Returning to the body
I've been separated from my body for a long time now.
It's strange in a way. How growing up everything can be about your body but you can never really live in it. When I was younger, everything seemed to revolve around what was happening to my body and in my body and what I did or did not put in my body and how my body looked. And I never really lost a sense of having a body, as some women do, but I lost the sense of being connected to my body. I knew I had a body, but it felt like something I had or something that was happening to me as opposed to something that was a part of who I was. I cursed my body, spent hours upon hours wishing it was thinner or flatter or more sculpted, eating and not eating my body into submission. I moaned about countless hospital trips where everyone seemed to scream at me there was something wrong with my body. The message I received about my body growing up was that it didn't belong to me and that there was something wrong with it.
I got an email from my doctor today and immediately it brought me back to that feeling of being a teenage girl sitting in the doctors office, listening to them talk about genetics and enzymes and control but only hearing Your body is broken. As I read the email my heart started to race, my breathing quickened, my shoulders tensed up. No matter what words they say, or how they frame the conversation all I hear, all I've ever heard, is that there is something fundamentally broken about my body.
I don't know how to live in a body. During my coaching sessions we are doing a lot of body work, a lot of getting into the body and seeing how different parts of the body feel and which areas react to certain emotions. It's a lot of touching my body, becoming familiar with different parts of my body and how they feel and how they react and paying attention, and then actively breathing with love into those areas of my body.
And then I started going to Buti yoga. If you don't know anything about Buti I explained it this way after my first class "It is both the sweatiest and the sexist I've ever felt in my life." It is hard work, most of the time I can't keep up. But I walk in the door of the studio and I hit this wall of love. And my walls come down. And as we practice I am too busy moving to think and then I finally notice that I am IN my body. I feel connected to my body. I feel every part of my body and I'm not overthinking and I slip into this knowing that this is the true essence of my body. My body isn't broken, or bad. My body is good. My body is sexy and fierce and a badass. My body belongs to me and I belong to my body.
I could talk forever about the strong feeling of love that exists inside the studio. How regardless of who you are or what struggles you have with your body or your past, there is space and loving acceptance and no judgment. It's the kind of love and community that allowed me to practice yoga in my sports bra for the first time ever in a studio. Looking at my not so flat stomach in the floor length mirrors with all my scars and imperfections - a sight that normally would remind me of the supposed brokenness of my body - the power and ferocity of my own being sinks in a little bit deeper. I feel just a little bit sexier, a little bit more whole, a little bit more of a badass. And layers fall away. Layers I've kept built up for so long in an attempt to protect myself. And I belong only to me, to the pure, whole, fierce girl who embodies strength and moves courage.
This is how I'm beginning to heal. It's how I am starting to return home to my body. Piece by piece the layers of self hatred and feeling broken and not good enough fall away and all I am left with is the real, authentic, free, fierce badass that was there all along.
It's a strange feeling to come home to your body. But as I settle in, I know I was meant to be here all along.
It's strange in a way. How growing up everything can be about your body but you can never really live in it. When I was younger, everything seemed to revolve around what was happening to my body and in my body and what I did or did not put in my body and how my body looked. And I never really lost a sense of having a body, as some women do, but I lost the sense of being connected to my body. I knew I had a body, but it felt like something I had or something that was happening to me as opposed to something that was a part of who I was. I cursed my body, spent hours upon hours wishing it was thinner or flatter or more sculpted, eating and not eating my body into submission. I moaned about countless hospital trips where everyone seemed to scream at me there was something wrong with my body. The message I received about my body growing up was that it didn't belong to me and that there was something wrong with it.
I got an email from my doctor today and immediately it brought me back to that feeling of being a teenage girl sitting in the doctors office, listening to them talk about genetics and enzymes and control but only hearing Your body is broken. As I read the email my heart started to race, my breathing quickened, my shoulders tensed up. No matter what words they say, or how they frame the conversation all I hear, all I've ever heard, is that there is something fundamentally broken about my body.
I don't know how to live in a body. During my coaching sessions we are doing a lot of body work, a lot of getting into the body and seeing how different parts of the body feel and which areas react to certain emotions. It's a lot of touching my body, becoming familiar with different parts of my body and how they feel and how they react and paying attention, and then actively breathing with love into those areas of my body.
And then I started going to Buti yoga. If you don't know anything about Buti I explained it this way after my first class "It is both the sweatiest and the sexist I've ever felt in my life." It is hard work, most of the time I can't keep up. But I walk in the door of the studio and I hit this wall of love. And my walls come down. And as we practice I am too busy moving to think and then I finally notice that I am IN my body. I feel connected to my body. I feel every part of my body and I'm not overthinking and I slip into this knowing that this is the true essence of my body. My body isn't broken, or bad. My body is good. My body is sexy and fierce and a badass. My body belongs to me and I belong to my body.
I could talk forever about the strong feeling of love that exists inside the studio. How regardless of who you are or what struggles you have with your body or your past, there is space and loving acceptance and no judgment. It's the kind of love and community that allowed me to practice yoga in my sports bra for the first time ever in a studio. Looking at my not so flat stomach in the floor length mirrors with all my scars and imperfections - a sight that normally would remind me of the supposed brokenness of my body - the power and ferocity of my own being sinks in a little bit deeper. I feel just a little bit sexier, a little bit more whole, a little bit more of a badass. And layers fall away. Layers I've kept built up for so long in an attempt to protect myself. And I belong only to me, to the pure, whole, fierce girl who embodies strength and moves courage.
This is how I'm beginning to heal. It's how I am starting to return home to my body. Piece by piece the layers of self hatred and feeling broken and not good enough fall away and all I am left with is the real, authentic, free, fierce badass that was there all along.
It's a strange feeling to come home to your body. But as I settle in, I know I was meant to be here all along.
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