroom, which has made it a safe space for me. I sometimes glimpse my reflection in the window glass, and it's fun to see this spectral image of me moving recklessly to a beat. Because I no longer allow myself to dwell in shame, I have begun to delight in my body. Sometimes I flex my arms and touch my growing biceps. It is truly remarkable what just 15 minutes of daily exercise over a period of time can accomplish.

It's been a long and lonely journey to get to this point where I no longer feel weighed down by the opinions of others when it comes to my body and its boundaries. Before, a casual remark could set me off, trigger my insecurities and my internalised sense of shame. It is empowering to look in the mirror and not feel like you want to change anything about your body. Over the past year, I have been taking care of it as if it were my beloved. I realised that the trick to self-care was to treat the self and its host body with the tenderness we are generally conditioned as women to reserve for other people. Essentially I'm following the medical advice my gynaecologist had offered me back in 2017. I try to be in bed by 10.30 pm so I can be up by 7.30 am. I eat lunch exactly at noon, and usually done with dinner by 7pm. I know that living with my partner's parents makes this possible, because on days when I'm swamped with work, I know I don't need to be responsible for feeding myself. It helps that I have a support system. I know how hard I struggled when I lived alone to feed myself in a timely manner. But I also know that so much of the struggle was because I often prioritised everything else before my own bodily needs. I regularly sacrificed my well-being in order to keep up with the world.

I'm still learning how to be kinder to my body. I'm still learning how to care for it, how to touch it lovingly, how not to demand more from it than it can offer me at a given moment. It really has been an intense process, tending to one's body from a space of love, hope, and self-directed desire, and not in order to perform for the benefit of someone else's colonising gaze. But I've learned it's a prerequisite for any kind of encounter with joy.

Deliberating on the life and times of Everywoman, Rosalyn D'Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com.

The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.