We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere

Think of what happens to a toddler who doesn’t get enough food or sleep – tantrums. We may be older and more sophisticated, but our bodies have the same needs and our emotions will be affected if those needs are not met.

It can be humbling to discover that quite often when our emotions are out of control it’s not because of the complexity of the issues we’re facing, but because we’ve been ignoring a simple physical need – like keeping our blood sugar level steady.

TIP: HALT is an acronym for:

Hungry

Angry

Lonely

Tired

HALT is widely used in 12-step fellowships, these are free groups set up to help people in addiction or affected by it (here (#u4cafc611-99e9-4b9e-9bb3-02459c639f8d)). Whenever we’re hungry, angry, lonely or tired we’re in danger of our emotions getting out of control and tipping us off balance. So if you notice yourself feeling one or more of those four, HALT and attend to it, fast.

Four essentials to self-care

There are four essential areas that we often neglect or let slide when it comes to our physical well-being. If you want to get the benefit from all that WE’s principles have to offer, commit to taking care of yourself in each of them in turn.

Food

It’s only human to want to be desired and so most of us at some point cave in to the toxic messages of the beauty and diet industries and mess around with our intake of food. The extent to which we do this will depend upon our self-esteem, our conditioning and how addictive is our personality.

If you find it difficult to regulate your food intake or if your weight tends to yo-yo, fuelling self-hatred, then for the duration of this work we recommend following an eating plan.

Structure and boundaries around what we consume free us up to think about more important things and keeps us from exacerbating the natural highs and lows of our emotional and hormonal circuits.

There’s nothing faddy about it – it’s boringly sensible, which is why it works. Three moderate-sized meals a day, eaten at regular intervals (between four to six hours apart), with one snack either mid-afternoon or before bed. If you’re not sure what moderate means, ask someone else to serve your portion and make sure it contains protein which sustains your energy and doesn’t give you the ups and downs that sugary foods do.

Watch for resistance in the form of ‘But I’m not hungry’, ‘I’m just not a breakfast person’, or ‘Just one more muffin won’t make a difference’. Try your best to ignore those voices. Many of us have trained our bodies not to need or want what is actually healthy or to want much more than what is healthy. Try following this simple plan and you’ll be amazed by the results.

If you’re prone to binge eating, avoid foods that trigger cravings. For some that will mean foods full of sugar or white flour; others have problems with dairy. All of us benefit – if our budgets allow – from cutting out processed foods that are laden with hidden sugars and additives. If your body–fat ratio is above or below the average range you may need more concentrated help. Remember, your own assessment may be distorted. For more information on healthy body weight visit www.calculator.net/body-fat-calculator.html (http://www.calculator.net/body-fat-calculator.html) and www.calculator.net/bmi-calculator.html (http://www.calculator.net/bmi-calculator.html).

When I went into treatment for depression and health professionals told me to eat three meals a day I thought they were trying to make me fat. I’d spent so many years avoiding breakfast to try to shrink my stomach for the rest of the day that I thought the act of consuming a bowl of oatmeal each morning would add another 14lb to my weight. But after two weeks of eating three meals a day I found I’d not only lost 7lb, but that I’d also ended the battle that had raged in my head since adolescence. I was liberated from the almost constant ‘Shall I eat this or not?’ debate and free to think about things that mattered far more. Plus I started to feel a lot more comfortable and at ease with my body.

JN

For most of my life I have vacillated between carefully watching what I eat and eating whatever I want. The periods where I stay away from sugar and wheat and cut down on or even remove caffeine, I am a calmer, more patient and kinder human being. When I don’t I am moody, impatient and grumpy. It’s really that simple. And it’s my choice.

GA

Physical exercise

When we don’t feel comfortable in our bodies, we can view them as separate from ourselves and get stuck in our heads, thinking obsessively about whatever is preoccupying us from one moment to the next.

For many women, food and exercise have ceased to be a form of self-care and instead become another lever we pull to try to change how we look. If we can’t starve or eat ourselves into the right shape, then we can exercise our way to it.

Physical activity is, of course, an important aspect of healthy living. It not only gets our limbs moving but it sends necessary oxygen to the brain, helps our organs to function properly and our muscles to stay supple, and maintains bone strength. We know we should do it, but often we either don’t do it at all, exercise like crazy or swing between the extremes.

If you find it hard to exercise, starting small can sometimes be the only way in. Committing to just ten minutes a day is enough to make a real difference. Try a brisk morning walk, or if you’re short of time get off the bus one stop early so that your exercise uses up time you’d be spending in transit anyway. There are also hundreds of mini-workouts available online that are free to download. It needn’t cost you anything to feel better inside your own body.

If you’re at the other extreme and think you might be over-exercising, try cutting back and notice what happens to your anxiety levels. If there’s an increase in self-judgement and panic that you’re going to put on weight, it’s highly possible there are feelings underneath your regimen that you’re suppressing. Again, start small by cutting down on the intensity of your workout or the hours you spend at it per week and see what comes up. This is a good place to start getting honest about what’s really going on for you, because that’s a big part of what this journey is all about.

Rest

We know we need rest, but the pressures of modern life often make it impossible to prioritize it. It may simply be that we’re working too many hours or nursing a waking baby, or we may resist rest because of our own internal resistance to self-care, but like nutrition and exercise, your brain needs rest to function effectively.

Do you have enough energy as you go through your day or do you find yourself feeling sluggish or falling asleep? Do you push through exhaustion so that you’re stuck in an adrenalin-fuelled cycle or do you take breaks as needed? Do you keep your sleeping space safe from the stresses and strains of daily life? If you have trouble sleeping, is it because you’re using your laptop or phone in bed? That alone can lead to stress and sleep disturbances.

Even when we know what’s missing, it can still be hard to change our behaviour around it. Try to imagine you had a daughter with the same issues around sleep. What would your advice be? Really think about it. Don’t take your phone or laptop to bed? Head on the pillow before midnight? No caffeine after 4pm? Whatever your loving advice might be, follow it yourself.

It’s also really important to take at least one break in the middle of the day. If you can’t take a lunch hour, make sure you take a pause of some kind. Notice the sky, notice the temperature, breathe deeply and return yourself to centre before engaging in your next round with life.

Appreciation

How do you feel about your body?

Try asking yourself that question while standing naked in front of a full-length mirror. ‘What?!’ you might ask. Once you’ve moved through the shock and the fear and are actually standing before your reflection, notice your reaction to what you see. Hopefully you feel happy and fond of your physical form – that’s certainly what we’re working towards. But many of us are not only uncomfortable, but also highly critical. We focus on the parts of our body that we don’t think are perfect – like our thighs, our tummy, our breasts. We feel vulnerable and even ashamed. Our poor bodies endure some harsh judgements, whether we are naked or fully clothed.

Now, take in your whole reflection again, spend a moment centring yourself by breathing in and out deep into your belly. Instead of thinking about what your body looks like, think about what it does for you. This magnificent vessel before you enables you to live this life. Look at your legs, which carry you every day; your arms and hands, which perform so many tasks; your torso, which contains your vital organs: your heart, your lungs, your stomach.

This body houses you. It has grown with you. It sounds like an obvious statement, but so often we forget that it is the same body we came into this world with. Would we forgive it more if we remembered our newborn selves? Try to connect with the kindness you’d feel if it belonged to that baby or to someone else whom you love.

Run your hand over the parts that you find hardest to love. Breathe deeply, take your time and consciously release each negative thought that crosses your mind.

This is a powerful experience. If you can, try to commit to doing it a couple of times a week until the habit of praise for what you have overrides the habit of shame. One day this body will be gone. The time you have with it is precious. From now on, commit to treating it with kindness and care.

For a large part of my life I hated my body. Even when I was at my skinniest, which was really underweight, I thought I was fat. At the depths of my despair I used to self-harm as a form of punishment for being what I thought was ugly. Now I’m deeply happy to be me. I’m older (of course!) and heavier than I’ve ever been, but I wouldn’t be any other way. However, I still have to put in the right action on a daily basis – it only takes a missed meal or too many late nights and my mental state starts to slide and suddenly I’m looking in the mirror and checking my tummy to see how many inches I can pinch. Now, though, I know exactly how to get back on track. And I do. Fast.

JN

So many of my living years have been spent engaging in one form of self abuse or another. I’ve often wished and prayed that it wasn’t so easy to escape. Denegrating oneself is a form of abuse and a way to hide because, in doing so, we refuse to see and acknowledge the beautiful being we are just as we are. What if we could make a commitment to ourselves and to our daughters that we will stop abusing ourselves and our bodies in thought and in action? When we abuse ourselves we teach others that we are worthy of being treated badly. We show our daughters that we think we deserve to be abused and therefore they deserve it too – which is not true. Nobody deserves to be abused.

GA

Beauty really is an inside job

‘A mother who radiates self-love and self-acceptance actually vaccinates her daughter against low self-esteem.’

NAOMI WOLF

Taking care of your body will make the work ahead infinitely easier and more pleasurable. When you write your gratitude list each day find at least one thing you’re grateful to your body for. And as you go through your day, find ways to say thank you to your body through your actions. Notice how your relationship with it starts to shift as a result. You may also start to feel more confident in the process, because you know that you are doing right by yourself. Self-assurance will come more naturally and your relationships with others will change for the better. If we don’t care for our body, how can we expect anyone else to?

A woman who is truly comfortable in her own skin radiates an inner beauty regardless of whether she conforms to cultural norms of beauty. When someone is genuinely joyful and at ease with herself we gravitate towards her – and feel better about ourselves for being in her presence.

In my twenties I was quite consistently in the public eye. I remember doing one particular photoshoot for the cover of a magazine and being completely focused on, and distracted by, the fact that I felt fat. It wasn’t so much that things weren’t fitting, which has happened, too, on many occasions – in fact, one time I ended up wearing a tarpaulin over my shoulders because nothing else was working – but on this day I just felt unattractive in myself, and I remember turning inwards and being uncommunicative and allowing my negative thoughts to essentially ruin my (and maybe for all I know other peoples’) experience of that shoot. Now the pictures that were created that day expose not a hint of my inner turmoil – many over the years have been more revealing. Today, what I see when I look at those photographs is a very young, fresh-faced, beautiful young woman who had no sense or appreciation of how lucky she was in so many ways.

GA