Hahah and ironically I'm going to braid the permission-to-express-negativity back in, because I think it is kind of an important element?
Because it's not even express, I think is an important thing here: for a lot of people who struggle with the idea of "body positivity", they weren't allowed to feel negative about things (or aren't being allowed to now, or whatever). So that for them, they have at the same time been stuck in the middle of experiencing their body as Something That Causes Them Misery, while also having often been forced not only to outwardly praise and tolerate things that cause them misery, but have been told if they don't INTERNALLY ALSO have Wonderful Warm Feelings towards these things, they are Bad.
And it may actually be that for this person, being allowed to actually Feel Things is a much bigger issue/impediment than whether or not they view specifically their body as an antagonist or an ally. So it's not even that they're on a metaphorically different spot in the journey of grieving/etc, but that their journey is actually a totally different one, with different Points of Importance.
Now I happen to actually agree with you that not actively engaging with one's body as an enemy is a better idea? But that's also part of why when talking about it I tend to foreground the "you are allowed to have these feelings, these feelings are a totally reasonable response and there is no MORAL imperative for you to change these feelings. That said you may have better practical effects from changing this approach slightly, if that's available."? Sometimes it still doesn't work, because their journey is that different, but sometimes it's better.
(And I mean: I picked that up because 95% of body-positivity creates exactly that hostility in me. Because I absolutely got the "you are not allowed to have these negative feelings" crap force-fed in many, many spheres and my slightly inconvenient protective adaptation became "my negative feelings are going to get so big and so scary that YOU CANNOT DENY THEM". Which ironically means that being encouraged to love my body increases my intense antipathy for it. >.>)
Re: THOUGHTS, TEAL AND DEERISH.
Because it's not even express, I think is an important thing here: for a lot of people who struggle with the idea of "body positivity", they weren't allowed to feel negative about things (or aren't being allowed to now, or whatever). So that for them, they have at the same time been stuck in the middle of experiencing their body as Something That Causes Them Misery, while also having often been forced not only to outwardly praise and tolerate things that cause them misery, but have been told if they don't INTERNALLY ALSO have Wonderful Warm Feelings towards these things, they are Bad.
And it may actually be that for this person, being allowed to actually Feel Things is a much bigger issue/impediment than whether or not they view specifically their body as an antagonist or an ally. So it's not even that they're on a metaphorically different spot in the journey of grieving/etc, but that their journey is actually a totally different one, with different Points of Importance.
Now I happen to actually agree with you that not actively engaging with one's body as an enemy is a better idea? But that's also part of why when talking about it I tend to foreground the "you are allowed to have these feelings, these feelings are a totally reasonable response and there is no MORAL imperative for you to change these feelings. That said you may have better practical effects from changing this approach slightly, if that's available."? Sometimes it still doesn't work, because their journey is that different, but sometimes it's better.
(And I mean: I picked that up because 95% of body-positivity creates exactly that hostility in me. Because I absolutely got the "you are not allowed to have these negative feelings" crap force-fed in many, many spheres and my slightly inconvenient protective adaptation became "my negative feelings are going to get so big and so scary that YOU CANNOT DENY THEM". Which ironically means that being encouraged to love my body increases my intense antipathy for it. >.>)