Day 5- finally an easy day......
I was an overweight teen.
I was always the biggest, fastest, strongest, best athlete. I got the red ribbons, the trophies for mvp, the captain of the team. I served out entire volleyball games, and made the three point shot when it mattered. I played every sport, ran between school, sports, and babysitting. When high school ended, I went to post secondary, but lacked the confidence to try out for any teams. I took up running. When I got engaged, we moved to a town where I met Om, and we blissfully ran everyday, developing a best friend/mother-daughter relationship and ran many races. We played ladies soccer, and soon took up hiking. We would hike anywhere we could, once I moved away from her, (worst day of my life) we would meet in the mountains as often as possible. I kept running, kickboxing, taking self defense classes. During my pregnancies, I would workout a minimum of 90 minutes a day, then after the babies, returned to my pre baby body in a mere 6 weeks. I played ladies basketball, went to bootcamps, joined a gym, got a personal trainer, became a personal trainer, morphed my body into an amazingly strong vessel and continued to do increasingly more difficult hikes, sea kayaking, mountain biking, triathlons and crazy mountain half marathons. Oh and yoga, not the relaxing kind, but the stand on your head, do a wheel over my partners legs while he lays on the ground......yeah.....
I'm pretty sure there's more.
Sadly, the glory of my extraordinary athleticism did not overshadow the everpresent feeling of ...being overweight.
I hated my body. It was a flannel pajamas buttoned up tight kind of hate. It was a bathing suit with long board shorts and a surf top kind of hate. It was a weigh myself everday and pray it was the right number so I didn't hate myself kind of hate. It was body image disorder so bad, that intimacy was terrifying.
I would read the self help books telling me it's whats inside that counts.
I would hear the yogis at the ashram teach us how the body is just a garage that houses our soul.
Yet, I would still retreat into the body hatred that kept me safe...wait...what? kept me safe?
I slowly started to figure out that if I hated my body, hid it in the flannel in the dark, and didn't want it touched, then intimacy was impossible. Success!
It wasn't my body that was the problem, was it?
Now I am in a safe relationship with someone who truly honors me in every sense of the word, and as timing would have it, I now honor myself.
I have come to understand the concept of my body being a vessel to house my spirit. My self worth is no longer dictated by the number on the scale. (albeit when the number is near what it was in my 20's, I do walk a little taller...)
Just the other day, it was pouring rain. I had my book, Ellen was on, I had chocolate, and I stayed in my pjs all day. When it was time to go to bed, I went to put my nightgown on, only to puzzlingly look down and find it was already on. Huh. Wierd.
In this lesson today, we are asked to honor our bodies.
We are simply using our bodies as a vessel to play in this game of life. We should be grateful for this opportunity to have such a perfect gift in which to carry out these experiences and life adventures.
Once we appreciate this concept, we can become more sensitive to our needs, and be more caring and gentle to our bodies.The more love you give your body, the better you will feel.
This body keeps you alive and "in the game"......
In the past, we have abused ourselves, ignored our needs, had no boundaries, given more than we had to give, put others needs before our own. We've engaged in things we shouldn't have, criticized ourselves for being too fat, too weak, for eating that last cupcake when no one was looking, for not resting when we needed it.
Good news, your body doesn't hold a grudge against you.
All it wants is to be fit, nourished, replenished, honored and revered.
We can all do that.
Repeat after me...Wholeness and happiness is my birthright. Appreciation for my body is medicine for my soul.
Now go get dressed for goodness sake.
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