It can sometimes feel like we’re on the “outs” with our body. We feel like we’re in a fight – because we are! We’re struggling with the most important relationship in our life – the relationship we have with our body.
Our body-relationship is the longest relationship of our life. We are born into our body and we will die in it.
And yet often it can be the most challenging relationship we have.
Some of us feel that instead of feeling like we have an ally in life (a wondrous container that allows us to move through this world) we are dealing with an enemy. So much so that many women feel like they are constantly at war with their own body.
The war sometimes feels like body-hate or shame. It can sometimes look like chronic dieting and then feeling like a failure when we can’t stick to the diet. The war can also occur to us as simply never feeling truly at home in our own skin.
This body-war has casualties. Our pleasure and joy get sacrificed. We get disconnected and divorced from our ability to be kind and compassionate and respectful to ourselves.
We deserve better!
We deserve to have a positive and deeply connected relationship with our body.
Here are 3 powerful strategies to help you start repairing your relationship with your body and start creating Body-Peace.
1.Create a body-honoring mindset.
That means that we come to your body with the attitude that it has something valuable to say. It’s not our servant doing our bidding, but a partner in all that we do. Approaching our body with honor and respect, like a wonderful wise friend, will open the door to having a positive relationship with our body.
2.Listen and make space for sensation.
Our body speaks the language of sensation. All those dull aches, sharp pains, zany gurgles and waves of pleasure are exactly how our body talks. Each everyday run-of-the-mill body sensation is the constant whispering of our body.
Some of those sensations we tune into will be uncomfortable, and it’s tempting to tune right back out. It’s human nature to move away from discomfort. However, to be in an authentic relationship we want to allow our body sensations to be felt fully. When we make space for our internal experience, then we can access the intelligence of our body and truly reap the rewards of this powerful relationship.
3.Listen for the wisdom in the sensations.
Within the sensations of our body is wisdom – meaning – a message of what we need or feel. All of us have access to that wisdom in different ways. Some of us experience our ‘knowing’ as images. Some perceive words, and for others, when they listen into their sensations, they experience an emotion. The way your body speaks is uniquely yours, but for sure it’s speaking. Just ask her what she wants to tell you, and then wait for the answer. It will come.
If you’ve been on the ‘outs’ with your body for a while, be patient while your reestablish good communication.
The more you honor your body and listen for all that it’s saying, the more she can guide you to make choices that support you to live your best life.
Here is a poem I wrote to support women on their journey.
DID YOU DIVORCE YOUR BODY?
© Nina Manolson
What I want to say to you if you divorced your body somewhere
along the way and don’t know how to reconnect.
I want to say…
I get it.
I divorced my body early on.
I was 9, when my body started to feel like it wasn’t a safe place to be.
I was 14 when I started to feel like I had to manage it and every morsel that entered.
I was 16 when it became deeply confusing to be the shape of me.
I was 18 when my body became the enemy.
And by 19, my body was my full time DIY project.
I hear it every day
from smart amazing women, the moment,
the moments they divorced their body.
When it was unsafe for you to be in a woman’s body.
When the shape of you was criticized by your mother, your father, your gym teacher and others…
When the way to bond with friends was the next diet.
When the way to be loved was thinness.
When the illness, the injury, the hormone change made you feel like your body had betrayed you.
When the number on the scale determined your worthiness.
What I want to say to you if you’ve divorced your body somewhere along the journey of your life is…
You can find a relationship with her that works.
You can learn to trust her again
and she can learn to trust you.
You can divorce the inner-diet-police
and the ruling-skinny-culture
instead of divorcing yourself.
You don’t have to fix yourself.
You don’t have to manage your body.
You have FULL permission to have a joyous relationship with your body.
There’s a way to re-connect to pleasure and joy in your own skin.
I promise.
You can find a way back to being at home.
