A petite philosophy
Change is always at first perceived before it is accepted, and the latter only comes after a long process of trust and adjustment. When change is beyond our control (which it so often is), we are quite bad at adjusting to it. We like to keep ourselves under the illusion that everything will remain the same for as long as possible, even if we know that is not true. Why do we do this? This article takes the example of body image, an area of our lives that is particularly vulnerable to change, in order to better understand human behavioural patterns in face of unwanted change while suggesting some healthy ways to accept, adjust, and embrace that change.
This article will cover :
- Your Body as a Garden
- Satisfaction as an Obstacle to Evolution
- Our Fear of Change Applied to Body Image
- Lessons from Stoicism : The Dichotomy of Control
Your Body as a Garden
We like to take care of things. As humans, whether it comes from our female or male biology, our instincts tell us that it’s utterly important to protect and tend to that which we love. It is curious to come to find that we all protect and tend to ourselves in so many different ways, and that is marvellous. Perhaps we like to cook. Or deal with quantum physics, or track the stocks, or paint the sky on a sunny day. Regardless of what it is that we do, we should all become gardeners— metaphorically speaking (though if you want to take up a new hobby, there you go). Gardeners of our own bodies, I mean. Perhaps then we could better see them as naturally changing and evolving with the seasons, instead of viewing them as stand-still objects, never budging and always staying the same, potentially until the end of time. However, we are not doing ourselves a favour with this vision. Were we all to become gardeners, we might better understand how our bodies bloom, rest, and rebuild, serving as a perfect mirror for the intricacies of change.
Satisfaction as an Obstacle to Evolution
Why are we never satisfied ? It can be argued that a critical eye pushes for progress, and that dissatisfaction is actually a propellor towards further improvement. As Frank T. McAndrew writes, “This is how it should be, at least from an evolutionary perspective [1]. Dissatisfaction with the present and dreams of the future are what keep us motivated, while warm fuzzy memories of the past reassure us that the feelings we seek can be had”.
Otherwise, perhaps this is another greedy experiment of ours, hoping for a better outcome without having understood how and why we’ve arrived at the point we are now. Sometimes, dissatisfaction can be a way to avoid accepting a reality within which we are not comfortable. In rejecting it, we no longer have to deal with it, and can focus on the reality we want to move towards instead. This is what we call optimistic bias, which is “the tendency to think that our future will be better than our present” [1].
This happens all the time with body image : we think of how toned we’ll look in two months from now, or how much weight we’ll have lost by the summer. A stronger figure, a more voluptuous figure, a slimmer figure, a taller figure, a more petite figure - whatever it is that we may want - it surely is better than what we have now.
Oftentimes, when we embark on a journey towards that said improvement, we forget our human weaknesses in the face of change. There are two principal roadblocks that may prohibit us from ever reaching our desired destination [2] :
- Because we are dissatisfied with our current reality (our body image), we are in a rush to see results, giving us hope (naturally, the human seeks immediate reward). Although we are hungry for the desired improvement, change is a slow process, and we may be quick to give up along the way, misled by instant gratification.
- If we do succeed in making it to our goal, we may find we are unhappy and drained. Having sacrificed a great deal of ourselves, we might find ourselves subscribing to the tempting belief that all false indulgence can be corrected and replaced with discipline, while in reality, the two must be balanced— a healthy amount of discipline and indulgence make for a sustainable mental and physical equilibrium.
This is what emotion researchers refer to as the ‘hedonic treadmill’ [3], and it proposes that humans always return to a baseline happiness after both extremely positive or extremely negative events, hedonistically adjusting to whatever their new ‘norm’ of happiness may be. Hence, with every new goal we reach, we set the bar higher - and we are never truly satisfied.
So, while we might suppose that satisfaction is an obstacle to evolution and improvement in its lack of ambition and in its non-critical outlook on life, that's not entirely true. Let’s take a moment to better understand our fear of change applied to body image via the next paragraph.
Our Fear of Change Applied to Body Image
Funnily enough, dissatisfaction is the primary agent causing us to desire change in our lives. Yet, when that change is unprecedented, unwanted, and beyond our control, we resent it.
Why do we fear change? Well, for one, change is linked to uncertainty, as we don’t necessarily know what’s coming. Uncertainty registers in the human brain much like an error message would. As Scott Mautz puts it, “that error [of uncertainty] needs to be corrected before we can feel comfortable again” [4].
So, when our bodies change, we feel fundamentally uncomfortable with ourselves. What makes this sort of change especially difficult to cope with is that it’s extremely intimate: a change in environment or mindset is not something we’ll necessarily be reminded of everytime we step in front of the mirror. When our bodies change though, can be a hit to our ego. That’s both mental and physical. It doesn’t have to be stated, but this is why puberty is such a difficult time in our lives.
Our body image plays such a critical role in the way we perceive ourselves as well as express our identity. In fact, research has identified a clear relationship between the level of identity development and the level of body image dissatisfaction [5]. In a society of comparison, identity is often entirely constructed on how other people think we look, not how we think we look - and, how we look next to someone else. In a series of experiments conducted for the 1986 book ‘Beauty Bound’ [5], the author heightened self consciousness and comparison to others was found to be linked to “psychological maladjustment, anxiety, and even phobic obsessions like agoraphobia”.
That being said, it’s no wonder we’re especially afraid of change when it comes to body image. The comfort zone we’ve constructed for ourselves in this realm relies so heavily on comparison with others that we have no choice but to fear losing control of ourselves… precisely because we’ve never learned to look within ourselves for answers and acceptance [5].
Lessons from Stoicism : The Dichotomy of Control
When I am faced with change, no matter the kind, I always like to remind myself of one of the eight core principles of stoicism, the dichotomy of control.
The dichotomy of control separates those things which are within our control to those things which are beyond our control. Doing so can help us adopt better reactions and constructive behaviours towards a change that occurs: by separating its elements into external and internal, we begin to see how much of it we actually have a say in. The following diagram explains how this separation is made [6]:
To be more specific, I’ll reference a list made by Geoff Chen to help explain what exactly could and could not be in your control [6]:
I’d like to bring your attention to a key element in this list: health. Notice how it’s in the column labelled “beyond your control”. Most of the time, when our bodies change, there are so many factors contributing to this change that it is very difficult to prepare for or prevent it. We might gain or lose weight due to stress, our skin might flare up because we aren’t sleeping enough… the list goes on.
The point is, just because our body (our health) changes, it doesn’t mean our body image has to change. Look back at the column labelled “within your control”: note that your opinions , your actions and reactions are all things that are within your control. That is a very powerful notion we often neglect. Just because we cannot necessarily control change, we can control how we react to it.
At the beginning of this article, I encouraged us all to view our bodies as gardens, and ourselves as the gardeners. To conclude, I will extend this metaphor. In one of my favourite books, ‘French Dirt’ (look in further information section), the author, Richard Goodman, narrates his journey towards growing a garden from scratch in a small village in the South of France, where he lived for a year.
Richard plants three stocks of tomatoes in the spring, hoping to harvest them in August. However, that year, the South was hit with weeks and weeks of heatwaves. The little stream, from which Richard had been sourcing irrigation to his garden, dried out in late July. There was no water left to bring to his tomatoes. Several villagers tell him that he should have planted his tomatoes earlier, or that he should have been watering them at night, so that the soil would have more time to soak up the moisture. But Richard returns to his garden the next morning, proud of those plants which have remained, such as the zucchinis and the cucumbers. He knows that, although he is the gardener, he cannot control the ultimate fate of his garden. He can only be proud of the work he has put into it, and how much he loves it.
If our bodies are like gardens, we cannot resent them when they change. Instead, we should appreciate the lessons they are teaching us. Just like anything that is beyond our control, there is much to learn here. We would be wisest to listen to and love our bodies, so that we can better understand why they are evolving the way they are evolving. Why hate the garden we grew?
For Further Exploration
- Want to fill your IG feed with body-positive content? I’d recommend starting by following @breeelenehan, my favourite self-love influencer on instagram. She’s helping deconstruct the toxic body image norms the media often pushes us to consume, as well as inspiring us to treat our bodies with kindness and acceptance.
- If my tales of French Dirt have sparked your curiosity, you can find it on Amazon, Kindle, and several used book websites.
References:
[1] McAndrew, Frank T. “Don’t try to be happy. We’re programmed to be dissatisfied”. The Guardian, Aug 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/17/psychology-happiness-contentment-humans-aspire-goals-accomplish-evolution
[2] Ackerman, Courtney E. M.A. “What is Instant Gratification? (Definition & Examples).” PositivePsychology.com, Jun 2018. https://positivepsychology.com/instant-gratification/#:~:text=Instant%20(or%20immediate)%20gratification%20is,rewarding%20but%20more%20immediate%20benefit
[3] “Hedonic Treadmill.” The Decision Lab. https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-guide/psychology/hedonic-treadmill
[4] Mautz, Scott. “Science Says This Is Why You Fear Change (And What to Do About It).” Inc, Nov 2016. https://www.inc.com/scott-mautz/science-says-this-is-why-you-fear-change-and-what-to-do-about-it.html
[5] Chase, Michelle E. “Identity Development and Body Image Dissatisfaction in College Females.” University of Wisconsin, Dec 2001. https://minds.wisconsin.edu/bitstream/handle/1793/39871/2001chasem.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
[6] Chen, Geoff. “A Stoic Guide on the Dichotomy of Control and Happiness.” The Stoic Sage, May 2020. https://thestoicsage.com/dichotomy-of-control/