Befriending the Body

As a young girl, I picked up on the notion that we were to hate our bodies. We were never thin enough, tall enough, pretty enough, enough enough. Add in that I was active in an evangelical Christian church as a kid, where the apostle Paul was glorified for saying thing like, "I beat my body and make it my slave," and not surprisingly, I've had a fairly tumultuous relationship with my body for oh, about 35 years or so.

More recently, however, I've begun to entertain the notion that maybe, just maybe, my body might actually be sort of, well, a freaking miracle. (It's not just my body, guys. Yours, too!) Think about what is going on in your body at this very moment. Your heart is beating and has been your entire life without you telling it to. Your lungs have been breathing air. Your digestive system is transforming your food into energy, sorting out the waste. Your brain is constantly taking in information, scanning the environment, responding to stimuli. 

A complex web of systems work together to move us where we want to go, show us what we can see, communicate what we want to say. And let's be real -- we typically take it all for granted. 

Instead of celebrating and appreciating our bodies, we pick them apart, easily listing our flaws and what needs to be "fixed." As we age, we lament how our bodies change shape, how we can't seem to lose weight like we used to, how our systems are unpredictable as our hormones change. And of course, the Internet is right there to help us out as we demonize our bodies. Even if, like me, you aren't on TikTok or Instagram or follow any fitness influencers on YouTube, the messaging is ubiquitous. After all, if we all thought we were good enough, who would buy any diet/fitness/make-up products?

About 3 years ago, I realized I was trapped in a cycle of my skin breaking out, then using make-up to cover it up, then my skin breaking out again. I asked myself, What, really, is the point of make-up? Why am I wearing it?And then, I stopped wearing make-up. 

Exactly zero people even noticed. 

My skin is clear, the so-called bags under my eyes that I thought I needed to cover went away, and I save a lot of money and time. 

(I do wear make-up when I am on stage, full disclosure. And I hate it.) 

Thanks in large part to the work of Dr. Mindy Pelz, I've learned to reconsider my perspective of my body. For example, Dr. Pelz teaches that body fat is simply stored excess -- excess hormones, excess glucose -- that our bodies didn't need, so they store it. Now, if our body stored this excess on our major organs, we would die (and that's not an exaggeration). So, our body stores the excess as fat. Our brilliant bodies are quite literally saving our lives. The body always does what is best for us -- that's her job. Our job is to figure out where the excess is coming from and adjust. 

When we reframe our outlook on our bodies in a grateful way, we can't help but stand in awe of the incredible meat suit we get to move around in all day, right? Let's take a breath and a break from the body-shaming noise out there, and instead, recognize and appreciate our bodies for the miracles they are.