what's your relationship with your body like? - a mindful musing

Jul 3

Happy sweet day, kindred spirit 💚

What’s your relationship like with your body? And how do you feel that I asked that?

Go ahead and give yourself some time to reflect or write about it. Also notice if you don’t want to answer. That’s just as important.

It’s a really personal question. Our relationships with our bodies can feel intimate and vulnerable and scary; there’s no other relationship like it.

I’ve been doing a lot of deep diving into my own relationship with my body lately and two big things that have come up are the roles of safety and trust.

In a nutshell, I don’t think I have a strong sense of safety in my own body, and that’s something I’d like to grow. And I realize that I first need to strengthen the trust level I have with my body, and that trusting relationship has to work both ways: I trust my body and I my body trusts me.

That’s a heavy load to unpack, but here’s the quick gist: 42 years of conditioning and experience has undermined a trusting relationship with my body – over 4 decades of denying my body what it’s asked for and not fully trusting its capabilities and allowing its natural processes.

This came in packages like:

Limited scheduled bathroom breaks
Not being able to freely drink water when I was thirsty
Overindulgence in non-nutritious food
Not eating to alter my body size
Fear of injury and crippling medical bills
Overuse of antibacterial products
Pushing myself to go to school or work when I was sick

I could go on and on with this, but you get the picture: from early childhood homelife and school structure to stereotypical adult office job, I was told that other things were more important than my body. I internalized that belief, resulting in a diminished view of the value of my body and how I cared for it, AKA shitty body view and shitty relationship with my body.

With the help of yoga, meditation, shadow work, therapy, supportive people, and general curiosity, I’ve improved this relationship over the past decade, but I still struggle with it and those gross, destructive notions. And today I celebrate that I keep showing up to the table.

I want to improve this relationship for myself and help my daughter grow her own loving relationship with her body, so I need to lead by example. That means being real about my own struggles, and actively growing the simultaneous truths that I do love my body and have the desire to actively learn to love it even better.

I’m convinced that a nourishing, supportive relationship with our bodies is THE key (or at least a very large one) to living a fulfilling life and bettering the world (and dismantling those outdated and oppressive systems and institutions).

Today we start by daring to ask ourselves the question: What’s my relationship like with my body?

Maybe let that breathe and expand in your presence and get curious about what comes up. If there’s anything you feel called to share, I’m open to holding space for it with tenderness and compassion.

✨ May we be courageous in our honesty and true to our hearts ✨

With good energy 💚