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In this episode, Dani talks about how we can learn to love our bodies by understanding the functions of the different parts. She also discusses how society and culture shape how we're perceived by others and how we can defy those pressures.
For links & recommendations, see full episode notes.
Dani is honest and refreshing in her takes on the world and society. Listen as she explains how she’s come to understand the world through kindness, both towards ourselves and everything else.
[0:00] Hello friends! Welcome to Understanding Kindness, a podcast hosted by me, Dani! I’m someone who’s lived some life, and has learned to approach it through learning from everything around me. What I’ve learned along the way is to be kind and understanding to ourselves and all that’s around us. So, join me as I discuss concepts through experience, learning, growth, kindness, and understanding. I approach topics with kindness towards ourselves and everything outside of ourselves, emphasizing the importance of our need for change in this world. If I can do it, you can do it, and we can do it, together. Welcome to Understanding Kindness.
[0:38] (Theme).
[0:44] Well, look at that. We’ve got a new intro! This will be the new intro for all episodes now, just a little bit of a glimpse into what I discuss here on this podcast. Today, we’ll be talking about something I touched on in the previous episode, as well as a few times in other episodes. Today’s topic is about looking at our bodies and their parts as having certain functions, and trying not to care what others think about our bodies. Of course, I’ll be asking some deeper questions as well to gain a deeper understanding of the processes at play. We’ll tie it all together to, hopefully, get at a place where we see our bodies as miraculous creations with purpose and function. Let’s go!
[1:26] For our Native segment I’ll be discussing an essay that I found on Indigenous Action’s website. Overall, I want to highlight Indigenous Action and all the work they do and all the resources they provide. As I’ve mentioned before, Indigenous Action has a podcast by the same name where they unapologetically discuss critical issues impacting Indigenous communities on Turtle Island with an aim towards total liberation. Their website, indigenousaction.org, provides articles written from the same type of Indigenous perspective as the podcast, art by Indigenous artists who are striving for total liberation, and essays and zines from the same claws-out perspective. The zines and essays cover everything from history to organizing to first-hand accounts from Indigenous individuals who are impacted by colonialism, white supremacy, capitalism. The specific essay that I wanted to discuss today was one titled, “transcripts from a FORUM on BLACK MESA”. The essay is a collection of accounts from Diné (or Navajo) individuals on their experiences of relocation and displacement, depletion and desecration of the land and their culture, and the personal effects of colonialism that they experience everyday. There are perspectives from Native elders and young people alike, each talking about these effects and how colonialism has affected their ability to feed and heal themselves from the land, the land’s ability to provide and heal herself, and the affects that future generations will certainly have to live with throughout their lives. This essay is one that pulls at the heart-strings and makes it impossible to look away from colonialism and the ongoing genocide of Indigenous Peoples. This essay is needed. It needs to be shared, so that everyone participating, whether willingly or unknowingly, in this erasure of Indigeneity can see the true affects. Colonialism affects everyone eventually. Our Indigenous relatives are giving us a warning because they’ve been affected first, the most, and the worst by it. They have been seeing the warning signs for a long time and we need to heed their warning, or else there will be nothing left for any of us. We need to listen and “transcripts from a FORUM on BLACK MESA” is an amazing resource for us to do so. It’ll be linked in the episode notes.
[3:52] {Singing} *Shooouuuuut-Ooooouuuutttttsssssss*
Hey there Patrons! Thank you both, so much, as always. I deeply appreciate you!
[4:05] Aaaaand, we’re back!
But before we get started on our main topic today, I’ve got a couple bits of news that I want to share with y’all. Firstly, I want to let everyone know that I have another podcast that just came out called Better When Awkward. I co-host this podcast with my childhood best friend, Jasmine. We lost touch for about 7 years and reconnected during this pandemic. In the podcast, you can listen to our unique pairing as two long lost best friends who ultimately haven’t changed much since we were kids, but have learned a lot about ourselves and the world since then. I’ll have a link to listen to Better When Awkward in the episode notes!
[4:48] Then, I’ve made some pivots on social media and with the Understanding Kindness brand “TM” (just kidding) that I want to share with y’all! Over on social media, as you may know already, I’ve been sharing recommendations for podcasts, books, videos, and movies that taught me something or that aligned with my message here. I’m pivoting a bit to still share recommendations, but more on things that are apart of my daily life. I’ll be sharing bits of my life and ways that I move about and through the world. I want to share how I approach things with kindness and understanding in my daily life, whether that be through routines I have, products I choose, the way I present myself, or ways that I find joy. I’ll of course still share all the types of recommendations I’ve been sharing, just to a lesser extent and with more variety in between. I’m hoping this will allow you and others to see how easy and simple it can be to make these shifts and how they can help you live a happier, kinder, more compassionate, understanding life. You can head over to the social media accounts, which are linked in the episode notes, or by going to UnderstandingKindness.com, for more of this content!
[6:02] Alrighty, now onto our topic. As I’ve been trying to unlearn many of the things that society has taught me about my body, I’ve found that looking at parts of my body and seeing their specific functions in moving about the world very helpful in this unlearning process. Some specifics that I mean here are body hair, skin ailments, sore muscles. Let’s take a look at each of these in turn so I can explain what I mean. Body hair. This one is pretty gendered in its expression on different bodies. For some people in US society, body hair is acceptable; for others we are taught to remove it constantly throughout our whole lives, and we’re shamed when we fail or resist doing so. So, if we’ve all got body hair, why are only some of us removing it? And also, what is the function of it on our bodies?
[6:58] For the first question, you may see where we’re heading already. Obviously putting societal pressures on some of us to remove our body hair by shaming and blaming us, is a tactic to oppress and control us. Let’s think about it for a minute. To remove our body hair we have to spend our money and precious time. For most of us, body hair continues to grow, essentially, throughout our entire lives. So that means we have to spend our hard-earned money throughout most of our entire lives to continually remove it. Think about how much money people spend on razors, on shaving creams, on waxing, even on hair removal procedures, throughout their lives. Those companies have you coming back to buy more over and over again because, again, body hair continues to grow whether we remove it or not. And, don’t even get me started on the waste this causes! Just think of all the products you’ve thrown out, just to go to the store and spend your money to buy more! It gets dizzying. So, if we have to continually buy these products, we have to continually work to earn money to buy these products. Now, let’s think about the time we spend removing our body hair. I know for me, someone whose hair grows back relatively quickly, I’d spend time removing my body hair just about every other day while taking a shower. This would amount to me spending about 40 minutes in the shower every other day! That’s more than 2 hours a week! That’s at least 8 hours a month, 96 to almost 120 hours a year! I removed my body hair regularly for about 11 years! For me, I’ve spent at least 1,056 hours of my life removing body hair for no purpose other than because society shamed me into it. I cannot get that time back, ever. You cannot get the time back that you’re spending on doing this either. And we’re not even counting in the time that we’ve got to work to afford the products in the first place. We can’t get those hours of our lives that we spend working for someone else back either.
[9:16] So what about the function of body hair? Body hair is there to protect us, either by providing us with warmth or as a warning system. Body hair allows our skin to be more sensitive to things touching it. If a Mosquito starts grazing my leg and the little hairs on my leg warn me of the Mosquito’s presence before they’ve got a chance to start sucking my blood, I’ve got a built-in defense mechanism! Or what about eyebrows? They’re purpose, aside from helping to display our emotions, is to catch things from falling into our eyes. That can be very useful, especially when we’re sweating or it’s snowing or very windy. Another built-in defense mechanism! And what about pubic hair? Pubic hair helps alleviate friction during sex and helps prevent transmission of bacterias. Wow, how defensive! For me, all these reasons point me directly towards leaving my body hair as is for the most part. I don’t want to spend more of my time and money on something that I see as unnecessary.
[10:22] Now, let’s talk about skin ailments, meaning everything from dry skin to acne to regular old pimples to oily skin even to rashes. All of these are signals that our bodies are sending to us through our skin, and they all have a purpose. As skin is one of our largest organs it tends to give us signals that relate to our diet. Of course we’re all born with different skin types and depending on that our skin’s homeostasis varies from person to person. We can recognize the signals our body is sending to us by paying attention to our skin all the time. We can figure out what our skin’s homeostasis is and then we can begin to recognize when something is different and we can pinpoint what our bodies might be telling us. For example, we’ve all had dry skin at some point or another, heck probably many multiples of times. It’s natural and it’s usually a signal of dehydration. Many of us spend tons of money on lotions and emollients to help stifle this signal, but that doesn’t get to the source of the issue. Sure, lathering up with some lotion or cocoa butter helps make our skin feel soft and supple, and I’m not going to pretend like I really understand everyone’s skin types and how much moisturizer they need to use on it, especially now that we’re all washing our hands so much. Although moisturizer helps with this, our skin itself it still feeling dehydrated. We need to hydrate it from the inside out, instead of the outside in. Our skin needs lots of water to stay properly hydrated and functioning at its best. I know that I’ve found that I need to drink a lot more water than I previously realized. I thought, oh sure a couple glasses of water a day will be good. But as I’ve really started paying attention to what my body and skin, especially, are telling me, I’ve found that I need to drink about twice as much water as I was. Like I said, I can’t decide for you what amount of moisturizer you need, all I know is that drinking water will definitely help.
[12:27] Now what about acne? Acne and pimples can signal to us an imbalance in our guts. Many times this can be attributed to the things we eat and simply eating more whole foods can help with this imbalance. It’s important to pay attention to your skin to know when a diet imbalance is happening vs when a hormonal breakout is occurring. I want to mention that I am not an esthetician so if you receive other advice or need more help understanding your skin, please listen to an esthetician if you can. These are just things that I’ve noticed working with my skin. Even when I’m aware and recognizing these signals in my skin, it can still be difficult to face others when we’re having a breakout or our skin is feeling out of whack. People can be mean and it’s easy to feel like others are judging us when we’re not feeling our best. For this, I try to remember that I am learning how to listen to my body still and I don’t know what causes what, but I do know that everyone experiences these same skin ailments and they feel the same way as I do sometimes. If I can get over what strangers think about me by only looking at me, perhaps I can help others who experience the same thing. When I go out into the world, remembering how it feels when I’m having a breakout, I can interact with others in a way that shows them that I don’t care what is going on with their skin at the moment, I care about how they treat me and about their personality. Doing this ensures that, even if I’m the only one doing this right now, society is beginning to change because I’m changing my mindset and bringing that into the world. I can go into the world living as the change. It’s difficult, but no one said change was easy.
[14:16] Finally, let us move onto sore muscles, something we all can relate to. What is the function of sore muscles? Our muscles become sore after we exert more force than our muscles are used to. This extra force causes stress or little tears in our muscles that need time to repair themselves. The soreness that we feel is our body telling us to cool it on that extra force while our muscles heal and repair themselves. Our bodies send us messages like this all the time. When we have a headache, our body is telling us that perhaps we’re dehydrated, perhaps we didn’t get enough sleep, perhaps a nerve is being pinched somewhere. What I mean to say is that our bodies don’t just hurt for no reason, our bodies are trying to send us messages. Sore muscles aren’t always caused by overexertion, sometimes our bodies hurt because of “unexplainable” reasons. Here I’m talking about chronic pain, pain that seems to have no cause when all the usual tests are done on a person experiencing pain, pain that we can’t see but know it’s there because of the claims of millions of people who suffer through it everyday. This pain, whether is shows up in a scan or not, is still a message to us. This message seems to come from our minds though. I listened to a podcast called The Cure for Chronic Pain where the host, Nicole Sachs, explained how chronic pain stems from undealt with trauma from our past. Seeing pain as a message allows this explanation to make a lot of sense. If there’s nothing that one has done physically that needs healing but we’re still in pain, perhaps the mind is in pain. Pain that has been building and building for so long and gone undealt with for so long that it goes from mental/emotional pain to physical pain that can be debilitating, indicating that the pain needs to be dealt with.
[16:21] Many of us have gotten good at ignoring these messages and “soldiering on”. I’ll give ya one guess as to how we learned to ignore these critical messages that our bodies are sending us. Yep, you guessed it! It’s our society and culture, that is what has made us very good at ignoring these messages. Why would our society and culture want us to ignore these messages that our bodies are sending us, crying out for help? Think about it. If we were to take the time and leisure that is necessary to heal our bodies and minds, we cannot be “productive” members of society. We cannot put everything aside and go to work to make someone else money. To really heal ourselves, we need to take a break, we need to rest, and there’s no timeline for that. No one is the same, no one has had the same experience as anyone else, so no one can tell you how long it will take to heal yourself. How could this society run if people were given the time they needed to heal? It couldn’t. All of us experience pain in one way or another. All of us, at one point or another, have decided to put the pain aside so we can “go on with our lives”, going to work to earn money so that we can stay alive and allow our families and communities to stay alive. All of us, probably most of the time we do this, are making a decision not for ourselves, but for someone else who pays us so that we can live. It is not inherent that when we feel pain we push it aside and go back to work. Our bodies want us to rest so they can heal so we can get back to living a happy, pain-free life. It just doesn’t seem right to me that we put our pain aside to work for someone else in order for us to live when we know deep down that that won’t resolve our pain.
[18:24] We can’t always tell how society will react to our ever-changing bodies. What we can do is love our bodies despite what society has to say about them. For me to get over the hump of “what will everyone think?”, I try to learn about the specific functions of those parts that society shames so that if anyone were to approach me or make fun of me, I know my reasons for choosing what I chose. It’s much less likely that I’ll succumb to the pressures of society when I know the reasons for what I choose to do. My hope in sharing some examples of these with you today is that it will help you look at things you may be insecure about and see that it is not you who is the matter, it’s society. We can be stronger than societal pressures. We can seek acceptance from within ourselves and find it in those who love us. Hopefully understanding the reasons for why you choose to do something will work in a similar way to how it works for me, to show myself and others that I do this for a reason and I cannot be shamed into doing something just because it’s cool or because everyone’s doing it. I’ll be here standing up against those pressures, accepting myself for who I am and my body for all that it is capable of. I’m waiting for you to join me.
[19:45] {Singing} *Recommendaaaationsssss*
Today’s first recommendation is from a podcast called The Cure for Chronic Pain. In episode 112, the host, Nicole Sachs, talks with a listener about their experience with trauma and the chronic pain they had following years of burying the trauma and leaving it undealt with. Nicole explains how trauma shows up in our bodies and offers solutions for dealing with both the physical and emotional pain,
[20:14] We’ve also got two recommendations from the Native segment today. Indigenous Action is a wonderful podcast and website with a well of resources. Learn about many topics from organizing to art to history to first-hand accounts of colonialism, all from a unique Indigenous perspectives. Both the podcast and website cover topics from a claws-out Indigenous perspective that is refreshing and no-holds barred. Definitely one to check out!
[20:42] On the Indigenous Action website, you can find our next recommendation! “Transcripts from a FORUM on BLACK MESA” gives us Indigenous accounts of how colonialism, white supremacy, and capitalism has forceably displaced entire tribes of peoples and desecrated the land. Read about how these oppressive structures impact the lives of individuals and the land who they live with and care for. Feel the urgent need to end these structures and begin remembering how we can live in peace and harmony with our land and each other.
All of these recommendations will be linked in the episode notes.
[21:19] If you enjoyed this episode, help support the podcast! All this content is free and I’d love to make it my job one day, so if you’re financially able join our patreon or send a one-time or recurring donation through paypal! You can also share an episode with family or friends, and give UK a kind rating and review!
Check out UnderstandingKindness.com for all episodes, transcripts, and blog posts. And why not take a listen to my other podcast, Better When Awkward, co-hosted by my childhood best friend Jasmine!
Get in touch with me by emailing UnderstandingKindness@protonmail.com, or through social media. You can find all links in the episode notes.
For now, be kind, be compassionate, be understanding, and question everything. I’ll be here. Thank you for listening to this episode of Understanding Kindness. [End transcript]