Loving yourself and your body is one of the first step to a steady relationship with your partner
Everyone says love is beyond your looks. But this is often easier said than done for many of us who struggle with our body image, particularly in a world of social media.
Body image tends to be connected to self-worth. Being in relationships often causes us to feel vulnerable and self-conscious about our bodies. In some cases, it prevents people from seeking out relationships as they tend to magnify the difficulties and insecurities they may have.
“You can’t love someone else until you love yourself first,” is a common saying we have heard many times — but is this true? This study from 2016 concluded people who were happier with their body tend to have better romantic relationships compared to those who were dissatisfied. Individuals who struggled with their body image reported having more anxious and fearful attachment styles. Overall, though, of the 12,176 participants in the study, only 24 per cent of men and 20 per cent of women reported being satisfied with their appearance.
Katie McCrindle is a registered social worker, body liberation counsellor and activist who works with women and non-binary folks to improve their relationship with themselves. She aspires to create a world where people of all sizes are confident and are in a place of self-acceptance.
“If they're not feeling worthy, or good, then they start to doubt the relationship,” explained McCrindle.
Once they start to become unconfident, their thoughts can spiral down a rabbit hole as it causes them to feel displeased about their bodies and themselves in general. This is especially prominent during intimate moments when people are especially vulnerable and exposed.
“Especially when people are contemplating having sex, I think that is a huge part that impacts body image and how you feel about yourself [by] being in that vulnerable position. It's vulnerable to being naked in front of somebody,” said McCrindle.
“Especially when people are contemplating having sex, I think that is a huge part that impacts body image and how you feel about yourself [by] being in that vulnerable position. It's vulnerable to being naked in front of somebody.”
Katie McCrindle, registered social worker
Having low self-confidence in their appearance can make people more anxious in their relationship and fear that their partner will leave them. The main reason for this may be due to societal pressures and social media.
On social media, the “ideal” woman is curvy with full lips, perfect skin, white teeth and tanned skin. For men, the “ideal” is to have abs, broad shoulders, be over 6 feet and have defined muscles. Realistically, only very few individuals can check off all of these — and that is okay.
Body positivity is important because not only will it improve everyone’s self-confidence, but it will also strengthen everyone’s relationships, whether they are romantic or not. In short, body positivity is accepting all bodies, no matter their race, size, gender or anything else.
“I usually start with body image. [I help] people to learn more self-compassion for those kinds of thoughts and feelings about [their] body because it's pretty normal to have difficult emotions about one's body,” said McCrindle.
“I usually start with body image. [I help] people to learn more self-compassion for those kinds of thoughts and feelings about [their] body because it's pretty normal to have difficult emotions about one's body.”
Katie McCrindle, registered social worker
It is okay if you can’t love everything about yourself. It takes time and patience, but it is important to remember that you will always be there for yourself.
By: Jackie McNeill
Tottering Biped Theatre, a Hamilton-based theatre company founded by Trevor Copp, has reached over 600,000 views on a TED Talk about ‘liquid lead dancing,’ a gender neutral form of partner dancing.
Several McMaster alumni are involved in the theatre company, particularly with their summer Shakespeare work held at the Royal Botanical Gardens.
The theatre is social justice-focused, devising works that have addressed issues like poverty, same sex marriage and mental health and different interpretations of Shakespeare.
However, as prominent as the theatre’s work is, it is not what Copp is arguably best known for.
In 2015, he and his colleague Jeff Fox delivered a TED Talk in Montreal on a dance concept they developed called ‘liquid lead dancing.’
Liquid lead dancing, a form of gender neutral partner dance, was born out of Copp’s discomfort with the systems and rules he was perpetuating as a ballroom dance teacher.
As explained in their TED Talk, the strictly gendered partner dancing promotes a relationship shaped by dictation, where the man leads and the woman follows.
He and Fox developed liquid lead dancing to turn this dictation into a negotiation.
“It proposes a system where lead and follow are exchanged throughout the course of the dance regardless of gender,” Copp explained.
This change of form will hopefully become normalized as a dance and help to normalize healthy relationships outside of partner dance as well.
The liquid lead dance between Copp and Fox morphed into a play about creating the first dance for a same sex wedding.
After a successful run of the play, a former student contacted Copp about presenting their dance form as a TED talk.
Copp and Fox’s TED talk was picked up by TED.com, and has over 600,00 views to date.
Despite the success of the TED talk, Copp admits that it has not been all smooth sailing promoting liquid lead dancing.
“Most people are comfortable with their given role, and, even though they aren't particularly traditional in their thinking, allow it to decide their roles as dancers. There's comfort in the familiar. I don't begrudge it at all. I just think that if you're going to recreate a culturally outdated form you should be conscious of it by making a choice to do so as opposed to sleepwalking your way through the dance form.”
Acknowledging that the work he had done with liquid lead dance is not that well-known in Hamilton, Copp is aiming to work harder at spreading the dance form in the future.
As explained in the TED Talk, liquid lead dancing is not about dance alone.
By addressing the strict roles perpetuated in partner dancing, Copp and Fox have begun to address the erasure of non-binary people and same-sex couples in dance, in addition to the exclusion of Black, Asian and other non-white bodies.
By bringing these issues that are prevalent within ballroom and partner dance to a wider audience with the TED Talk and Copp’s theatre company, the same issues that are prevalent in everyday life stand a better chance at being addressed.
Copp has performed liquid lead dance at conferences throughout Ontario, New York and Ireland and is looking forward to next presenting at a conference on consent and sexuality with Planned Parenthood in Virginia.
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