What happens when the body you’ve spent your whole life knowing becomes unfamiliar to you? Then we place that experience inside a culture telling women that the successful outcome of pregnancy is to make it look like pregnancy never happened. Why Did Nobody Tell Me I Might Not Recognise My Body? We unpack how you can feel completely in awe of what your body has done and still feel uncomfortable living in it. Gratitude doesn’t cancel grief. There’s sometimes this expectation that because your body grew a human, you’re only allowed to feel grateful for it. But you can think my body did something extraordinary and simultaneously think: I don’t recognise myself. I don’t know how to dress this body. Sex feels different. Running feels different. I leak when I jump. My pelvic floor feels heavy. I’m weaker. I’m more tired. Things move differently. Pregnancy, birth and early motherhood involve an enormous surrender of control. Your body changes without asking permission. Birth may unfold nothing like you planned. Sleep isn’t yours to control. Your time isn’t entirely yours. Your baby isn’t a performance outcome you can perfect. And then body change becomes something measurable. For some women, the postpartum body isn’t simply a body they don’t like. It can become the place where much older beliefs about worth, control, achievement, shame and being “good enough” suddenly get played out. How do I build a relationship with the body I’m living in now? Postpartum body conversations are so visually dominated: weight, stomach, breasts, stretch marks. But women are also living with physiological changes. Pelvic-floor symptoms. Leakage. Heaviness or pressure. Abdominal changes. Pain. Breast changes. Hormonal changes. Fatigue. Changes to sex. Changes in strength and endurance. Recovery from vaginal birth or Caesarean birth. For someone who previously experienced their body as capable, predictable or athletic, that can be genuinely destabilising. There’s also the body as no longer entirely yours Pregnancy: your body houses someone. Birth: your body becomes intensely observed and medicalised. Postpartum: feeding, pumping, holding, touching, climbing, carrying. Your body may feel needed before it feels inhabited. that can affect body image, sexuality and identity in ways that have almost nothing to do with weight. What happens to your relationship with your body when everybody else seems to need something from it? For some women, motherhood is the first time they experience their body as something other than an aesthetic object. “For the first time, I respected my body more than I judged it.” Pregnancy, birth, recovery, feeding, carrying a growing child can radically change the meaning of the body. “My body became impressive to me in a way that had nothing to do with being beautiful.” “Getting my body back” might actually mean getting bodily autonomy back Sometimes when a woman says “I want my body back,” she isn’t talking about weight at all. She means: I want my body to belong to me again. Becoming a mother can actually heal parts of someone’s body relationship For some women pregnancy is destabilising.For others, it can temporarily or more enduringly shift their relationship with food and body. And the most interesting paradox: confidence can increase while body satisfaction decreases. Maybe motherhood changed my body in ways I didn’t choose and somehow made me more at home in myself! You can find more of us here: WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME THIS? | LIVE IN BONDI We’re taking the conversations from this series out of your headphones and into a room full of women. 💛 Join us on Friday 23 October at Bondi Beach for Why Did Nobody Tell Me This? LIVE a day of honest conversations, psychology, science, lived experience, incredible experts, connection, beautiful food and plenty of “oh my god, ME TOO” moments. This isn’t a day about how to be a better mum. It’s a day about you, the woman who became one. Part education. Part connection. Part exhale. GET YOUR TICKETS HERE 🎟️ https://events.humanitix.com/why-did-nobody-tell-me-this Our Online Psychology practice: Did you know we have online appointments available with our amazing therapists Lisa or Maddie. Learn more here https://thepsychcollaborative.com.au The Thriving Therapists: To connect with a safe and supportive community of like-minded therapists, head to our Thriving Therapists Facebook group: https://m.facebook.com/groups/224252457083630/?ref=share&mibextid=S66gvF Or find us on our Instagram: ...
