Talking Body

After day 6 of my 30-day yoga challenge, I took off my shirt, stood in front of a mirror, and frowned at what I saw. Recently, I had accepted that I could not out-exercise the way I eat, so I've been trying to make better food choices (and not necessarily always succeeding). I know this is a great opportunity to build up the virtue life keeps prodding me to acquire again and again: patience. Sure, I've been working out more consistently and eating a bit more mindfully, but real results aren't going to come in a week or two.

After turning away from the mirror, I thought, "Life is too short to spend in a body I'm not happy with," and resolved to step up my efforts. I was tired of hearing people tell me that I "have such a thin face." (It happens a lot more often than you'd think.)

But maybe this yoga challenge is making me more enlightened, because immediately after that thought came another: "Life is too short to spend being ungrateful."

My body, for all my perceived flaws, has served me well all these years, and I realized that I hadn't even thanked it for all that it has done for me. So, body, THANK YOU.

For allowing me to keep dancing, and for remaining fairly flexible.

Photo by Felix Angue

For letting me finish a half-marathon, even without sufficient training.

For letting me keep playing the sport I love.

For carrying a child for nine glorious months, and producing enough breast milk (with equal parts difficulty and determination) for 22 and a half months before my son self-weaned.

Photo by Sara Black. Makeup by Omar Ermita.

 
For being able to do pull-ups, something I haven't been able to do before--not even when I was younger and lighter.

For allowing me to bear the weight of a toddler who's growing fast and seems to be all about the gains.

This gratefulness doesn't mean that I'm about to let myself go--it's just enabling me to see my body in a whole new light. I want to work out and eat right not (merely) because of vanity, but because I know my body deserves to retain its strength and its resilience and its beauty (in spite of--or because of--everything it's gone through: childbirth and breastfeeding and just plain getting older). It deserves to be treated with respect, and it deserves to be loved and nurtured. Just like the rest of me.

Photo by John Paul Santos