Saying Good-Bye
to the Inner Critic
Dr. Melissa Mercedes
There is something daunting about not feeling comfortable in your own body and skin. Whether this discomfort stems from a disruption in the attachment process as an infant or dissatisfaction with body weight, shape, or size due to mass consumption of media portrayals of what constitutes the “perfect body” is important. Equally or perhaps even more important, though, is how we choose to respond to the situation.
Body image is defined as one’s cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions to body weight and shape.3 Research suggests that body image dissatisfaction is learned not only through the media’s portrayal of what is acceptable, but also through familial factors (e.g., teasing by family members, family’s emphasis on weight) and social comparisons. Social contextual factors such as Western culture’s emphasis on the ultra-thin body and peer influence informs the construction of an unrealistic ideal of what is beautiful. Our cultural ideal of thinness seems to be, in part, predicated on the waif-thin appearance popularized in the 1990s. Since the 1960s, the ideal female shape has become smaller and thinner. Hence, Western society is bombarded by a body image ideal that is, in large part, overly unrealistic and nearly impossible to attain. The influence of media, coupled with family and peer influences, is the backdrop for the stories we continuously tell ourselves, often subconsciously, about our body shape and weight in the context of what is attractive. Unfortunately, these stories have no age boundaries and can traverse a lifetime, well into our forties, fifties, and beyond.
As a teenager in high school, I was introduced to the modeling industry. Here, I was exposed to a different perspective on food and body image. I learned how to design low-calorie meals and successfully skip meals. I was convinced that I needed to lose ten to fifteen pounds, because the camera apparently adds this much weight to your body in photographs. That message ran deep. It was during this time that I began to cultivate and nurture perfectionistic tendencies linked to a persistent delusion of an ideal body put forth by the media and based on social comparisons. I became captivated by the media’s portrayal of the “healthy” female body, and I blindly followed a path marked by an unhealthy relationship to food and body. I became addicted to a story: I am not skinny enough, and until I achieve a certain weight and body mass index, I will not be worthy. Eventually my life became extremely narrow as I obsessed over calories and the types of food I ate.
I became stuck on the notion that I had to make drastic changes to my body if I was going to be successful in the industry. What I did not understand at the time was that I was fighting an uphill battle if this was the intended outcome. Why? Because it was not that I was “overweight,” but rather, I had a body shape and size that was different from the media’s ideal. I am of Mexican, German, and Aztec decent—I do not inhabit the tall, slender body frame that was sought by the modeling industry. Being an unenlightened consumer of the mass media and trained to compare myself to peers, I became stuck. To be successful in the industry, I would have to step into a completely different body.
Over time, I began to develop deep-rooted thoughts that I was unacceptable or unworthy in some way. To appease these thoughts, I engaged in unhealthy eating behaviors. The ramifications of this new perspective was reflected in my dis-ease in the body. I spent my teenage years and early twenties learning how to avoid the experience of fully inhabiting my body, missing the opportunity to dwell in the place where we go to connect to our inner guidance, strength, and self-love. I became habituated to avoiding the discomfort associated with a delusional body image, and I resisted any opportunity to experience what it felt like to be in my own skin. Not surprising, no matter how much weight I lost, the shape and height of my body remained the same. More importantly, the weight loss failed to bring me the happiness, self-love, and acceptance that, according to the billboards, magazines, and television commercials, comes with drastic weight loss and attaining the ideal weight.
While the seeds of dissatisfaction with body image were planted during my teenage years, it was in my twenties when those seeds manifested into a personal medical condition that could not be ignored. This was the wake-up call that ignited the fire within to start looking at my unhealthy relationship with food and body and the desire to find that one diet or trick that would “fix” my body. I relied primarily on Eastern traditions to support my healing process, which marks the beginning of a spiritual journey that continues to offer support, nurturance, and guidance both personally and professionally.
Waking Up to Presence
I took my first yoga class at a gym in 1999. What I remember from that experience was this overwhelming feeling of being safe in my body for the first time ever. It felt as though I had come back home and stepped into this beautiful sanctuary that was my body, and I never wanted to leave. This left a significant imprint on my mind, and I was inspired to delve deeper into the asana practice as well as into the philosophy of this ancient practice. I became so enticed by the beauty of the practice and its healing effects that I eventually signed up for a nine-week yoga teacher training. It was during this time that I also began to explore Vipassana meditation at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California.
I saw the meditation practice as a great complement to my yoga practice. These Eastern traditions provided the opportunity to learn how to watch thoughts, without becoming entangled or attached, and to create space from the thoughts as you gently guide your way back to the present moment without judgment, evaluation, or criticism. The movement associated with breath in the yoga asana practice provided a unique platform upon which to cultivate and strengthen mindfulness skills. Through the asana practice, I began to notice that there is always a choice point of staying on my mat despite the experience of uncomfortable mental phenomenon and to draw on the breath as a focal point. Or to drown in the mental chatter and become lost in the story associated with the thoughts and emotions. The asana practice also allowed me to engage in exposure rather than avoidance. When I stepped onto my mat, found my breath, and moved through the asanas, I developed willingness to remain in contact with the internal experiences centered on body-related thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Such experiences that were initially perceived to be scary and uncomfortable and led to resistance. Through the exposure, I learned that if I did not give energy to what my mind was feeding me, it would eventually subside. For so many years, I identified with these dysfunctional body image–related thoughts and ideas, and somehow I convinced myself that it was truth. This faulty belief system I created for myself and operated within had led to misguided and misdirected behaviors.
Mindfulness skills such as noticing, accepting, and surrendering enabled me to recognize hunger cues, to “sit with” the feeling of satiety, and to allow the associated physiological responses to arise without resistance or interference that often took the form of compensatory behaviors. Further, the consistent intentional practice of greeting the present moment with a stance of openness and acceptance was fundamental to my healing process.
My meditation practice during this time focused on loving-kindness and compassion. Traditionally, loving-kindness meditation is practiced toward self, first, and is then directed toward other people in your life. The main tenet of this practice is to cultivate a sense of connection with all people through principles of generosity and nonharming. The most difficult aspect of this practice for me was offering loving-kindness toward myself. Notably, though, this was also the most rewarding in addressing the distorted beliefs about my body and to reach a place of unconditional love and acceptance.
The practice of compassion also helped me to understand the many ways in which I became stuck in the negative psychological states of fear and anxiety surrounding my body. Rather than approach with curiosity and openness, I chose to avoid and turn away from these present moment experiences. The integration of compassion with my practice allowed me to cultivate forgiveness and patience, which, in turn, engendered a stance of openness and acceptance to whatever was unfolding from moment to moment. Over time, I was able to distance myself from the thought that there was something inherently wrong with me and, more importantly, that I had somehow “given up” when I stopped letting negative thought patterns dictate my behaviors.
The exposure to discomfort and staying with the discomfort, embedded in both meditation and yoga, offered a pathway to healthy and organic change from within. I came into this place of acceptance and opening to the phenomenon that thoughts will arise, fall, and arise again, and I was no longer controlled by the ebb and flow of thought, emotion, and sensation surrounding body image. When we consistently open ourselves to an unpleasant situation, whether it is in the form of a negative thought about our body or physical sensation, over time we learn that nonresistance to what is unfolding in that moment can bring freedom from attachment to the story embedded in our minds. These insights were followed by the epiphany: “If this beautiful process is unfolding on my yoga mat and meditation pillow, how can it be translated into our everyday life situations?”
Holding the Light for Others
My personal and spiritual experiences coalesced into a path of self-discovery filled with endless possibilities, not only to do work on the inside, but also to step into that place where I can be of highest service to others. The possibility to integrate personal and spiritual experiences with science to inform and effect change through research and clinical work on women’s health issues was the impetus to pursue a PhD in clinical psychology. I am now a licensed clinical psychologist, and my research and clinical work is focused on women’s mental health and mind-body therapies for depression, anxiety, body image issues, and trauma.
I was afraid to remain in contact with private internal experiences that took the form of disturbing thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations pertaining to my body shape and size. Stepping onto my mat day after day and staying with the discomfort provided insight into the function of these behavioral tendencies (i.e., emotional avoidance and the role of yoga and meditation as conduits to psychological healing). The motivation to further explore these relationships in my work with women was cultivated to some degree by what transpired through the Eastern practices. Loving-kindness and compassion practices not only brought awareness to the subtle ways in which I was being dictated by society’s construction of how a woman should look in her body, but also the powerful shifts that can emerge through the simple act of becoming still, both mentally and physically. Attempts to fit the media’s portrayal of the perfect body type or to try and fight against the natural flow of thoughts and emotions were fruitless. The transformational change I witnessed fueled my desire to integrate these teachings with Western psychology, with an aim to provide others with tools for turning internal chaos into something meaningful in their lives.
Before enrolling in graduate school, I taught yoga full time and was involved with research on women and depression. I recall having conversations with female yoga students about various women’s health-related issues, ranging from mood and anxiety during pregnancy and postpartum to dysfunctional relationships with body and food. An underlying theme of the latter seemed to be a lack of self-acceptance and a constant striving to look a different way. Within the scientific community, theoretical models of disordered eating and body image dissatisfaction conceptualize the function of unhealthy eating behaviors or emphasis on body image as ways to achieve emotional avoidance. Notably, body image dissatisfaction is a national epidemic with prevalence rates ranging from 11 percent to 72 percent 4 and is a key determinant of eating disorders.
The desire to support women in addressing body image issues dovetailed into a passion to explore the integration of yoga and meditation with Western psychology. For my dissertation, I developed a yoga program for women with postpartum depression, which helped to improve women’s symptoms of depression and anxiety, along with their overall quality of life.
Subsequent clinical and research endeavors provided the opportunity to further hone my work in women veteran’s mental health, and to focus on the development and implementation of yoga and mindfulness programs for women veterans. There is a growing body of research documenting the benefits of mindfulness and yoga for negative psychological states such as anxiety, depression, and stress, as well as for medical conditions, including chronic pain. Further, newer forms of psychotherapies are being developed that pull from Eastern philosophies, such as Buddhism, and focus on integrating the key tenets of mindfulness. These newer therapies, referred to as “third-wave” therapies, are arguably successful in their ability to help individuals become less attached to their struggles and ultimately move into life situations with more joy and vitality and less suffering. The integration of mindfulness and meditation with Western psychology helps to broaden a person’s behavioral repertoire to consider the context in which the behavior is occurring and provides an opportunity for the person to better understand the function of other behaviors outside of the present situation.
The integration of my personal and professional experiences has allowed me to cultivate awareness and the power within to transform my relationship to food and body. My spiritual practice shed light on the many ways in which I became entangled with the misconceptions of what my body should look like, primarily dictated by societal norms. My work as a clinical psychologist helped to further develop my insight into the connections between the identification with negative thoughts about body size and shape, and maladaptive behaviors that served to perpetuate my dysfunctional relationship with self. Through these pathways, I learned how to embrace my divine uniqueness regardless of body shape, size, and weight. My personal journey continues to fuel the passion for my work in a beautiful and magical way. From this place, I am now able to help guide others toward meaningful lives filled with love and acceptance and less suffering. For this, I am deeply grateful.
Melissa Mercedes, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist and conducts clinical research at the VA Greater Los Angeles and San Diego Healthcare Systems. She has extensive experience in the use of mind-body therapies for trauma, depression, and anxiety in women, and is an advocate for integrative approaches to promote emotional and physical well-being. Author photo by Naru Photography.
3. Tiggeman and Lynch, “Body Appreciation in Adult Women: Relationships with Age and Body Satisfaction,” Elsevier, 2001. https://www.6minutes.com.au/getmedia/78426d7b-f84e-46af-bb17-de4e6c51d6a9/body-image-paper.aspx.
4. Fiske, et al., “Prevalence of Body Dissatisfaction Among United States Adults” Eating Behaviors 15(3), 2014. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262304198_Prevalence_of_Body_Dissatisfaction_Among_United_States_Adults_Review_and_Recommendations_for_Future_Research.