Spanx & Self-Love

The title for this week’s post probably sounds like clickbait. Warning! It’s not! I seriously want to chat about how Spanx helped me have a breakthrough in self-love.

Let me back up a little bit.

I kicked off 2020 by referencing a lot of my own journey in my content. One theme I’ve discussed at length has been expanding on the breakthroughs that I’ve already had in self-love and taking them to the next level.

In this process, something happened while I was in Chicago to celebrate the latest cohort graduating from Accomplishment Coaching. One of my leaders reflected that this “self-love/forgiveness/compassion” conversation was one that I’ve been in for a while. So, as a good leader often does, she challenged me to have my next breakthrough that very weekend.

This reflection really struck something in me. First of all, I do believe self-love and acceptance are journeys that last a lifetime. But in my leader’s reflection, I noticed that I was treating self-love like a goal outside of myself that I was going to have put a lot of work and effort into creating. Meanwhile, the experience that I wanted to have – more love for myself – was one of ease, joy, flow, and peace. It was totally backwards to try to achieve that experience by working really hard.

I was super grateful for the reflection. It had me thinking… so if self-love isn’t something to chase after, if it’s something inherently available to me, what do I notice now?

Well, what I noticed was that I liked to create a long list of things I didn’t have yet which proved I didn’t love myself enough. But what if I could notice something that was already there? And sure enough, as silly as it sounds, I found that how I was dressing during training weekends could be flipped on its head.

Here's the thing. Every time I fly to Chicago, I rent amazing outfits to wear. I feel powerful, stylish, all of these things. But every weekend I also elect to wear Spanx for twelve hours a day, two days in a row.

If you've never worn Spanx, it feels like intentionally stuffing too much meat into a sausage casing. That’s not a diss on myself. That’s genuinely how it feels. It’s the experience of being sucked in so tight that every time I breathe, I am painfully aware of wearing my Spanx.

In service of self-love, I said “to heck with it.” No more Spanx. I did away with them for a weekend. And perfectly enough, not wearing Spanx left me feeling more present to conversations, because I wasn’t distracted by how hard it was to breathe or the need to adjust myself or worry about how I looked.

I felt much more ease and freedom. By removing my Spanx, I was removing one area of my life where I really control and manage myself.

The experience illuminated the opportunity to notice when I can relate to what I want as something inward rather than something that exists outside of me. Not wearing Spanx was truly a practice in having the experience of self-love that I say that I want, which is one of ease and comfort.

Now for those of you reading who are in the magical camp of: “I already love myself, this post isn’t helpful for me” – consider this:

Maybe you want to be able to trust your co-workers or your company team more. Or maybe you want to feel seen and heard in your relationship. My invitation for you is to stop looking for all of the evidence for why you can't trust your coworkers or why you aren't seen and heard — and instead, list all of the ways you are having the experience that you want.

From there, simply decide how you want to build on what’s already there.

Ditching Spanx taught me to remove barriers in the name of self-love. How can you flip the script on your experiences?