How do you feel about your body?
'Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering there's a crack in everything, that's where the light gets in'
Leonard Cohen
Do you love your body, hate it, feel indifferent, like some parts and hate others?
Until we really love our bodies we cannot truly love ourselves but if we are looking for perfection, we are probably never going to accept ourselves. Some of us have been in the habit of disliking certain physical parts of us for a lifetime - we feel our noses are too long, our legs too short etc or maybe you've spent a life time trying different diets searching for 'the one' magical one.
We may think if only we could look a certain way, then we'd be happy?
But if that were true then all thin, beautiful people would be happy and that's not the case. Most of us can name a celebrity or two who appear to have everything but are deeply unhappy. Women who've gone on crash diets, extreme regimes and even under the surgeons knife, some many times over. However much we change the outside unless we can manage our minds and are happy on the inside any satisfaction will be short lived.
It's true that some people use the external to jump start the process (think how many women change their hair when they experience a relationship breakdown or other crisis) but without the internal work the changes rarely last long term.
Personally my biggest challenge was the way my body changed after having children, I hated my stomach, with its angry stretch marks, for so long but as they faded to silvery lines so did my hatred, I learned to accept them as part of me that tells my story, like the childhood scar on my knee. I celebrate that my body was able to stretch enough to hold my two babies and safely protect them until they were ready to be born. I've come to view these scars like the marks on our kitchen table from all the many activities my now grown sons engaged in over the years and of the scratched legs on the old welsh dresser where puppies teethed and kittens sharpened their claws. My body is a tapestry of all that I've lived and the more I accept the more I like the bits that are least perfect. These bodies that are housing our inner beings, allowing us to experience this physical reality deserve to be loved.
I understand that many women face far greater challenges regarding their physical bodies, but how much more important to be especially kind to them in these circumstances. The Japanese have 'Kintsugi', the art of mending broken pottery using gold paint, celebrating that something new and unique can be created, something resilient and, equally if not more, beautiful.
This could be a metaphor for both our minds and bodies.
When we stop criticising our imperfections and begin to put our awareness on all our body allows us we can begin to feel grateful and more loving. As the late, great Louise Hay says
'When you listen with love to your body’s messages, you will fuel it with the food it needs, exercise it, and love it. I believe we contribute to every so-called dis-ease in our body. The body, like everything else in life, is a mirror of your inner thoughts and beliefs. The body is always talking to you, if you will take the time to listen. Every cell within your body responds to every single thought you think and every word you speak.'
If we have constantly berated our bodies and yet our unkindness hasn't made the changes, then surely it makes sense to try a new way of thinking as this approach obviously doesn't work. Perhaps now is the time to stop, for us to notice our thoughts, to be our own best friend and when we look in the mirror we could begin to look into our eyes and say "I love you" even if we don't feel it quite yet. The more we practise the quicker this new habit will be established until eventually we will learn to accept ourselves fully.
Let's not waste time wishing and waiting, let's begin where we are now, loving what is.