Our Past Idealized Body - A Narrow Vision

When we look back at old versions of ourselves, comparing our current bodies to our smaller, younger selves, it is often done with nostalgia, a mourning of a culturally idealized youth. It’s easy to forget the place we may have been in during that time, to tunnel vision our minds onto the body and forget the circumstances for that different, smaller body size.

What would it look like to take in the whole picture? To think back to what you were feeling and thinking during that time?

What knowledge do you have now that you didn’t have then?

What was hurting?

Was it a time of disorder, pain, or high levels of activity?

Were you living a life full of vibrancy and ease or was it a different story?

I use the word nostalgia because it can invoke a feeling of wistful longing or even sadness. Looking at old pictures of ourselves can create a yearning because our culture idealizes thinness so we paint a perfect picture of how much SIMPLER things were then.

But is that the whole picture, really? Can we equate those emotions to a body size?

It’s easy to forget the process that it took and the state we were in to be in that smaller body size because WE glorify it as our “ideal selves” to attain for so long. Do we think so little of ourselves, to whittle our worth away to just the size of a body?

Could we instead put the whole picture back in perspective and then decide if we are still as nostalgic for that time?