Hey, you. There’s a couple of things we need to talk about. Our society is really good about identifying and smothering some raging fires of injustice around us. For that I am thankful. But our society has some serious flaws, and one of these flaws has to do with our bodies. There’s a misplaced obsession with them, so I have a few things to say about it.
Quit apologizing to yourself that you aren't losing any weight. We live in a stressful day and age that causes some people to pack on the pounds and store every calorie they eat. Women are expected to be socially productive and sexually responsible, so many of them take hormonal birth control that packs pounds on the hips (your body thinks you are pregnant after all). Men are expected to take care of their families or start paying off their student loans. They work from dawn until dusk without a break just to come home and crash. Or, like many of my colleagues, we stay in the classroom with our noses in the textbooks so that we can get our next degree. If you want to lose weight and you are beating yourself up about it, stop. Life is hard. Making time is hard. Making a homemade salad with grilled chicken is harder and takes more time than running through Wendy's. It is doable though, so if you want to start trying, do it. Just quit making yourself feel bad about it.
Quit apologizing to yourself that the best you can do doesn't look like the magazines. You are a healthy, wonderful person. Just because your hips are the same width as your shoulders, or your hips are still much wider than your shoulders, who freaking cares? You are investing in your long-term health and releasing those feel good chemicals every time you hit the gym, and that is what's important. No one in your immediate life is asking you to look like the front of a magazine other than those stupid trashy magazines. So throw them in the garbage and go for a run to clear your head.
Quit apologizing to yourself that you look like the front of a magazine already. Guys and girls, no one is bashing you. You are fantastic. It’s probably difficult relating to people who struggle with their weight or physique. You probably get tired of people saying they want to look like you. It's probably exhausting for people to be jealous of you for something you don't have any control over, or size you up as a stuck-up meat head/health nut before ever meeting you. You look great, I get it. You might be sick of feeling your only value is in the fact that you look like Barbie or Hercules. Just remember that everyone feels like an outcast for something they shouldn't, whether it's for looking too good or looking not so good. Use that to encourage people to own their bodies. Use that to encourage people to want true health, not the magazine version of it. Use that to encourage conversations about what makes people unique inside, instead of focusing on what they look like. Thank you for being awesome when so many people judge you outright.
Now that’s out of the way, let’s get to the heart of it...
Reality is that we have one life. This one body is our vehicle for all we experience. Everything we say and express travels out into the world through this body. Everything we see, smell, touch, cherish, love, and worship in the world must travel into our minds and hearts through this body. These hands of mine can unstitch a pocket, bake a cake, run the vacuum, and plant a tree. They can hold my husband’s hands, a newborn kitten, and a weathered hymnal in an old country church. I know this because I have seen these things with the same eyes and felt them on this same skin. My ears have heard both an antique organ reverberate in a cathedral in Vienna and the tiny splash of the first drop of coffee hitting my mug in the morning. There is no distinction between the important and the mundane here at this intersection between the outside world and me. Sacred and secular mingle here. They take the same paths inward.
Barbara Brown Taylor says this in one of my favorite books,
“Whether you are sick or well, lovely or irregular, there comes a time when it is vitally important for your spiritual health to drop your clothes, look in the mirror, and say, ‘Here I am. This is the body-like-no-other that my life has shaped. I live here. This is my soul’s address.’ After you have taken a good look around, you may decide that there is a lot to be thankful for, all things considered. Bodies take real beatings. That they heal from most things is an underrated miracle. That they give birth is beyond reckoning.”
I am saying these things because I want you to feel differently about your body. I want you and I to love our bodies because they allow us to experience this awe-inspiring world together. Having your hips a little more narrow is not going to change the fact those powerful joints can move and carry your body from one experience to the next. Wishing your fingers didn’t look so stubby only distracts you from the beautiful reality of all the intricate and powerful things you can do with them. It’s time to celebrate the beautiful miracles that we are.
The next time you are tempted to want to change something about the way you look, list all of the things you can do with the body part you want to change. I hope you realize that you can do so many of these tasks and movements without changing a thing. If you want to change something like your weight or your strength so you can do more, I encourage you to! But never forget to celebrate the fact that you are capable of reaching your goals and more because of this body. So don’t talk bad about it. It’s a beautiful wonderful thing to have, and it enables you to experience this world in ways that we are still discovering and learning.Peace and Blessings.
