Negative self-talk comes in all shapes and sizes, and it can show up in surprising ways.
This week, Chrissy Teigen started attending yoga classes, and she learned a lesson that moms everywhere who suffer from negative self-talk need to hear.
In the past few years, a hot topic of conversation among parents is how they talk about their bodies, especially women's bodies, in front of their children.
How we talk about our bodies in front of our kids and other people's kids in their early years helps to morph how they will perceive bodies later in life.
It can even impact the likelihood of one of these children experiencing an eating disorder, body dysmorphia, or their willingness to seek help when one of these conditions arises.
While attending her first yoga class this week, Chrissy Teigen realized how easy it is to slip into negative self-talk.
While working on the mat, Teigen expressed what she described as some "belly complaints," probably while struggling to hold certain poses early in her new yoga experience, not to mention shortly after having another baby.
Overhearing Teigen talking on her mat, her yoga instructor approached her and confirmed whether or not she had just had a baby recently.
Teigen replied nonchalantly:
"No, like 18 months ago."
Her yoga instructor held her ground and said:
"That's JUST."
Here is Teigen's story:
Teigen was nearly in tears after this brief conversation that, at the heart, was really about acceptance, body positivity, and progress.
It's no secret that women are socially policed for the appearance of their bodies, and their treatment during pregnancy is no different. The only difference is, while they still need to look good and put on as little weight as possible, they also have to carry a healthy baby.
The pressure continues once the baby is born. Now the new mother has to figure out who she is as a mom, while making socially-divisive decisions about diapering, feeding, and sleeping arrangements.
Let's not forget the pressure to get those pre-baby bodies back, either.
The pressure on women to look the way they did prior to having a child is enormous in the United States, and the quicker they do so, the better.
For a celebrity like Teigen, the pressure to appear as the Chrissy Teigen everyone knew before she had children must have been unreal. But the thing society forgets: just because you're back down to your pre-pregnancy weight, doesn't mean your body feels or functions quite the same way.
For Teigen to enter a yoga class and be faced with kindness when she voiced her struggles, that's an offering of kindness and bodily love that isn't witnessed nearly enough.
Twitter has been loving this story shared by Teigen, sharing their own stories and feelings about post-baby bodies and bodily love.
Some have simply chimed in to affirm that eighteen months is well within the "just" range, encouraging Teigen to take her time in bouncing back.
Others have shared their own journeys with "just," some even asking if their much longer journeys still qualify for the "just" range.
Finally, some of shared just how heartwarming it is to see a woman lifting another woman up.
This is a message that all moms need to hear about their journeys with their children, their identities, and their post-baby bodies.
Given time, we hope this message will be how everyone perceives women's bodies, if they feel the need to chime in at all.
