Healing Core Wounds (especially as a fat person)
Last month, I had the absolute pleasure of recording with Sophia at the Fat Joy Podcast where we talked about healing core wounds as a fat person specifically. Our conversation went way beyond that, so I’ll be sending the link out for that when it airs later this summer. But, I wanted to share more about the topic of core wounds, though, since this comes up soooooo often in my sessions with clients.
I like to think about core wounds as basic human needs that get interrupted, wounded, or unmet. I define these human needs as the need to feel a sense of belonging, to feel accepted, and to feel like you’re good enough or loveable. As fundamental as these needs are, it’s super common to not have these needs met in our early lives and especially as we grow older.
Common experiences of core wounds can be things like being excluded from peer groups as a kid, being given messages that affection from our parents are conditional on our good behavior, or general experiences of shame and disconnection. This can be especially true if our bodies are used as the tool for our separation- whether our weight and body size is the reason we are “different”, or our skin color, health status, etc. Body-based distinctions between the ingroup and outgroup and body- based reasons for approval and praise are common when we’re kids. Getting picked last for team sports in PE or having different meals than our thinner siblings- these are perfect examples of core wounds developing around body shame.
A few other notes and examples of core wound development:
Family dynamics are of course a major source of core wounding! These are the first places we learn about belonging, acceptance, and love.
Experiences that taught us love or affection are conditional, and can come from peers, coaches, teachers too.
Can also develop in adulthood as well. Romantic relationships, work or academic dynamics can create core wounds.
Outside of our families, our sense of belonging is very influenced by bias, prejudice, and discrimination. Racism, ableism, and of course anti-fatness are all going to communicate that you are not good enough and can often communicate that you are even “bad” and “wrong”. (White supremacy is all about creating separations, and feeds off our need for belonging and acceptance!!)
It is also very common for queer folks and neurodivergent folks to have early experiences of “I am different from others and I can’t let them know about my differences; I have to hide my differences to remain acceptable”.
As we grow up, we usually create some kind of narrative or story about why these basic needs have not been met. We try to make sense of our core wounds, and often this shows up as self limiting beliefs. Typically when we are young, we internalize the lack of affection or the rejections as evidence there is in fact something unloveable about us.
These self limiting beliefs often look like:
I'm not good enough.
If i were more perfect, then i’d be loveable
If someone tries to get close to me, they’ll see my imperfections and see how unloveable I truly am, so I should prevent them from seeing my true self to avoid abandonment.
I’m not like other people and I need to hide that.
I’m not as deserving as others because of the shame I am hiding.
I’m not as capable as others, and I don’t get to do what they get to do in life.
Do any of those sound familiar? Can you recognize experiences in your life that helped you create these self limiting beliefs?
Before we go into how core wounds can turn into behaviors (and how we heal them), I want to specifically connect this to anti-fatness. Living in an anti-fat world as a fat person is hella hard. I speak from experience when I say that we are given constant messaging that our bodies are not worthy of basic respect, and that we are personally and morally a failure because of our body size. Fatness is indeed used as a tool of separation, and a barometer of worthiness. We are taught that fatness is something to be ashamed of and is something that keeps others from loving us. It keeps us separate, makes us feel like we don’t belong (sometimes, often times, because of very real anti-fat barriers).
So we can overcompensate by being the good friend, the good employee, the good girlfriend. We try to be the good fattie with dieting and exercise, and try to prove that we are working hard to not be fat. These efforts sometimes help us feel more connected to others, or like we can earn a small amount of approval and affection if we try hard enough.
There are thousands of ways compensating can show up in your life. In general, the main ways I see folks compensating for their core wounds are in:
People pleasing, or “codependency”. This is putting the sometimes real and sometimes imagined needs and wants of others above our own in situations that don’t call for it.
Perfectionism
Internalizing blame
Placing our self worth on external approval
In these examples, the locus of control is externally based instead of internally based; it’s about winning the approval and love of others in order to feel like “I am enough and I belong”. The main ways to heal core wounds, then, is to build a stronger internal sense of self worth, self trust, and self connection. Shift your compass from an external one to an internal one. Bring your energy back to yourself.
Below are suggestions I often give clients when working on building a stronger connection to themself:
Develop stronger sense of self worth by highlighting qualities about yourself that don’t have to do with what you do for others. Values you hold are really helpful to use here. Examples can be: I like my sense of humor, I center the value of justice in my life, I appreciate how dedicated I am to my goals, etc. I encourage you to journal and rewrite a list of things you like about yourself often!
Play with your self limiting beliefs by creating a persona for that voice. What does it sound like in your head when you hear those self limiting beliefs repeated back to you? Create a persona, character, or animal for that voice and play around with talking to it. Get to understand how it operates and get curious about it.
Self compassion work is key. You can create a self compassion persona also, like a kind fairy godmother who wants to cuddle you and make you soup when you’re sad. Try on this persona for yourself and see how you can nurture yourself in soft, gentle ways.
Bodywork can be helpful to reconnect with your body and to heal whatever you’re still holding in your body. Get to know your body and how it reacts when you feel lonely, disconnected from others, or shame. Spending time with your body is important for strengthening your sense of self.
And lastly, like I always recommend, build your fat community! Spend time with others who share your lived experiences and get what it means to operate in a world that can actively disregard and disrespect you. This is not an easy society to live in as a fat person, so find others who get it and can help support you through it. Even if your fat community is online, it is a tremendously powerful resource!!
Healing core wounds and the self limiting beliefs that come from them is hard to do on your own, so as usual, I recommend finding a therapist that can support you through it. I love the directory Inclusive Therapists. They make it easy for you to find a therapist that shares your identity or belief system.
Building a stronger sense of self and a stronger self compassion practice will help you weather the ebbs of external acceptance. Ultimately, as adults, we have to do the working of accepting ourselves and pulling back from seeking external approval. No one is going to fulfill those core wounds but ourselves. So let yourself grieve what you didn’t get in the way of nurturance and emotional care, and build a strong inner core to get through. And build a community of people that get it, and get you.
