Read Come as You Are for Free Online Page B

opposite of what she needed.
“What I need is to hear that it’s okay to feel sad that my body will never be what it used to be. I put a lot of effort into learning to love that body, and now I’ve got to start all over again learning to love this one.”
So I said, “It’s okay to feel sad that your body has permanently changed.”
Laurie burst into tears—which is something she does a lot lately, sudden quiet little storms that pass through her anytime she finds herself on the receiving end of the affection and attention she lavishes on others.
“It shouldn’t even be about whether I like my body or not,” she sniffed. “That’s really what changed after I had Trev. Now it should really be about whether or not it does what I need it to do.”
By “what she needs it to do,” Laurie means giving birth—at home, squatting in the tub, like a boss—breast-feeding for more than a year, and never sleeping more than four hours in a row for almost three years. The statement “Trevor is a bad sleeper” doesn’t even begin to cover the dark circles under Laurie’s eyes. Laurie’s body is amazing.
But she doesn’t feel that way.
The notion of “all the same parts, organized in different ways” is as true for the ways a woman’s body changes over the course of her life as it is for the ways people’s genitals vary. And just as everyone’s genitals are normal and beautiful, so all women’s bodies are normal and beautiful.
But mostly that’s not what women are taught. Mostly we’re taught that our bodies are supposed to be one specific shape, otherwise there’s something wrong with us. I’ll talk about that—and how to overcome it—in chapter 5.
    change how you see 10
    I realize that just saying, “Your genitals are perfect and beautiful,” won’t change anything if you feel uncomfortable with your genitals, but if seeing the beauty of your unique and healthy genitals is something you struggle with, there are two things I’d like you to do:
1. Get a hand mirror and look at your vulva, as I described earlier in the chapter. As you look, make note of all the things you like about what you see. Write them down. You’ll notice that your brain tries to list all the things you don’t like, but don’t include those. Do it again every week. Or twice a week. Or more. Each time, the things you like will become a little more salient and the noise will get a little quieter. Maybe even consider telling someone else about what you see and what you like. Better still, tell someone who also did the exercise!
It’s an activity that gets labeled cognitive dissonance because it forces us to be aware of good things, when mostly we tend to be aware of the “negative” things. Try it.
2. Ask your partner, if you have one, to have a close look. Turn on the light, take off your clothes, get on your back, and let them look. Ask them what they see, how they feel about it, what memories they have of your vulva. Let your partner know what you’ve felt worried about, and ask for help to see what they see. Listen with your heart, not with your fear.
    a better metaphor
    We started this chapter thinking about the ways we metaphorize anatomy, creating meaning from random acts of biology in ways that end up making us feel uncomfortable with our bodies. To help undo all that, I like to use a different metaphor: a garden. It’s a metaphor I use a lot—remember the apple tree from the introduction?—because it offers a judgment-free way of thinking about how the sexual hardware we’re born with (our bodies and brains) and the families and culture we’re born into, interact to give rise to the individual sexual self that emerges in adulthood.
    It goes like this: On the day you’re born, you’re given a little plot of rich and fertile soil, slightly different from everyone else’s. And right away, your family and your culture start to plant things and tend the garden for you, until you’re old enough to take over its care