My body and I are a beautiful combination… although I’m still learning what it is to be fully in love with her, in all the ways.
Some days, I cry tears of gratitude because I’m so amazed by all that my body has carried me through and how incredibly strong she is. On other days, I still struggle to see her beauty.
There are signs everywhere (both literally and metaphorically) telling me that my body should be different than she is – smaller, less wrinkled, tighter – plumper here, more tucked in there.
It’s easy to be consumed by these messages, the ones that scream “YOUR BODY IS NOT ENOUGH.” It’s easy to forget the actual miracle that she is. It’s easier still to forget how much she fights FOR me… and that she always has and always will.
On those days, when my body feels foreign to me or “less than,” even then I surrender into her embrace. I step back into the practice of loving her unconditionally, just as I have countless times before. There are no parts to be changed or to make better, just the magical miracle that that she is – the miracle that allows me to experience this human existence.
I settle into how she feels like home. I don’t fight the difficult feelings or try to change her. I practice what it is to embrace my body exactly as she is.
I feel the discomfort of unlearning all that I have been conditioned to believe about her. I sit with the feelings of not-enough-ness, the feelings of urgency. I just allow them and I don’t entertain the stories in my mind.
The thoughts and feelings come… and they go. All the while, I’m learning how to deeply love my body. I’m learning where there is still more healing to be done.
That’s all it really is. When the thoughts and feelings come up, the ones that feel unsafe or unloving and make me want escape my body, it just shows me where there’s more healing available to me.
I love this body of mine for all that she is, for all that she can do and is learning to do, and for all the lessons she has taught me. My desire is to search for her beauty, endlessly – to love all parts of her – to nourish her, to protect her, to be at home in her.
Even if I’m still learning how to fully love her, I see her and I am grateful she is mine.