Loving My Body

Posted by The Divine Cowgirl on April 27th, 2009 at 06:42pm

I have to admit learning to love and appreciate my body has been and continues to be one of my most profound and difficult lessons. I have struggled since my tweens (preteen) with any sort of relationship with this temple that houses my journey in this life time.

In fact I have treated it with distain and at times indifference. I have expected it to work and perform often to the point of exhaustion. And even when I have physically pushed too far and the body has spoken back, I have been become angered at the idea that it didn’t simply do what I wanted when I wanted.

I have looked to those before me to provide instruction and mentoring on how to be in relationship with their bodies only to discover that they didn’t know how either. In fact most of those ahead of me might have actually preferred the male model better. The women I surveyed seemed to think that the male model had advantages that the female model didn’t have. They stated things like no monthly gifts, no childbirth, no menopause and the list went on.

So much for an older community of women who highly valued being a woman. In my peer group the conversation didn’t fare much better. There seemed to be a lot of focus on insecurities and doubt, even fears about each of their respective bodies not being the correct model or having the correct accessories. There seemed to be complaints about height, size of breasts (too big or too small), size of the body, where they had muscles or not, where they had hair or not and the list seems to go on.

In my own experience I have felt my body betrayed me, like the times when I was a teen and seemed to attract older men’s unwanted attention. And then when I put on the pounds to discourage men, women seemed to have a lot to say about how I now was the wrong shape to be seen with.

So after years of blaming my body and in some ways being at war with it, I decided to call a truce and figure out what a healthy relationship might look like. As I stepped back and reassessed I realized that I have been trying to conform to what the culture sets as the norms and rules for bodies. I realize I have given away my identity to the collective culture’s conscription and collusion with advertisers, the diet industry and the fashion industry who make billions off women and their discontent with themselves and how they look.

In essence I have been focusing on the wrong end of things. When I taught school I watched in disbelief as 6th graders severely dieted their young and growing bodies so that they could fit some fantasy. In some cases robbing their bodies of the nutrition needed to grow healthy bones and muscles.

Along with the deprivation of nutrition, they denied themselves support and emotional nourishment by their cruel and unrelenting judgment of each other and how they looked. And where were the older women to step in and stop the madness? Nowhere to be found. In truth, these young tweens were simply taking the cultural norm of inappropriate competition between girls and women to a whole new level. And I have to wonder if we as a collective will ever yell: WHOA! If we will stop and take a look and what we are doing to ourselves and to future generations?

Dove has been making an effort to teach young girls to have a different relationship with their bodies and the image they carry of themselves. That is a start. But I think we need to look deeper than that.

This past week I have been reading an amazing book – Divining the Body, Reclaim the Holiness of Your Physical Self by Jan Phillips. She lays a fascinating premise about how we got here. Having lost our collective idea of the divine feminine, we have instead attempted to superficially fit into a world that has little value for the feminine.

If we want a different experience for our daughters and granddaughters, it is up to us to imagine a different experience for ourselves and for our children. It means that we have to begin valuing ourselves from the inside out. It means we have to begin finding ways to be in healthy relationship with our bodies. That might even look like a love affair with this temple and vehicle we inhabit for this life time.

I know I am committed to a healthy relationship with this body for the remainder of my time on earth. It is never too late to start and I forgive myself for my body ignorance of the past. If nothing else this awareness gives me a sense of peace. And what I know for sure is that peace is an inside job – what better place to start than dropping the war I have been waging with what connects me to this early expression.

What kind of relationship do you have with your body? Do you give your body appropriate rest, exercise, and nutrition? Do listen to its messages and act on them with the urgency they deserve?

If you were to have a love affair with your body how would you start? What would you let go of?

What would be your daily conversation? Would it be loving?

I leave you to ponder,
The Divine Cowgirl

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