{"id":60200,"date":"2024-10-24T10:41:47","date_gmt":"2024-10-24T14:41:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/magazine\/uncategorized\/reflexions-sur-le-corps\/"},"modified":"2024-10-24T13:02:04","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T17:02:04","slug":"reflections-on-the-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/magazine\/interviews\/reflections-on-the-body\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on the Body"},"content":{"rendered":"

How old were you when someone first commented on your appearance? Have we really moved beyond the dictates of thinness and diet culture as a society? Are the ways you take care of yourself intuitive, or were they taught to you? Mikella Nicol, the author of Mise en forme<\/em>, and Manal Drissi, a columnist and comedian, discuss the place of others in our relationships with our own bodies.<\/p>\n

Hello, Mikella. In your latest novel, Mise en forme<\/i>, you talk about how you started to become obsessed with weight loss when you were only 10 years old. That\u2019s so young!<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mikaella Nicol<\/h4>\n

\u201cYes\u2026 and I don\u2019t think I was an exception. I remember my grandmother telling me I had a big stomach, and I was often told that at school, too, by other kids. I don\u2019t know if that still happens, but I remember adults commenting on my body a lot when I was a child.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hello, Manal. Did you have the same kind of experience when you were young?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Manal Drissi<\/h4>\n

\u201cFor as long as I can remember, people have always made comments about my body, even when I was three or four years old. But always in a kind and loving way. The women around me, who were role models for me, thought that by telling me to control my body, they were saving me from something. They told me \u2018it\u2019s better for you to know this now so you can do something about it than to do nothing and regret it later when you\u2019re left out because of it.\u2019 There was a form of fatphobia in there that was so internalized that it was exploited thinking that it was doing good.\u00a0\u201c This is why these ideas are hard to deconstruct afterwards, because the relationship of girls and women with their bodies doesn\u2019t always come from a place of hatred of others.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, we should avoid commenting on children\u2019s bodies once and for all…<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Manal Drissi<\/h4>\n
\u201cYes, and not only that; we should avoid talking about our own bodies in front of children. Most children have never directly been told \u2018your body isn\u2019t right,\u2019 but they\u2019ve seen people they love making comments about theirs. As a mother, I realized that the way I talked about my body had a huge influence on how my child would perceive his own body, and the bodies of others, for the rest of his life.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n

There\u2019s a question of belonging in all this. Even the word fitness <\/em>contains the word fit<\/em>, meaning to be part of, to be capable. But what exactly are we capable of?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mikaella Nicol<\/h4>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the question I ask myself in my book! The words used in the field of personal growth really interest me. We\u2019re promised that by working on ourselves, we can become \u2018better mothers,\u2019 \u2018better friends,\u2019 \u2018better girlfriends,\u2019 and it\u2019s always in relation to others; the goal is never to be a better person for oneself.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s interesting, this idea of belonging better, because for me, I\u2019ve always seen femininity as something into which I wasn\u2019t capable of entering. If I could follow role models, literally watch them and imitate them, maybe I would be \u2018capable\u2019 of being part of femininity myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything sport could offer me [\u2026] was cancelled by the fact that the numbers on a scale weren\u2019t going down enough and, in the eyes of others, I wasn\u2019t gaining in value.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Where do you find your role models?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mikaella Nicol<\/h4>\n

\u201cI absorb them! It\u2019s hard to say; it\u2019s culture, it\u2019s everywhere. And yet, we\u2019re always asked as women to detach ourselves from our culture. We\u2019re told, \u2018yeah, but you know, you have to take some and leave some.\u2019 Well, taking some and leaving some is a cognitive process, and it\u2019s a full-time job. I don\u2019t have time to take some and leave some, when everything I see every day wants to impose a way of being on me. I have to sort through the messages one by one? It\u2019s extremely difficult to do that, because we don\u2019t even realize what information we\u2019re taking in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manal, how do you see fitness?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Manal Drissi<\/h4>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never considered myself an athletic person, but I played soccer and basketball, tried climbing, signed up for different gyms\u2026 But I\u2019ve never actually been thin. And for me, thinness and the term \u2018athletic\u2019 are so intertwined that I\u2019ve always felt like an impostor just using the word \u2018athletic.\u2019 It didn\u2019t belong to me, and it was like lying to say, \u2018I\u2019m athletic.\u2019 It was as if, by looking at me, you would have proof that I wasn\u2019t. And that means no matter how much I might enjoy physical exercise on its own terms, it would always become a tool of control, something I had to use to change myself, and it wasn\u2019t worth doing if the results weren\u2019t there. \u201cSo, everything sport could offer me\u2014that is, being less anxious, having better physical health, sleeping better, doing better at school\u2014all that was cancelled by the fact that the numbers on a scale weren\u2019t going down enough and, in the eyes of others, I wasn\u2019t gaining in value. That tainted my relationship with sport so deeply that I\u2019m still paying for it even now.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is your vision of self-care?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Manal Drissi<\/h4>\n

\u201c My position on this subject has evolved in recent years. In the beginning, I understood the appeal. I said to myself, \u2018we live in a stressful society, so it\u2019s good to take care of ourselves and listen to our needs,\u2019 only to realize that self-care is just another thing that has become an industry. It\u2019s one more thing we have to spend money on individually, one more thing that allows companies to tell their employees \u2018do yoga on your lunch break\u2019 instead of implementing shorter work weeks and offering benefits that actually allow people to have a better quality of life. For me, the self-care industry is the same industry that told us 20 years ago, \u2018if you don\u2019t lose weight, you\u2019re worthless,\u2019 and which tells us today, \u2018if you spend 50 bucks more, you\u2019ll feel better.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my opinion, self-care reached its limit very quickly, and the outcome of this stressful life we lead is community care. It can\u2019t be self-care, which takes us back too much to individualism, which is one of the sources of the problem.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mikaella Nicol<\/h4>\n

\u201cAll my life, I\u2019ve been told that I don\u2019t fit in, and for the past 10 years, maybe even less, we\u2019ve been told overnight that we have to accept ourselves as we are. And I was unable\u2014like many people, I think\u2014to make that transition so quickly. And there, I hear: \u2018Well, it\u2019s because you have to accept yourself. What do you mean you don\u2019t accept yourself?\u2019 Today, if we speak negatively about ourselves, it\u2019s as if we\u2019re projecting our negative self-talk onto others.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the same thing for self-care: I have no intuition for self-care. I don\u2019t really know how to take care of myself, without it being rooted in productivity or serving some other goal like being in shape, for example. And strangely, the nights where I feel like I\u2019m doing the most self-care are the ones where I spend four hours in front of the TV.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mikaella Nicol<\/h4>\n

\u201cBecause I\u2019m not performing! Sitting down to do yoga with my little diffuser, I was taught that. It comes from an external source. Someone told me that was self-care, but that\u2019s not always what I need. Taking my Epsom salt bath, sometimes\u2026 it doesn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n

How do we find our freedom through all the messages we receive?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mikaella Nicol<\/h4>\n

\u201cGetting older isn\u2019t so bad (laughter<\/em>). I recommend it! All my life, women have told me, \u2018you\u2019ll see; things will calm down.\u2019 And it\u2019s true that things eventually settle down. \u201cI think getting in touch with reality, seeing more real women\u2019s bodies, can do good, too. For example, in clothing exchanges between women, there\u2019s always a stage where everyone strips down to their underwear to try on the clothes, and every time, it makes me realize how rarely I\u2019ve experienced this. Being with lots of women in their thirties, all different sizes, not self-conscious, in their underwear\u2026 I really wondered why we didn\u2019t get undressed more among ourselves (laughter<\/em>). In a very healthy and common place way, just with the aim of exposing our gaze to more bodies. In addition, when they\u2019re our friends, we\u2019re already biased toward kindness, and it\u2019s even easier to see the beauty of bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manal Drissi<\/h4>\n

\u201cI think neutrality is something revolutionary, and for me, it\u2019s the logical continuation of the body positivity and diversity movements.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Manal Drissi<\/h4>\n

\u201cNeutrality invites you to consider your body like your vehicle. It\u2019s what contains who you are, your soul, and that\u2019s all. It doesn\u2019t need to be beautiful or ugly, to perform or not, it doesn\u2019t need to have value in the eyes of others; it exists, period. We have to stop looking at the body as something at the market, as something to comment on. I realize that in my life, I\u2019ve witnessed far more conversations between women where we\u2019re critical of ourselves than conversations where we\u2019re neutral about our own bodies. It\u2019s so common to get together with the gang and say, \u2018Ah! I have to lose ten pounds,\u2019 \u2018Ah! My hips\u2026\u2019, \u2018Ah! My cellulite\u2026.\u2019 We don\u2019t inhabit our bodies; we\u2019re outside and looking at ourselves: \u2018Am I sitting up straight enough? Is my stomach sucked in enough?\u2019 We\u2019re always in a play, and it\u2019s so liberating to finally feel at home in our bodies. To move like we want, to sit like we want, to really exist, and to embrace our personalities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How old were you when someone first commented on your appearance? Have we really moved beyond the dictates of thinness and diet culture as a society? Are the ways you take care of yourself intuitive, or were they taught to you? Mikella Nicol, the author of Mise en forme, and Manal Drissi, a columnist and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":59589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1973],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60200"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60205,"href":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60200\/revisions\/60205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}