Finding Fullness

Friendship 101: It’s really that simple

2011-12-02T15:09:00.000-08:00

Is your body your friend? If the answer is yes, wonderful. If no, then how do you become friends with your body? It turns out friendship is pretty simple. Most friendships develop from three things that build on each other:

1. Shared interests

2. Shared experiences

3. Shared affection

Say you go to a yoga class that you really enjoy. You go every week, and the faces start to become familiar, you even get to know a few names. Spending a lot of time next to each other in downward dog tends to be a great ice-breaker, who knows why? Eventually through your shared interest in yoga (and your experiences in full wheel pose), you get together for tea and find out that you both love to hike. You go on a couple of hikes together and find out that you like their friends and you love their sense of humor (not to mention their amazing homemade granola bars) and they start to grow on you.

You’re friends.

Becoming friends with your body can really be that simple, if you let it. What are your shared interests? Let’s see, you and your body probably enjoy feeling good, laughing, and relaxing, to name just a few.

You both likely love feeling strong, healthy, and alive, like a superhero without the cape.

So what are your shared experiences that help you feel this way?

1. Eating well (eating healthy food, neither over- nor under-eating)

2. Engaging daily in enjoyable movement

3. Getting enough sleep

4. Spending time with people you love

5. Serving your life’s purpose (being a parent, working hard, helping out, etc.)

Just like in a regular friendship, these shared interests and experiences naturally lead to shared affection if we let them.

You develop a sense of respect for your body’s abilities and support, affection for its quirks, and encouragement for its difficulties. So why don’t we all automatically feel like our body is our friend? I mean, we spend a lot of time with our bodies… every experience we’ve ever had is one we shared with our bodies. We should all be BFFs with our bodies “4 EVA”! Right?

But no. We indulge a little too excessively in that brutally effective friendship killer, judgment.

Judging ourselves constantly and comparing ourselves endlessly to other bodies interferes with the natural friendship we could experience with our bodies. Imagine if you had a friend who constantly berated you for not being as coordinated as their other friend, for not working as hard as this person they read about in a magazine, for not living up to some abstract standard they’ve decided upon. Would you feel friendly towards them? Would you want to spend more time with them or less? Wouldn’t your “interests” start to diverge?

Everything you need to be friends with your body is already in place.

All we really need is to remove the impediments. Let go of judgment toward your body and ask yourself these questions:

1. Can I make this experience enjoyable for my body?

2. How does my body make this experience possible?

3. Can I appreciate my body’s ability and support at this moment?

You are meant to be friends with your body. Let go of anything that stands in the way of that friendship. You and your body deserve it.

I know, I said I was taking a hiatus from the blog, and here’s a new post already. Surprise! Maybe there’ll be another one headed your way before the new year, who knows?

Love Your Body Blog Part 68

The Right Tool

2011-10-28T15:17:00.001-07:00

Last week, the garden showed up first on my to-do list, so I braved our messy basement to look for the rake. The rake was AWOL.

My partner had lent it out. What to do? My first tool of choice, gone, and an hour get my gardening chores done. I love the rake. When you turn it upside down, it does a fairly good job of getting those pesky little weeds out of the garden path. Thanks to the early fall rains, tons of weeds had made their beds in the gravel.

Frustrated, I started pulling out tools; no, the pickaxe won’t work. Nix the shovels, the posthole digger, the flat hoe, the… what the heck is this? I extracted an unrecognizable piece of rusty metal stuck on the end of a long handle. This tool did not belong to me, or my partner. This tool had obviously been in the basement since long before we moved in.

Given the state of the backyard when we moved in, it probably hadn’t been used since before I was born.

Rusty and dented… this tool was perfect. I scraped the metal stirrup along the gravel and it magically disrupted all the baby weeds, roots first. This tool was faster and better than the rake. Way better. Thanks to the magic of Google, I discovered the name of my new favorite tool was---surprise!--- the stirrup hoe. I am in love with my stirrup hoe.

A certain irony was not lost on me: If I hadn’t experienced the frustration of not having my preferred tool at hand, I never would have discovered the beautiful stirrup hoe. If my other tool hadn't gone missing, I never would have found the one that made my life easier and better.

Lately in the Love Your Body workshop, I’ve been talking about all the practices we learn as tools in our toolbox that we can use to love our bodies in various situations and under different stresses. We can get dependant on a couple of these tools, our go-to devices that help us everyday, until one day they go AWOL.

When that happens, dig a little deeper to find the tools you’ve forgotten about, that you had no idea were laying down there with the odd screws and nails.

You might find that suddenly the lovingkindness practice you haven’t thought of in years arises as deeply relevant and compelling. That dialoguing with your demon instantly brings relief. That pausing and asking your body what it needs is just what you need. That not only do these revived tools suddenly work, but that they are perfect for your life and your body right now.

Your Love Your Body toolbox has dependability and depth, and can set the unexpectedly perfect tool in your hand just when it’s needed.

Stay tuned for my lineup of Love Your Body Workshops for 2012, one starting Feb 1 at Namaste Grandlake, one at Yogakula SF in April, and more to come. Drop me a line if you know someplace you'd like me to bring the workshop.

Plus, I have some exciting news… I am taking a hiatus from the blog for a couple of months to finish revising my first book, Full: How one woman found yoga, eased her inner hunger and started loving herself, so that I can self-publish it in the new year. No more waiting! Are you ready to have the book in your hands? So am I. I might drop in a blog here or there to update you on my progress, we’ll see.

Also, in February, I’ll be starting a Love Your Body six-month mentorship group, where we have weekly check-ins and get together once a month for love your body classes and activities. Only a small group of women will be able to join me for this special program and the price range will be about $600. So consider if you’d like to make this commitment to your relationship with your body. I’ll send out more information via this blog, email, and facebook, as more details are confirmed.

Blessings to you on all your Love Your Body journeys! Kimber

Love Your Body Blog Part 67

Fat Doesn’t Equal Failure

2011-10-21T15:43:00.001-07:00

There’s a woman I know. You know her. In fact, she might be you. She might be my mom, or my sister, or even me. She’s smart. She’s accomplished. She’s compassionate and loving. She’s changing the world in her own way. And she thinks she’s a failure. Why? Because she’s fat. Or at least she thinks she’s fat. Whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter, because she believes it. She believes that she is fatter than she “should” be. No accomplishment in her life competes with her less-than-ideal body. She will always think of herself as having failed.

Or will she?

Here’s the question I want to ask her… who has the right to tell you you’re not beautiful just the way you are? Who?

Possible answers include:

1. Everyone

2. Madison Avenue

3. Hollywood

4. Simon Cowell

5. the clerk at Macy’s

6. your dad/mom/uncle/grandmother/sister/step-brother

7. your husband/boyfriend/partner

8. your boss/ex-boss/coworker

9. the girls in your sixth grade gym class

10. ______________________ [fill in the blank]

11. No one.

The only correct answer to this question is 11. No one has been given the official seal of the universe to infallibly dispense the label of beauty upon those few who meet some absurd, arbitrary ideal. Your beauty is not up for public approval, national referendum, or The Galaxy’s Next Top Model.

Your beauty is self-apparent to everyone who loves you.

In Brene Brown’s wonderful TED talk about love and connection (watch it here), she says the difference between people who feel a sense of worthiness and belonging and people who don’t is that… they feel a sense of worthiness and belonging. Yes I know, it’s a tautology. You see, the difference isn’t that they come from wealthy families or poor families, or that they had happy childhoods or unhappy ones.

The difference is their belief about themselves.

Brown’s research doesn’t cover this, but I suspect that the difference between people who believe that they are beautiful and people who don’t… is simply a belief in their own beauty. The difference is not between women who are 5’10”, weigh 120 lbs, and look like Kate Moss and women who are 5’5”, weigh 220 lbs, and look like Gertrude Stein. The difference is not that women who obsess about their weight and diet feel beautiful and women who don’t feel ugly. (Interestingly, the opposite may be more true!)

The difference is simple: whether or not you believe you are beautiful.

No one has the right to define beauty in a way that excludes you. Not even you. Beauty is not objective. Even normative ideas of beauty change enormously over history and between cultures.

Why do we allow ourselves to feel terrible about our bodies? Is it true that a woman can solve global poverty, cure cancer, invent cold fusion, plant a tree, or raise a happy child, and still look in the mirror and feel like a failure because her body doesn’t match some idea in her head about what it should look like?

You deserve better. You deserve to feel beautiful whatever your body looks like or feels like.

I think of Karen Carpenter, the singer who haunted my dreams as a child. Her voice was gorgeous and pure, she was an accomplished drummer, and a beautiful woman. Yet she always believed she was fat, and therefore ugly. All of her success musically meant nothing to her if she was fat, and she starved herself to death as a result. You can see clearly how ridiculous Karen Carpenter’s misplaced beliefs were. Can you see that in yourself?

Why is fat the be-all and end-all of beauty? So what if you’re fat, or if you think you’re fat? Let yourself be fat and beautiful. Let yourself be beautiful with these five extra pounds, with these fifty extra pounds, with whatever number of extra pounds you imagine you have. Let them be beautiful too. Screw anyone who doesn’t believe you’re beautiful. They aren’t the boss of your beauty or anyone else’s.

You’re smart. You know better.

Treat yourself better.

P.S. The last Love Your Body workshop of 2011 happens this Sun, Oct 23 in Livermore! Let me know if you want to join us!

Love Your Body Blog Part 66

My Body, the Beer-Swilling, TV-Watching Couch Surfer

2011-10-13T13:56:00.000-07:00

Have you ever thought to yourself…?

“If I listen to my body, it will tell me to lie prone on the couch and eat chocolate-covered potato chips until I can’t move.”

“If I trust my body, I’ll never make myself go to the gym and I’ll devour pints of Ben and Jerry’s like they’re peanuts.”

“If I pay attention to my body’s needs, I’ll become a boneless sloth with nothing to live for.”

“If I love my body, the skies will rain blood, birds will explode for no reason, and the world will get sucked into a cosmic death spiral to the tune of Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.”

Really? Is it true that your body has the personality of a lazy, ravenous, good-for-nothing wastrel who only wants to lie back and see if Wile. E. Coyote finally catches the Roadrunner?

I used to think that. I was pretty sure that if I listened to my body I would eat nothing but mint chocolate cookie ice cream and sleep all the time: I would get fat. Or fatter.

The first time you listen to your body feels like standing at the top of a ridge and trusting the air to catch you and cradle you safely to the earth below.

It’s an impossibly scary and exhilarating leap of faith in yourself: that your body’s wisdom exists and you can trust it wholly. Every fear will shape itself into a looming doubt to keep you from jumping and knowing the truth about yourself.

Here’s the truth:

1. Your body is an animal.

2. Your body knows what makes it feel good.

3. Your body loves to move.

4. Your body doesn’t want to overeat or undereat.

5. Your body doesn’t want to be injured by too much movement or too little movement.

Your body wants to feel good. Let it show you what it needs. Let your body catch you.

[Here’s another truth: your body needs fat. You can’t live without it. Don’t be at war with fat, on you, in you, or on anyone else. Fat is not the enemy.]

I used to think that I was the kind of person who couldn’t control herself around food. If I started a candy bar, I finished the whole thing. I figured that listening to my body meant I wouldn’t stop with just one candy bar; you’d find me in a heap of chocolate-smeared wrappers at the bottom of the box.

Imagine my surprise, when after listening to my body for a while, I learned that it doesn’t like candy bars. My body feels irritable and tired when I eat gobs of sugar. Nowadays my body says, “One bite of cake would be perfect. One small piece of that chocolate bar would be delicious. Half a truffle is just right.”

For years I rolled my eyes at people who said crap like that. Really? You can stop at half a truffle? Bullshit. Not me.

Yeah, me.

You, too.

Here’s a good place to start. Below is Linda Bacon’s “Live Well Pledge,” a list of aspirations that invite you to listen to and trust your body:

Today, I will try to feed myself when I am hungry.

Today, I will try to be attentive to how foods taste and make me feel.

Today, I will try to choose foods that I like and that make me feel good.

Today, I will try to honor my body’s signals of fullness.

Today, I will try to find an enjoyable way to move my body.

Today, I will try to look kindly at my body and to treat it with love and respect.

Seriously, does this look like a recipe for bedsores? No way. This is the recipe for being able to eat what you what, when you want, as much as you want, and no more than you want, for moving your body in ways that it loves, and for treating yourself like a goddess, not like a caged tiger.

For me, loving my body is the recipe for feeling the best I’ve ever felt in my life, for enjoying food more, for being in better shape than I’ve ever been… and not by forcing myself to do things I hate, but by letting my body do what it loves.

In the words of Mary Oliver:

You don’t have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

from “Wild Geese”

Your body is the fount of tremendous wisdom. Are you ready to listen?

Thanks to Tammi Baliszewski of Empower Radio, whose interview with me today inspired this blogpost, and follow up with Linda Bacon's Live Well Pledge by reading her book, Heath At Every Size.

Love Your Body Blog Part 65

Please stare at me.

2011-10-06T16:03:00.000-07:00

Go ahead. It’s your special assignment. You will need: about five dollars, your reusable mug, and at least 45 minutes.

Your Assignment:

1. Go to a café and order your favorite drink. You know, the Americano, the frappaccino (my son fondly calls them “crappacinos”), or the machiatto. Whatever. Just make sure the café has people in it. Lots of them. Deserted cafes are not appropriate for this exercise, unless you don’t mind making the baristas uncomfortable.

2. Now sit down at a table and… stare at people. Actually, look at them out of the corners of your eyes while wearing dark sunglasses. Better? Find some position where you can discretely watch the folks around you.

3. Notice how the woman in front of you is standing. What do you like about her? Maybe you covet her jacket, or admire how she wears her hair. Look for something good about her. Maybe you like the way she’s patient with her child, or how she’s moving her head to the music of her ipod.

4. Look more closely. Does she look like she feels comfortable in her body? Does she inhabit the space around her on shrink into herself? Does she seem unselfconscious or the opposite? Does she seem caring? Harried? Bored? Content? Did she notice you looking at her? Did she smile or scowl?

5. Go on to the man behind you and notice the same things. Notice the outer appearance first, notice something you like, then go on and look for the more subtle clues about how they carry themselves, how they feel about themselves in the world.

6. Find someone whose energy you find appealing. After looking at a few people, feel free to come back to someone you already looked at.. Maybe they reflect something you don’t normally experience, a quiet serenity or a buoyant sassiness. Maybe it’s someone who looks at home in her (or his) body and happy to be alive, or someone who inhabits the space around her easily, confidently. Whoever it is, whatever the feeling is, close your eyes and imagine what it feels like to embody that in the world. Breathe in the energy of that feeling: confidence, enjoyment, and well-being. Sit in a way that reflects those feelings in your body and heart. Invite that feeling into yourself.

Perhaps you’re wondering, why should I sit in a café and stare at people? Thanks for asking.

1. You learn to look beyond the surface.

2. You learn to see the good in people, both at and below the surface.

3. You notice how the energy of other people affects you. Some people, you want to imitate how they are in their bodies. Other people, you definitely don’t.

4. You see how often a person’s appearance doesn’t translate into feeling good about themselves. A person who has what you consider the ideal body type might seem very unhappy. Another person whose body type you don’t appreciate much, might seem very confident and at ease within themselves.

5. Many of the people we “see” in our lives are actors and models on screens and billboards. When we look at real people we learn to see and appreciate the diversity of bodies all around us.

Expand your ability to appreciate and learn from the folks around you just by pausing and noticing their bodies and energy. Offer a blessing out to those who seem to need one and invite in the energy of those who look like they have some to spare. You may be the one who shifts someone else’s energy!

[As a side note, you might want to try this exercise in the Actual Café in Oakland on San Pablo at Alcatraz. I hear they have some spontaneous Love Your Body artwork in progress. Check it out on the way to the bathroom. Thanks for the tip, Laura L.!]

Love Your Body Blog Part 64

Teach Your Children [to Love Their Bodies] Well

2011-09-30T15:30:00.000-07:00

Do you teach your child to treat her body like a scapegoat, or like a treasured friend?

In the first post of this blog, I shared the story of Emily, the little girl who said, “My body is my best friend!” Emily’s relationship with her body inspired me to break open the vault of my self-hatred and turn the lead into gold. Kids can teach us a lot about loving our bodies… how to roll down grassy hills, cannonball into a lake, jump for joy, and spin until we fall over. How to have fun in our bodies for the grass-stained, muddy-kneed delight of it.

Most kids are already experts at how to enjoy and love their kid bodies. What they learn from us is how adults relate to their bodies. Here are the top five things kids learn about bodies from the adults in their lives:

1. Never compliment your own body. In fact, put your body down every time you look at it. Never miss an opportunity to criticize your body in front of other people.

2. If an item of clothing looks bad on you, it’s your body’s fault. If you’re in a bad mood, it’s probably your body’s fault too. If you didn’t get a date last week, or the job you wanted, you guessed it, it’s your body’s fault. Any time you’re pissed off about anything, it’s probably because your body is sabotaging you.

3. It’s okay to make fun of fat people, because it’s not okay to be fat.

4. It’s fine to talk about how your friend needs to go on a diet behind their back, or even to their face.

5. Exercise should be difficult, painful, and hard to force yourself to do. You should force yourself to do it anyway, and feel bad about yourself if you don’t.

I know, a lot of these are cringe-worthy, and you could swear you’ve never done any of them in front of a child. But you know how kids are; they’re sponges. They soak up every comment muttered under your breath in front of a mirror, every overheard conversation about someone’s “weight problem,” every time we smile and nod at a fat joke instead of calling people on it. Kids are natural imitators. Every gesture, movement, and facial expression you make in their presence gets filed away in their brains under the heading, “This Is How Adults Act.” They will try out everything in that file at least once on their way to figuring out what kind of adult they’re going to be. You don’t even have to write these rules up and post them on the fridge: almost every girl knows these rules by heart by the time she’s twelve (if not much earlier), and every boy by at least fourteen.

The good news is you can change the rules.

Here’s what you do:

1. Compliment yourself out loud in front of the mirror everyday. Some days your kid will overhear you and think you’re nuts. But slowly the message will sink in… it’s okay to appreciate your body.

2. Compliment your child’s body, physical ability, appearance. Your hair looks great today. Your handstand is amazing. Your body is so strong!

3. Never-ever-ever criticize your body in front of anyone else, especially not your child. In fact, get out of the habit of criticizing your body, even in your own head. Your body is not a scapegoat for whatever is wrong today. If a swimsuit looks crappy on you, it’s the swimsuit’s fault… not your body’s. Address the true causes of feeling bad instead of blaming it on your weight or size.

4. Don’t make fat jokes. Don’t laugh at fat jokes. You probably don’t tell racist or homophobic jokes and you sure don’t teach your kids to laugh at them. Being fat is a natural part of human diversity. Read nutritionist Linda Bacon’s book, Health At Every Size to understand the function and myths about fat in our lives.

5. Respect other people’s bodies. Don’t make weight and dieting a topic of conversation. Aren’t there more important things to talk about? World peace? Organ donation? How to survive the impending zombie apocalypse? (By the way, it’s fine to make fun of zombies.)

6. Have fun exercising! Let your child see you having fun exercising. Do exercise you love, and while it’s fine to complain (a little) about aches and pains, emphasize how much you enjoy dancing, swimming, biking, skiing, hiking, skating, surfing, hula-hooping, whatever your body loves to do.

7. You don’t have to tell your child, “I love my body and you should love yours too.” Instead, live it! Let your whole life reflect the love and appreciation you have for your body and your child will soak it up like a sponge in a bubble bath.

Live in your body the way you want your child to live in theirs. Treat your body with love and your child will learn… this is how adults treat their bodies.

Love Your Body Blog Part 63

The Universe Loves Your Body

2011-09-22T10:56:00.000-07:00

Have you heard of Pronoia? Apparently my spell-checker hasn’t… the almighty Microsoft dictionary in the sky underlines it in squiggly red.

According to Rob Brezsny (who literally wrote the book on it), Pronoia is “the suspicion that the universe is a conspiracy on your behalf.”

What if, instead of believing everyone is out to get us, we believed that everyone is out there to help us? Can we be pronoic in loving our bodies? Everything in the world is there to remind us to love and care for and be a better friend to our bodies.

“All of creation is conspiring to shower us with blessings. Life is crazily in love with us—brazenly and innocently in love with us. The universe always gives us exactly what we need, exactly when we need it.” Rob Brezsny, Pronoia is the Antidote to Paranoia.

What if today you treated everything life offers you as a reminder to love your body?

You turn on warm water in the shower: love your body

You sip your favorite tea… mmm, your body savors it

The toast is burned. You throw it in the compost and make another piece: your body thanks you.

You get into the car without slamming your fingers in the door: yay, body!

You pass a billboard for liposuction: instead of imagining winning the lottery and spending goola-moola to look like Heidi Montag, you put your hand on your belly and tell it you don’t need surgery to love it.

You get a text message from a friend about your fun weekend plans and you’re excited to take your body on a new adventure.

You get the idea…

Last week I blogged about how important it is to have a daily practice of loving your body… this practice is a few steps further down the radiant love your body road. Let everything remind you to be a good friend to your body.

What about when you catch a glimpse in the mirror and trip the wire of self- criticism? When you see that wave of poison arrows coming at you, pause and breathe a moment, then imagine your best friend pushing you out of the way, and watch all of the arrows bounce harmlessly on the concrete floor. Say to your body, “Hello there. Sorry about that. We’re in this together.” Turn it into a moment of friendly reassurance between you and your body.

When your co-worker complains that her thighs are too fat? Stand up for your body (and hers!). Say, “I don’t believe in putting my body down in front of other people. You wouldn’t say something mean like that to your friend. Or would you?” Hooray! You transformed something painful into a magical seed that might very well take root and start to grow. You didn’t engage with her body trash talk. She starts to wonder, “If my co-worker can be friendly towards her body, could I do that too?” You’re a Love Your Body hero!

Think of the world as a conspiracy devoted to reminding you to love your body in every way possible, intent on challenging you to be friendly where you’re judgmental, and ecstatically loving when you never imagined it possible. The universe loves your body and wants you to love it too.

Take everything life throws at you and throw it back with a kiss.

Love Your Body Blog Part 62

Feed Your Body, Love Your Body

2011-09-15T16:42:00.000-07:00

This week, my student and friend Laura shares her journey toward learning how to love her body. Laura is currently studying medicine and is excited to bring her insight into loving her body to how she treats her patients. Read on for further inspiration!

1) What brought you to the realization that you needed/wanted to change your relationship with your body?

I had three phases of realization.

One came when I joined the crew team in college. Though I worked just as hard as the rest of the women on the team, I wasn’t improving. When I asked my coach about it, she politely pointed out that I had an eating disorder and should get help. I wasn’t feeding myself enough to make up for the energy I exerted. I first had to emerge from the denial that everything was fine.

After getting help for the eating disorder I wound up seeing a therapist because I discovered that the eating disorder was only a symptom of a larger issue - anxiety. The therapist, who later became a dear friend, started out by telling me that what I really needed was to love myself, all of myself, even my anxiety. This was the second phase: learning to love myself.

When my therapist moved out of the area, she recommended above all that I should do some sort of body work. Tai Chi. Kung Fu. Yoga. Something to connect my mind with my body. Eventually I found my way to Anusara Yoga and Kimber’s classes. Through the practice of yoga and working with Kimber’s teachings, I discovered that to love myself, I also needed to love my body.

2) What practice or concept from the Love Your Body Workshop has most helped you change your relationship with your body?

“My body is my best friend.” I come back to this quote and continue a conversation with myself. Do I feel this way? How so? What would it take for me to really feel this way?

I need to be around people that appreciate my body and appreciate their own bodies. I need to notice what comes up for me (rather than react) when I hear others complain about their bodies.

I need to listen to what my body loves, and serve it those things. Food. Water. Massage. Yoga. Sun. Vegging out on the couch. Cream cheese frosting. Fresh air. Shower. Hiking. Sex. Sleep.

It’s still helpful for me to practice looking at myself in the mirror, like you would look at a friend, and say, maybe even out loud, “Hi, how are you?”

3) Aside from what you learned in the Love Your Body Workshop, what helps you love your body?

· I’ve stopped looking at popular magazines. I mean, I’ll still peruse National Geographic. But I stay away from “photoshopped” images. Even though I know that the images are not real, there is a part of my brain that attaches to them and strives towards them. It’s like an addiction. So I choose not look at them. And instead, I try to find the beauty in every natural body I encounter.

· I find that my body (and mind) gets very agitated and irritated if I don’t go to at least one, preferably two yoga classes per week. I also practice at home when I can. The physical aspect of yoga helps my body to relax, and the teachings help me to pause and let my mind relax as well.

· My body also needs a good night’s rest, and in order to have that, it needs to wind down before bed. A hot shower or bath followed by a few restorative poses helps. I also force myself not to use the internet (check my email, facebook, etc) once I’m in bed.

· When I get hungry, I get grouchy. When I get grouchy, my negative tape starts rolling. Sometimes it says things like, “you really shouldn’t eat that.” Of course, this only adds to the hungry, grouchy, self-deprecating loop. So instead, I feed myself, enjoy my food, and that helps me to stay positive.

· I love the line: “My body is a living temple of love. My body is the body of the goddess.” It’s from a kirtan session, but I forget the name of the singer.

· One of my favorite quotes that reminds me how to love my body: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek & find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” -Rumi

4) For women who are just starting out on the path of learning to love their bodies, do you have words of wisdom for them? Somewhere in you, you love your body already. It just takes patience and hope to rekindle that fire.

Wake Up and Love Your Body

2011-09-13T16:03:00.000-07:00

On Monday I shared how to love your body on a radio show hosted by Elizabeth Sampson. (To listen to the show, click here.) She’s a holistic healer and encourages her clients to undertake daily practices of healing and health. Daily practice makes a huge difference.

If you want to love your body, you can’t just do nice things for your body every once in a while.

Think of it like brushing your teeth. How would it feel if you only brushed your teeth once a week? Once a month? No way. All that yellow fuzzy stuff and bits of food just sitting there… need I go on?

When we don’t take the time to love our bodies everyday, the airbrushed images on billboards and magazines start to get stuck in our brains, a creeping sense of dissatisfaction sneaks under our skin, and the old tapes of self-criticism and negativity play in the background like the noise of a street party through an open window.

Think of loving your body every day as preventative… it cleans out the junk, the unneeded, the judgments, and leaves you with a healthy, clean feeling that nine of out of ten dentists recommend. OK, just kidding about that last part.

What do we expect? Just like you eat and use your teeth everyday, unless you live in an off-grid yurt, you get bombarded from the moment you wake up in the morning until your eyes close at night with the message that you’re not fit enough, not attractive enough, not enough enough.

Until last week, when I finally figured out how to manage ads on Yahoo, every time I opened up my email, I’d get some side bar ad inviting me to join Jenny Craig or promising me the secret to losing belly fat. I finally lost it when a Special K ad popped up challenging me to lose ten pounds in ten days. Dude, I need those ten pounds! You can’t have them! (I suppose all my internet searches for “body-image,” “eating disorder,” and “weight-loss” haven’t gone unnoticed by marketers. I wish I could reciprocate by sending them a nice, warm love-your-body message, like, “My body's not your business!”)

So here’s what you do… the love-your-body equivalent of brushing your teeth in the morning, The Good Morning Body:

1. As you wake up, let yourself stretch like a cat. Before you even get out of bed, reach your arms up, stretch your legs out, and wiggle your toes.

2. Curl up into a ball for a moment and thank your body for everything it did during the night, letting your mind rest and reset, digesting, relaxing, healing.

3. Relax back into the bed for a moment and gently touch your feet and legs, touch your belly and hips, touch your shoulders, arms, and chest, touch your neck and face and head. As you touch each part of your body, and say Good morning to each part of your body in turn.

4. To finish, bring one hand to your belly and one hand to your heart, and make a love your body aspiration for today… May I be kind to you today, May we have a great day together, May I treat you as a friend.

Then slowly sit up and enjoy the rest of your day!

You can print out these four steps and set them on your bedside table as a reminder to do them as you get up in the morning. Try it everyday for a week and see how it goes… may you find more ease within and love toward your body everyday.

Love Your Body Blog Part 61

The Fat Yogi

2011-09-09T15:47:00.001-07:00

Can yogis be fat? Can you be fat and practice yoga and live a healthy life? The answer is another question… does Ganesha have a big belly? Of course. Ganesha, the round-bellied elephant-headed god and mythological author of the sacred epic text that defines the ancient practice of yoga, would undoubtedly have some choice words to share with anyone who thinks proficient yogis can’t be fat.

Yet why do most yoga classes seem to be full of thin- to average-sized bodies? I’ve seen fat students do amazing armbalances, handstands, and poses my body has never quite figured out. So I know that it’s not a matter of flexibility or strength. I suspect that it’s related to the reason some fat people don’t feel comfortable at the gym… a subtle (and sometime not so subtle) sense of not feeling welcome or included.

We can start with the clothes. Long gone are the days when people showed up for yoga in their sweats and ripped up t-shirts. Nowadays (for women anyway) tank tops and fancy yoga pants seem de rigueur. Try finding a pair of yoga pants in anything larger than a size twelve and a tank top actually meant for something other than decoration. In most mainstream stores, the yoga clothing search is more frustrating than looking for a duck egg at a chicken farm.

The poses don’t help either. Some poses feel great, others feel… is there some word that means screamingly awkward? Some teachers aren’t sure how to modify poses for larger bodies or may make assumptions about a student’s ability based on their weight. Or teachers might give up too soon when assisting a fat student, thinking that their weight is the obstacle. Some poses may be genuinely more difficult… but not any more so than for an average weight student whose body has its own quirks and challenges. Yoga poses feel awkward to everyone… at least at first.

But the worst are the underlying assumptions (by other students and sometimes the teacher or the studio as a whole) that a fat person in a yoga class is unhappy with their body or is trying to lose weight. Feeling accepted as a fat person in yoga is complicated by the prevalence of classes like “Yoga for Weight Loss” that the desk staff might direct you to. You’d be understandably confused… isn’t part of yoga learning to love and accept yourself and your body just as it is, just as you are? Can I just enjoy a yoga class in my bigger body without feeling judged or excluded? Yes, you can. Yoga is an amazing way to connect with and listen to your body, and is not and has never been, as Ganesha reminds us, the exclusive dominion of the youthful and thin.

Yoga instructors (myself included) can do more to be welcoming to fat students. First, if you find that you’re carrying around a lot of judgments about weight, like the popular fat=unhealthy trope, read nutritionist and researcher Linda Bacon’s book, Health At Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight. Most yoga teachers I know enjoy having their assumptions challenged… you’ll find no shortage of mind-blowing insights in Bacon’s book.

Second, if you have a fat student in your class, here’s what you should do differently: nothing. That’s right. Treat them with exactly the same level of respect and attention that you would give any other student. Don’t make assumptions about their level or ability, or god forbid, that they are practicing yoga to lose weight. They might be there to lengthen their hamstrings, or to commune with the gods of bliss, or to relax after a hellish commute, or for some other reason that has nothing to do with their size. At the same time, just like with any other student, if you think they look like they could benefit from a prop or some other individual assistance, go right ahead and offer away. Like any other student, they might welcome your help, or they might tell you they’re fine and don’t need to go deeper into Ardha Matsendrasana, thank you very much.

If you’re a fat yoga student (or wanna be yoga student), do a little research on Ganesha, the long-trunked, full-bellied master wisdom jester of yoga. Keep a little picture of Ganesha in your mind and heart while you’re practicing… he welcomes you and helps you clear whatever internal and external obstacles lie on your path to yoga and self-discovery. Look around for a yoga teacher and studio that feel welcoming. Talk to the teacher and find out if they know about the Health At Every Size movement, and if they don’t, encourage them to read the book. Ask them for help when (and if) you need it, and feel free to show them what modifications work best for you and your body. Most yoga instructors are happy (dare I say eager?) to learn new assists. And be patient with yourself and your body. Let your body teach you.

If you’re brand new to yoga and want some help learning the poses before you show up in class, try some videos at home…the heavyweight yoga DVD series at http://www.heartfeltyoga.com/shop.htm is a good place to start.

If you are someone who struggles with feeling accepted (whatever size you are), write across the top of your yoga mat, “I am welcome here,” as a reminder to welcome yourself wherever you are.

It’s a beautiful reminder to anyone who sees your mat to welcome you as well. Welcoming is a lesson so many of us need… to welcome ourselves into our own body, our own practice, and to welcome each other, wherever and however we find ourselves. Welcome to yoga, my friend. Yoga welcomes you, your belly, your hips, your thighs… every part of your whole self.

Love Your Body Blog Part 60

From Body Shame to Body Love

2011-09-02T14:17:00.000-07:00

Today my dear friend Marissa shares her powerful and moving journey toward loving her body. Marissa was a participant in the very first Love Your Body workshop back in 2009, and in addition to pursuing her degree in counseling at CIIS, is training with me to assist in upcoming LYB workshops. Read on to hear about her love of dance that finally burst free of blame and shame, and more…

Kimber: What brought you to the realization that you needed/wanted to change your relationship with your body?

Marissa: I’ve blamed my body for as long as I can remember. In my mind, the fact that my body wasn’t thin and beautiful was the reason why good things didn’t happen to me. Those cool girls don’t want to be my friend because I’m not pretty enough. That boy would like me if I looked like her. That part would have gone to me if I were thinner/shorter/prettier. It’s easy to fall into that trap.

On top of the blame, I felt intense shame that I disliked my body. I shouldn’t have negative feelings towards my body. I should love myself as I am. Only silly, insecure girls have body image issues. I couldn’t open up to the possibility of change until I acknowledged I had a problem.

When I was seven years old my mom signed me up for ballet. I was so excited; I couldn’t wait to try it. From the first moment of class, I fell in love with dance. But I couldn’t enjoy it. I was the tallest, chubbiest kid in the class. Everyone is looking at me and thinking I’m fat and stupid and that I don’t belong there. And part of me thought they were right. After class I told my mom I hated it. She asked me if anything was wrong, and I lied, incapable of forming the words to admit I was already one of those insecure girls with body image issues. I told my mom I didn’t want to go back to ballet and spent the next 11-12 years of my life wishing I hadn’t.

I didn’t take another formal dance class until I was in college. I realized my hangup over my body was keeping me from doing something I really wanted to do. So I signed up and did it. And it was hard. I felt intensely judgmental toward myself while dancing. I felt clumsy. But I had so much fun. I think that was the first clear moment when I realized I had a lot of work to do: there were so many wonderful things I was missing out on because of shame around my body.

Now, I dance every chance I get. I have a whole group of friends who support me in dancing. They tell me how much fun it is to dance with me and that I’m beautiful when I dance. I’m in a place now where that feels really good to hear. And my head doesn’t argue with them. I can still recognize the old judgments though. Sometimes strangers ask if I used to be a dancer, or tell me I move like a dancer. I notice that my inner critic wants to jump in and say, “Oh no…I don’t have the body of a dancer.” But I don’t say that out loud. I usually just say, “I took dance classes in college and I love to dance.” The last time this happened, as I walked away I heard the girl who had asked me say to her friend “See, I knew it. Once you’ve been a dancer, your body never forgets.” I had a clear thought then that she was right. My body never forgot. It just took me a really long time before I could listen and let myself have a dancing body…no matter what it looks like on the outside.

Kimber: What practice or concept from the Love Your Body Workshop has most helped you change your relationship with your body?

Marissa: Sitting down and examining my judgments about my body: the “shoulds” and the rules [the unconscious rules we carry around about how we’re supposed to feel about our bodies]. I spent a long time with a big “should” about the fact that I really didn’t love my body. I felt like I should and so I wore a mask to hide the truth that I really wasn’t comfortable in my skin. You know in programs for addicts, they say the first step in conquering addiction is admitting you have a problem. By taking a good hard look at all the judgments I held around my body, I could finally say, “Whoa, this is a problem. I don’t want to feel or think these things about myself. And I DO.”

I had to admit that I feel all these negative things. It’s so easy to be blind and sweep everything under the big carpet of denial, “Oh, yeah I’m fine with my body.” Or to clump everything together into one non-specific lump, “I hate my body.” Taking a look at the rules I believed about my body helped me sift through what hating my body really meant. And after the rules we looked at wishes, hopes for the way we want to feel about our bodies. Articulating a specific wish for my relationship with my body helped me focus on where I was and where I wanted to be and how I might get there.

Kimber: Aside from what you learned in the Love Your Body Workshop, what helps you love your body?

Marissa: One thing that I really became aware of as I started to examine my relationship with my body was that I never listened to it, to its likes and longings. I deprived my body of things that made it happy, like dance, for a really long time. I think anything that puts you in touch with the way your body likes to move is helpful: yoga, dance, massage. When I lived in Japan I used to roll around on the cool tatami straw mats just like a kid, rolling around on the ground, feeling the way my body wanted to move. Playing in water…the cool water of a river is another thing my body loves. It was a really long time before I ever went skinny dipping, but the feeling of cool water all over your body is the most incredible feeling…it connects you to you. Those are the experiences that have helped me most.

I remember the first time I heard the opening lines from Mary Oliver’s poem “Wild Geese.” It seemed to articulate my experience… that maybe we can stop trying to be what we think we need to be and start tuning in to what we are already.

You do not have to be good

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Kimber: Mmm. I love those lines, too. So, to finish up, imagine women who are just starting out on the path of learning to love their bodies. Do you have any words of wisdom for them?

Marissa: Try new things. I used to say no a lot when people asked me if I wanted to go to a salsa class or kayaking or rock climbing. My first response was always, “Oh, I can’t do that. I’m not strong enough/fit enough to do that. Or I’m too tall/heavy, blah blah blah. There won’t be a harness to fit me, there won’t be a person who can lift me.” Six million reasons why not. I’m proud to say that now I’m pretty much an “I’ll try anything twice” kind of girl. Give it at least two tries before you decide you don’t like it. I learned to snowboard in Japan. I even tried wakeboarding… not terribly successfully, but it was fun. I’ve been rafting and flying on the trapeze. And all of those experiences were amazing and taught me something new I could do with my body. I’m not always good at it…which is challenging; it’s hard to do things I can’t do well already. But I’ve gained confidence along the way because I’ve discovered amazing things my body can do that I never imagined possible. It’s like being a kid again. Just do it and see what happens. Either way, it will be fun.

Kimber: Thank you for sharing your story and wisdom, Marissa! The September Love Your Body workshop is full, but two are open in October... a four Tuesday series at 7th Heaven starting Oct 18 (go to 7th Heaven's website/events to sign up), and a six-hour Love Your Body workshop on Sunday Oct 23 at Cosmic Dog yoga in Livermore (call 925-456-YOGA). Don't wait to sign up... they sell out quick.

Sick Body, Good Body

2011-08-26T15:18:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure how to explain this: I’m sick. You probably wouldn’t notice from my appearance.

In fact, if you look at all my health indicators, cholesterol, thyroid, glucose, red blood cell count, B12, blah, blah, I appear to be wildly healthy. On my yoga mat I can still rock an awesome eka pada kundinyasana two (imagine sticking your leg over your arm and then lifting both legs and balancing on your hands… oh yeah.). But I’m sick. I’ve been sick for months.

One of the goals of the Health At Every Size movement is to get people to think about health as their primary goal, not weight. You eat your tasty greens and veggies, you give your body enjoyable movement, and you focus on being healthy and happy, not on losing weight.

Health is a worthy goal, and one I wholeheartedly believe in. I’ll take the equation “health = good” over the equation “thin = good” anytime.

But what happens when you’ve been doing everything “right”, and you get sick anyway? Does it naturally follow that if “health = good” then “sick = bad”? Am I only a good person if I’m healthy? Is it my fault that I’m sick?

We do ourselves a disservice if we turn health into a magical mantra to ward off evil sickness, as if we could somehow hold illness and death at bay by building a fortress of carrots mortared with flaxseed oil, kale chips, and sweat.

I hate to be the one to say it, but no matter how healthy we are, no matter how good our “numbers” are… we are all going to get sick. We are all going to die. Yup. No matter how well we take care of ourselves.

And guess what? It’s not your fault.

Our bodies are fragile and strong, vulnerable and vibrant, aging and youthful, all at the same time. If you get sick, it’s not because of your weight, or because you eat doughnuts, or because you skipped your workout, or because you don’t do enough pranayama (that’s breathing exercises for you non-yogis out there). You get sick because you have a body that is perfect and imperfect, a body that wants to heal and find balance, but sometimes gets overwhelmed by it all.

Your beautiful body doesn’t suddenly become bad when you get sick. Your sick body is worthy of love, too.

When your best friend gets sick, do you stop calling them? Do you bully and shame them because they can’t get out of bed? Nah. When your best friend gets sick, you send them flowers, bring them a casserole, make them tea, and even listen to them complain a bit. You encourage them and help them heal. Just like your best friend, your best friend body needs extra love when it’s sick. ‘Cause hate doesn’t heal. We know that.

I’m giving my body lots of extra love right now, taking care of it, feeding it and treating it right. And yet, part of me feels embarrassed about being sick. Much of my persona as a yoga instructor is tied up in having a healthy, vibrant body. Acknowledging that my body isn’t always healthy feels vulnerable and scary. It feel weird to call myself "sick." Sometimes I feel great, other times I feel terrible. Mostly I’m coping pretty well; aside from the illness, my body feels strong and capable.

Perhaps you’re hoping that at some point I’m going to reveal what’s “wrong” with me. (See, it’s even in the language… I’m sick, there’s something wrong with me, I’m bad.) I would love to tell you. If I knew.

I have Illnessa Mysteriousum. What, you’ve never heard of it? Apparently neither has anyone else! Here are (some of) my symptoms over the past year: loss of sense of smell, chronic sinus congestion, headache, asthma, coughing, hoarseness, fatigue. I’ve tried some eastern medicine and some western medicine. We’ve mostly ruled out allergies and are exploring the possibility that I picked up a lung-attacking parasite during my trip to the jungle last summer. That, or an autoimmune thing. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Meanwhile, I’m looking for the answers this amazing body deserves. You and me, body, we’re in this together.

Love You Body Blog part 59

“Did Loving My Body Almost Kill Me?”

2011-08-19T16:51:00.000-07:00

Can you imagine my reaction when I read this headline?

As these things magically circulate around the internet, this headline came to my attention via a reader of one of my favorite blogs, “Dances With Fat” (by the luminous Ragen Chastain), as the title of a recent article by Jess Weiner in Glamour magazine. What would cause a plus-size model/self-esteem speaker to decide after a negative medical checkup that she had to lose weight and declare that loving her body had almost killed her? I had to know more. Fortunately, the answer didn’t take long to figure out.

From the article it appears that, to Jess, “loving her body” meant:

· accepting her body at the size it was

· letting go of weight loss as a goal

· not going to the doctor

· eating poorly

· not exercising regularly

· not listening and responding to her body’s cues

· regular public speaking gigs to encourage other people to love their bodies too

Do you think the list above reflects love towards your body? I know for damn sure that’s not how I love my body. Ignoring your body, feeding it poorly, keeping it from enjoyable movement… we know that’s not love. Not for our bodies, not for our pets, geez, even my houseplants get attention and water. (I haven’t figured out what kind of movement they enjoy but when I do, they’ll get plenty of that too.)

Loving your body isn’t some kind of Orwellian excuse for not taking care of your body. In fact, loving your body is the reason to take care of it, just like you take care of your beloved child or sick friend or rare orchid. (Some people are fanatic about their orchids. You know who you are.)

Here’s my list of what it means to love my body:

· accepting my body at the size it is

· letting go of weight loss as a goal

· going to the doctor regularly (and acupuncturist/massage therapist/etc.)

· eating healthy and nourishing food that my body enjoys

· moving in ways that my body enjoys everyday (yoga/hula-hooping/dance)

· listening to my body’s cues and responding to them appropriately

You’ll notice some similarities between the lists… at least in the first two items. Then they diverge dramatically. What’s weird is that Jess concludes the article by saying that going to the doctor and treating her body well demonstrate love toward her body… huh? I thought she said loving her body almost killed her?

I think I see what happened… Jess misunderstood what it meant to love her body. Then instead of acknowledging her mistake, she declared the whole idea of loving your body misguided, even though she herself is currently enjoying the benefits of treating her body with more love.

Ah, what a tangled web we weave.

Jess lopped off the body and weight acceptance aspects of loving your body and decided that going to the doctor, eating well, exercising, and listening to your body are what matter… on her way to losing more weight.

Yay! Another opportunity to clarify an important aspect of loving your body: Jess, you didn’t need to ostensibly give up loving your body in order to lose weight. You can love your body and lose weight. You heard me.

Think about it. If you start listening to your body’s cues, and giving it lots of leafy greens, and fresh air, and realize that your body doesn’t like big gobs of sugar (or carbs or meat or whatever), and you feed your body and your heart what they need, you might indeed lose weight over time. Without thinking about it too much or ever stepping on the scale. Or you might not. Whatever. Losing weight isn’t the point if you truly love your body.

The point is that your body will feel good, whatever size or weight you’re at. And most likely, all the indicators of health (blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.) will look good too. And despite all the fear-mongering to the contrary, more likely than not, you will be healthy too. Whatever size you are.

And you know what’s truly loving toward your body? Not stressing it out by cycling it through rapid weight loss and weight gain. Ouch. Poor body.

I suspect we haven’t heard the last from Jess Weiner. But I hope she arrives at a more nuanced/balanced/thoughtful understanding of her relationship with her body before she again declares that loving your body can endanger your life.

Loving my body saved my life. It saves me everyday. With love, from my body to yours.

Leave Judgment, Enter Joy

2011-08-12T15:47:00.000-07:00

Walking down the street, I used to have two different reactions to women’s bodies. The first was disgust tempered with pity… Ew, I would never want to look like that, poor thing. The second was jealousy… OMG how does she do it? I wish I looked like that! Ugh, so unfair!

I was caught between aversion and attraction… rejecting what I didn’t want and resenting what others had that I wanted. You can imagine that by grouping every woman into the category of “I’m sorry for you,” or “I hate you,” you’re not going to make many friends. Casting oneself as the Great Uber Judge of All Bodies is a lonely role to play.

Weirdly, I did not wear my Uber Judge hat when with my own friends… they were wonderful… I loved them… their looks were not the point. I loved Susan’s eyes, and Tab’s hair looked adorable in braids, and Deidre’s light-up dimples could eradicate my worst moods. But the minute I strode out into a group of strangers, I’d pull my safe, lofty, body-judge hat over my ears and eyes and let the judgments fall where they may. Of course, I assumed that everyone else wore their Uber Judge hat as well, throwing their own judgments my way, thereby making every trip to the store a running gauntlet of self-consciousness, resentment, and pity.

Fortunately, at some point I realized that my internal ranking system was a little, shall we say, superficial. All my body judgments served no purpose but to make me exhausted and crazy. If I could appreciate the sparkle in Susan’s eyes and not worry about her dress size, couldn’t I do the same thing with the woman walking down the street toward me? Could I enjoy someone wearing a lovely dress without wishing I was her, and hating being me?

I didn’t know it at the time, but there’s a Buddhist concept that neatly encapsulates the idea of being joyful for someone else’s success. It’s called mudita, or sympathetic joy.

Could I look for beauty everywhere, and be happy for its existence? Imagine the freedom of walking down the street, and instead of feeling frustrated and hateful, feeling light, open, and joyful! Instead of every person increasing the desire to cower in the shadows, every person you see could increase your happiness.

There are three basic steps for this:

1. See something good in each person. (This might take some practice.)

2. Be glad for them. (Think of them as someone you genuinely want to be happy.)

3. At the same time, appreciate what is good about me. (Not seeing myself as better or worse than anyone else, but recognizing my own uniqueness.)

You can practice this at home with a piece of paper and a list of people in your life you want to feel sympathetic joy towards. Go through the first two steps above for each person, and check in periodically with the third step, remembering to see what is good about you. If you still find yourself feeling envious of someone on your list, ask yourself, “What is it about their life that I want for myself? How can I invite that quality or experience into my life?” If you still find yourself feeling pity for someone on the list, ask yourself, “What is it about their life that I avoid or fear? Can I soften around that fear, and acknowledge that I have the resourcefulness and resilience to meet whatever life offers me?” Invite a genuine feeling of well-wishing for each of these people in your heart, seeing their goodness, and feeling joy for them. You may find this practice like taking a bath in love: wonderfully refreshing and transformative.

When I let go of being the Great Uber Judge of All Bodies I finally saw all the beauty I’d been missing… in myself and others.

Love Your Body Blog: Part 57

Who You Calling Beautiful?

2011-07-26T17:31:00.000-07:00

Here’s a variation of a conversation I occasionally find myself in:

“Kimber, I just want to tell you that I find it hard to believe that you ever disliked your body. You’re so radiant and beautiful.”

Me: “Aw, thanks.”

“No, seriously, it’s hard to square how you say you hated your body with what you look like.”

[Momentary stunned silence.]

Me: “I suppose you’re right. That’s the whole point. It doesn’t matter how many people tell you you’re beautiful if you don’t believe it yourself.”

Here’s a half-truth: I wasn’t always as beautiful as I am now. Yup, there’s a bunch of you out there who have known me since I was a wee little mite, and you’ll say, “No-no, Kimber, you’ve been beautiful all along.” But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? Other people might see it, but if I couldn’t see it… well, it wasn’t there. Perception is everything. Think about it… have you always seen yourself as beautiful?

For comparison’s sake, here’s what I used to think beauty was:

1. Perfect fat-free body

2. Immaculate cleanliness and grooming

3. Fashion model hair

4. Wrinkle and stretch-mark free as if steam-cleaned and ironed smooth by the dry cleaners’ hulking metal machines

5. Hairless (except for number three above, and of course, eyebrows and eyelashes!)

6. When everyone unanimously agrees you’re beautiful

Do you see the problem here? No living person can live up to that standard of beauty. It’s an artificial, two-dimensional, airbrushed, photo-shopped, billboard model standard of beauty. It’s the standard of beauty that prompted Cindy Crawford to say, “I wish I looked like Cindy Crawford.” I had adopted an unattainable standard of beauty that excluded me by definition. Anyone who asserted otherwise (“You look great/pretty/lovely”) obviously had regrettably low standards and therefore could be disregarded completely as not knowing what the hell they were talking about.

An even more pernicious definition was working away behind the scenes of my unconscious. Though my parents always emphasized intelligence and education, my young brain attached itself to the equation: Beauty = Worthiness. Because I wasn’t beautiful (according to my own definition), I also wasn’t worthy. This further undermined my ability to receive the sincerest, most well-meaning of compliments; since I wasn’t worthy of receiving a compliment and (obviously) wasn’t beautiful, anyone who complimented my appearance was a liar, possibly blind, apparently believed I was a complete idiot, and undoubtedly held some sinister ulterior motive.

The problem wasn’t what I looked like. It was how I perceived my own worthiness.

How can you stop believing in your own unworthiness? Question it. I asked myself: Whoever said I was unworthy? Why should I give a crap about what a jerk like that would say anyway? Why should I believe that I’m unworthy? I couldn’t come up with a good answer.

My yoga practice finally perforated and melted the shield of unworthiness. It’s hard to feel unworthy in Warrior Two or a juicy, well-aligned Tadasana. My body learned to balance in crow pose, and even how to kick into handstand. Nothing unworthy there. And savasana… I soaked up the resting pose at the end of class like it was my birthright. I deserved it. I deserved to feel whole, worthy… even loved.

Worthy enough, I decided, to redefine beauty to include myself. Nowadays beauty has different list of criteria:

1. Inner radiance born of self-awareness and compassion

2. Warmth, friendliness

3. Self-confidence co-existing with humility and humor

4. Love for self that extends beyond self and longs to include all others in its embrace

5. Ease and sense of being at home in the physical body, joy in aliveness

6. Capable of seeing beauty in self and others and everywhere

7. And more….

None of these things are based on appearance, yet when we look at someone who embodies these qualities, is it possible to see them as anything but beautiful? Anyone can attain this standard of beauty… though perhaps not perfectly all the time. Just ask my family if you want proof I don’t always embody the above qualities. But there’s a certain beauty in our vulnerability and pissy-ness, too. Real beauty is flexible and gritty and sometimes downright tough.

If your definition of beauty doesn’t include you, redefine it for yourself. Then take the next step… can you see yourself as beautiful and worthy even when you’re not feeling/being beautiful, even by your own definition? Maybe beauty isn’t something we have to define or pin down. It’s like seeing yourself as God, or the Earth, or Mother Nature sees you… whole, perfect, beautiful, even when you’re not. Maybe beautiful is what we’ve been all along.

Yeah, I’m beautiful. And so are you.

Love Your Body Blog: Part 56

To-Do List: Hate, No Wait, Love My Body

2011-07-22T16:25:00.000-07:00

I am a list-maker. I love lists.

My weekly to-do list gets crammed into the margins of my calendar, taking over the entire double page spread and spilling into future weeks. My grocery list is typed up on the computer and then each item I need gets checked off before I head to the store. The Four Agreements, the eight limbs of yoga, the ten things you should never say to your mother-in-law… make something into a list and I will read it, memorize it, and do it (or not do it, as the case may be).

When I was anorexic I would make lists of food I could eat and foods I couldn’t eat.

Apples, lettuce, and boiled eggs made it on to the okay list. Pretty much everything else was on the “I will not eat this” list. I made lists of all the exercises I would force my body to do for the day or the week: 300 leg lifts, 100 crunches, 50 push-ups, forty minutes on the mini-tramp, 100 laps in the pool, play tennis. I might as well have been making lists of ways to torture myself:

1. Hair shirt

2. Hung by toenails

3. Iron Maiden

4. Rack

5. Forced to listen without interruption to Boy George sing “Karma Chameleon” until ears bleed

I enjoyed my prescribed exercise to the same degree I would enjoy any of the above tortures, that is… very little. But my inner sadist (or is it masochist?) marched me through every exhausting regime I invented for myself, telling me I was getting exactly the treatment I deserved. The result was quite predictable: I hated myself and I hated my life.

Those hard-nosed lists made by a skinny 15 year old---I’m happy to say---remain in the dustbin of my personal history along with the crumpled ticket stubs from the roller rink and my middle-school year book. Nowadays my lists are more likely to look like this:

How I’ll Love My Body Today:

1. Eat what helps it feel energized and satisfied.

2. Listen to my belly when it says it’s full.

3. Enjoy my yoga practice as I stretch, strengthen, and relax

4. Rest when my body says to rest

5. Play, laugh, sing

6. Breathe deep

7. Appreciate my aliveness

The main difference between this to-do list and my old ones is simple. It's love.

It’s a list of things I want to do for myself, not against myself. It’s a celebration of my body as it is right now, not a strategy for turning my body into something it’s not now and never could be.

What do your lists look like… more like the “Here are the ways I plan to torture myself today” or this last one? Try making a list titled “How I’ll love my body today.” Probably there are things you’re planning to do anyway that could go on it: a dance class, a walk through the forest, a massage, a warm bath. Are there things you’d like to do that are more likely to happen if you connect them to the importance of being a good friend to your body? How different would it feel to check off items on your to-do list if each one were an outpouring of love towards yourself?

There’s only one way to find out.

Love Your Body Blog: Part 55

Extreme Makeover Kimber: Body Edition

2011-07-15T21:37:00.000-07:00

Do you think of yourself as an endless improvement project? …Once I lose 10 lbs (or 20 or whatever magical number you dream of), once I disappear this jiggle from my belly, once I tone my thighs, lift my eyelids, and suck the jelly out of my butt, then I’ll be happy. Then my life will really start.

Did you know that losing weight and getting more exercise appear on most people’s New Year’s resolution lists, year after year after year, no matter how much they weigh or what kind of shape they’re in?

And what would happen if they finally lost the weight, got the exercise they thought they needed, and fit into those jeans they’ve hidden in the back of the closet? Chances are they wouldn’t even notice. They’d already be onto the next project… losing more weight, doing more reps at the gym, and continuing to believe that “If I can just reach this next goal, then my life will be really great.” Always chasing the dream that dangles out of reach. Always frustrated that we never get to sink our teeth into that damn carrot.

Why do we get caught up in this endless cycle of dissatisfaction?

Because we’re stuck in the mindset that our body is broken and we have to fix it: my body is flawed, and I have to constantly repair it. Or hide its ugliness when all else fails. Sometimes we even feel like we have to punish ourselves for being flawed, our miles on the treadmill substituted for the self-flagellating whip. No amount of improvement will ever be enough.

Stop trying to improve yourself. Your body is fine. You are not anyone’s improvement project, not even your own.

If you’re always trying to improve yourself, you will never be satisfied with who you are. We expect ourselves to improve in good times and bad. We cannot constantly improve. Life does not always get better. Give yourself a break.

But Kimber, you might say, I want to eat better. I want to do more yoga. I want to finally nail a two minute handstand. I want more out of life…. Believe me, I know. Here’s what I want:

1. Be an awesome parent, yoga teacher, and partner.

2. Get my book(s) published

3. Get both my ankles behind my head and walk around on my hands. (It’s just as cool as it sounds.)

4. Continue to learn how to love my body through all its changes.

5. Learn how to pop some fly breakdance moves on the dance floor.

So, how do we resolve the paradox of not getting caught in the futile cycle of constant improvement but still longing to wow our friends with our fantastic moonwalk? Is it wrong to want more for ourselves?

Nope. It’s not. The problem is where you start from. If you start from the place of believing that you’re broken, a million band-aids (or dollars) won’t fix you. If you start from the place of knowing that you are good, your body is good, your life is good just the way you are, then anything you add to that is good too. Just a different good. I’m not broken. I don’t need to fix my body. Since my body is already good (or fabulous, fun, and frisky), exercising and eating well are simply the whipped cream with a cherry on top. Mmm.

How do we start seeing ourselves as good?

1. Look for the good. Look for what’s good and workable in your body, in your life, and in your relationships. What’s workable? What’s delightful? What about your body makes you smile?

2. Change your definition of “perfect” to mean “good enough.” When a friend asks you how she looks and you say perfect, do you mean, “You look as good as a perfectly straight infinitely long line”? No. You mean, “You look great/lovely/good enough to head off to whatever adventure comes next.” You are perfect. You are good enough as you are.

3. Enjoy the process. Is the point of our lives to improve ourselves endlessly and leave a beautiful corpse? Let your life be about savoring, and relishing being alive, whatever life offers you, be it joy or grief, pleasure or difficulty.

4. Start with love. Love your life. Love your body. Act with love in your relationships and everything you do. Let your love for life guide you.

In the Love Your Body workshop (next one coming up in Sept!), we discuss the difference between self-discipline and self-devotion. Self-discipline is when we say, “I’m going to the gym everyday, I’m going to do tons of yoga, I’m going to eat tons of greens and no sugar. I’m going to make myself do all these things [because I’m broken and the only way to fix myself is by being hard and demanding on myself, by denying myself things I enjoy and forcing myself to do things I hate.]

Self-devotion says, “I’m going to the gym and doing yoga as often as I can because my body enjoys it and it feels good when I exercise. I eat healthy, fresh, delicious food because that’s one of the ways I show my body I love it. I delight in treating my body this way [because I am whole and worthy and my body is amazing. It’s fun to treat my body with love-- like it’s my best friend.]

The to-do list of Miss Self-Discipline and Ms. Self-Devotion might look the same:

· Go for sunrise hike in the hills

· Yoga class

· Write blogpost

· Make vegetarian dinner for friends with lots of greens and mixed berries for dessert

But the impulse behind them is totally different. Miss Self-Discipline is hoping her to-do list will finally make her whole… but it never adds up to lasting happiness. Ms. Self-Devotion knows she’s already whole, and that taking care of herself in a loving way is just another way of enjoying life.

You are enough. Your body is good enough, your life is good enough. Just as you are. When you love yourself, improvement is beside the point.

Love Your Body Blog: Part 54

An Interview with Linda Bacon: Your Body Says, "Diet? What Diet?"

2011-07-12T16:08:00.000-07:00

Today I'm delighted to share with you a short interview with nutritionist and researcher Linda Bacon, the author of Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight. Last year after reading her book for the first time, I realized that her work provided the scientific background for what I'd already discovered was true about my own body: that listening to my body's cues and treating it with respect and love are the basis for good health... not rigidly judging myself according to the numbers on a scale or catching a ride on the latest diet bandwagon. As you read on, she'll give you a glimpse into why the Health At Every Size approach makes so much sense.

1. So Linda, why don't diets work?

When people use the word “diet,” what they usually mean is that they are restricting their calories so that their body is getting less energy (calories) than it is expending. While you can get away with this temporarily, your body has regulatory systems to protect against this in the long run. If it is deprived of the energy that it needs, it can compensate through many different mechanisms. One obvious example is that it can increase your appetite so you want to eat more. But it can also compensate by slowing down processes that you have less conscious control over. Ever notice that some days you have less get up and go than others? That could just be because your body is slowing down your metabolism to counteract your diet.

2. Why do our bodies work so hard to defend their weight?

Eat too little and you eventually die. It’s that straightforward. So you can imagine that over the course of evolution, humans have developed mechanisms to make sure we don’t get into that danger zone. This is particularly true since we frequently experienced famines. People for whom these mechanisms weren’t well developed couldn’t survive as easily and over time, less of them passed on their genes. That’s one reason why more people these days have genes that provide them with strong protection against weight loss – and relatively few people can get away with it easily.

While we all have mechanisms to protect against too much weight gain, on the other hand, these mechanisms are easier to over-ride. So you can eat a lot of food, the “fullness” mechanism kicks in telling you you’ve had enough, but the food still tastes good to you, and you can over-ride that biological safeguard. And that makes sense from an evolutionary perspective too – until recently food was relatively more difficult to come by and required a lot of energy expenditure to get. So there was no reason for our bodies to develop strong protection against weight gain as we didn’t have easy opportunity to gain weight. For these and other reasons, biologically we’re set up so that it’s very difficult to lose weight, but relatively easy to gain weight.

3. What are the health effects of cyclical dieting?

Off the top of my head, I know that there is evidence from large observational studies that weight cycling is linked to shorter lifespan, and that it’s also associated with increased risk for myocardial infarction, stroke, and diabetes, increased blood pressure and inflammation, and even suppressed immune function. I’m sure I could come up with a much longer list if I examined the literature more thoroughly!

4. It's difficult for those of us who are cyclical dieters or are told to lose weight (either by society or by a doctor) to say "no" to dieting. What resources do you recommend to support our decision to end the dieting cycle?

I know that with so much reinforcement from others – including those who are considered to be well-educated authorities - that dieting is the right thing to do, it is hard to challenge it. I certainly have compassion for people who are stuck in the cycle. My best suggestion is to examine your own experience. You’ve tried. Think of how badly you’ve wanted to succeed, yet you're still in the same boat (or worse). Now, consider that it’s not you that’s the failure. You know you really wanted it badly. If it were accessible, with your motivation, I’m sure you would have succeeded. So perhaps you can question the idea? The diet failed, not you! There is tremendous freedom that comes from understanding that. My book, Health at Every Size, provides many other suggestions on how to break the cycle.

5. How can you learn to love your body after being a life-long cyclical dieter?

There are many ways to go about this. Here’s one example. Start by appreciating the functionality of your body. Consider your legs. If you are able-bodied, you can get from one place to another, allowing you to do so much. I’m in awe of how my legs allow me to participate in my world. It’s not too hard to appreciate them from this standpoint. So look at the different parts of your body, and then how it works holistically, and consider how amazing you are.

For more information, check out Linda's book, Health at Every Size (www.haesbook.com). She's also teaching a workshop called "Find Your Voice: How to Challenge Resistance and Talk Persuasively about Size Acceptance" on Monday August 12 from 9-4:30 pm. I'll be there! You can find information about this workshop and more at Linda's website (www.lindabacon.org), and through following her on social media. (Links can be found on website.)

Love Your Body Blog Part 53

Love Your Loved Ones’ Bodies

2011-06-20T11:48:00.000-07:00

My mom has always had great legs. She would deny it to her dying breath, but it’s true. Even now that she’s older than she’d care to admit. My sister has always had an amazing body… she’s carried three babies (two at the same time!) and eats triathlons for breakfast. And I love my dad’s chest… he gives the greatest hugs. Nothing feels as safe and steady. My family doesn’t look like a bevy of runway models. But I love their bodies.

As you learn to love your body, teach yourself to love the bodies of the people you love.

What do you love about your grandmother’s body? Your cousin? Your aunt? What do you love about your brother’s body?

Look for what’s good in the bodies of those you care about. Pick someone. First just look at your family member (or friend) remembering what you love about them. Notice if your tendency is to criticize their body. Soften around your judgments and just say “Hi” to their body. Remind yourself that their body is what makes it possible to love them, what allows them to be embodied and present in your life. What are you grateful for about their body? How does their body take care of and support them, allowing you to be in relationship with them?

Think of a time when they’ve been sick or injured. Thank their body for healing and for taking care of them so that they are around for you to love and enjoy their presence. What’s good and beautiful in their body? It might be that they have strong arms or soft cheeks, warm hands or a round, comforting belly. Maybe you’re grateful that their liver or kidneys have held up so well. Can you see the beauty and the good in their body? Can you find something about their body you admire, perhaps something you’d never realized you were fond of?

If your family is anything like mine, they’ve got real bodies, not airbrushed and not “perfect” in an abstract, idealized way. And yet they are lovable. When you can see the beauty in Great Aunt Mary’s arms, it’s so much easier to soften and see the beauty in your own arms. When you remember how fond you are of your grandfather’s belly, it’s less of a stretch to embrace what’s good about your own. Get out of the habit of criticizing others’ bodies and… you get the idea.

Learn to love all bodies and you’ll have less trouble loving your own!

Love Your Body Blog Part 52

Die Bad Photo! Die!

2011-06-14T13:53:00.000-07:00

No one should be allowed to take pictures during Twister. Seriously.

Have you ever had your picture taken while your right foot is on blue, left hand on red, ass in the sky? Imagine the photographic possibilities… emphasis on “graphic” intended.

Years ago at a Twister party at my house, a friend snapped some shots, and months later the pictures ended up in my lap. (Remember the pre-Facebook lag time of our ancient past?) The party was a blast; I remember laughing til I nearly peed my pants. Which is always a good sign.

Yet holding those photos in my hand I wanted to erase that night from my memory forever.

At least two of the pictures prominently featured my butt sticking high up in the air… dwarfing everything else in its vicinity. OMG. Kill me now. Is that really what my butt looks like? The Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man in yoga pants?

Horrified doesn’t begin to touch my reaction.

It was as if someone had taken my happy memory of the evening and spray-painted “Fat Ugly Bitch” across it in drippy red letters. Placing the pictures upside down on the coffee table, I huddled in a ball on the couch and resolved to go on a diet the very next day. I wouldn’t stop until I’d starved myself to oblivion. How could my friends stand to look at me? How could anyone stand to look at me?

A lump formed in my throat.

The party had been so much fun. Until that moment, I’d felt great about the party, pretty good about my body, and satisfied with my life. What changed to make me wish the party had never happened? Did those pictures have enough power not only to make me hate that night, but to hate my body and throw myself into the arms of some harmful diet for months or years to come? Who gave these pictures that much power?

Me.

My friend didn’t intend mischief by sharing the pictures. She quite sensibly assumed I’d be thrilled to have photos of our evening of laughter-induced incontinence. Everyone had a great time, and no one complained about the size or prominence of my butt. No one told me I needed to go on a diet. The photos themselves were just pieces of paper with ink on them. I was the one who gave them the power to change how I felt about a night that happened months ago, and to undermine how I felt about my body and my life.

I’d given all my power away to two 4X6 pieces of glossy paper.

This sudden realization jolted me from the corner of the couch into which I’d burrowed. I sat up and turned the pictures over. I didn’t have to give them that much power. I didn’t have to give them any power. My life is good, my body is good. I glanced at the butt shots and decided that, most likely, no one’s butt looks good in Twister shots. These were just pictures of me having a good time with my friends. I didn’t have to fix them or fix myself.

Photos can be weirdly powerful. Have you ever given your power away to a particular photo? Can you take it back?

Let’s not give our power away to inanimate objects and the stories we tell ourselves about what they mean. Trust your body. Does it feel good? Is it happy? Is it getting the fuel and fun it needs? No photo can tell the truth about your body. Only your body knows the truth about you. Pause now and listen.

Love Your Body Blog Part 51

Holy Sacred Body!

2011-06-10T15:35:00.000-07:00

What is sacred to you? The image of Notre Dame’s massive stained glass windows arises first in my mind, and then a cathedral formed by enormous trees sheltering the forest floor. The first moment I held my baby son in my arms felt deeply sacred. In fact, the occasional hug in which my ear is placed near his chest and I hear his heart’s steady beat still fills me with relief and quiet wonder.

What do I mean by sacred? That which fills you with a sense of awe, that effortlessly draws your attention so that you can’t help but pause, take it in, and remember for a moment how brief and miraculous life is.

We call certain places sacred—a temple, a holy marker, a cemetery, a river—and approach them with respect and dignity. When I visited Swayambhunath Stupa in Kathmandu (a gorgeous Buddhist monument surrounded by monkey-filled trees), upon arriving at the base of the dome on top of the hill I immediately felt drawn to its powerful energy. Looking up at the golden eyes of Buddha against the blue sky, and watching the pilgrims circling the base spinning the prayer wheels and murmuring their mantras, my heart wavered and expanded and my eyes filled with tears. Sacred. Any place that thousands, perhaps even millions of people approach as sacred gathers palpable energy that can resonate in your body and soul whether or not you ascribe to the accompanying beliefs.

But we don’t have to travel far to find (or make) something sacred. A home altar provides a sacred place where we arrange objects that help us focus our attention on what is important to us and what we want our lives to be about. The objects themselves and even the IKEA coffee table they live on become sacred. We get disgruntled if an oblivious guest abandons their crumpled cup or gum wrapper there. If the forest or the beach feels like sacred space to you, the idea of leaving broken plastic wine glasses and crumpled paper napkins from your picnic to blow around in the grass and rocks is sacrilegious. You wouldn’t dream of it.

Why do we treat our bodies like they are less worthy than a temple or the forest? Is your body any less a miracle than the beach? Your human body is a work of evolutionary art, vastly more amazing in its complexity and mystery than the most elaborately constructed Gothic cathedral.

In the words of Walt Whitman:

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,

…And the running blackberry would adorn the parlours of heaven,

And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,

And the cow crunching with depress’d head surpasses any statue,

And a mouse is a miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels

You’ve heard, “Your body is a temple.” So how is your temple? Do you treat your temple like the sacred space it is? Or do you disrespect it? You wouldn’t dream of breaking into someone’s church or synagogue or mosque and spraying hateful graffiti on the walls. Yet many of us have no self-restraint when it comes to insulting ourselves, criticizing and abusing our bodies, and coming back for more. This is the equivalent of vandalizing our own church; using the altar cloths to wipe our feet, getting piss-drunk on the holy wine, and melting the sacred objects down to buy heavy weapons and, of course, more spray paint.

Six steps to treat your body like a temple:

1. Recognize its beauty. See how extraordinary your body truly is.

2. Approach your body with respect and awe. “Oh Nobly Born,” (as the Buddha says), be gentle with and dignified toward your body. Offer your body loving rituals of cleansing.

3. Treat your body the way you would any other sacred space. Don’t throw mental, emotional, and psychological “garbage” on it. Be kind and responsible.

4. Honor it. Listen to what food, movement, rest, and attention it needs and meet those needs appropriately. Dress your body with attention to the comfort and beauty that allows its beauty to shine fully.

5. Protect it. Avoid people who don’t treat your body with the respect it deserves, and situations which endanger its well-being.

6. Pause and enjoy it. Experience and appreciate your own aliveness. Slow down and savor your life.

Your body is sacred space. Meet it with reverence and delight.

Encourage others to treat their bodies as sacred space as well. Yoga master Richard Freeman says that once we’ve drawn the circle to show “everything inside this line is sacred,” we must to remember to erase the line as well. The circle helps us focus our attention, and then we recognize how the sacred lives within us and everywhere else.

Be the temple. Love your body, love your yoga, love the world.

I’d love to hear your ideas about other ways you can treat your body like a temple….

Love Your Body Blog Part 50

Dear Body, A Love Letter

2011-06-06T18:40:00.000-07:00

Have you ever written a love letter to your body? No? Why not? Tell your body how you feel about it. Be honest, be authentic. Share with it your disappointments, fears, longings, and dreams. Snuggle up and write your best friend/body a love letter. Here’s mine:

Dear Body,

It’s taken me a long time to get up the nerve to write you this letter. You deserve so much more than just a few pixels typed out on the computer. Think of this letter as warm socks, showers of rose petals, and an afternoon playing in the beach surf all rolled up into one. It’s a love letter of sorts… though it begins with an apology.

You’ve been incredibly dependable my whole life, taking care of me, hiking with me through the forest, dancing and making music, helping me expand into life in every possible way. And what did I do? I was mad at you for longer than I care to admit. I hid you out of shame. I made fun of you in front of other people. I starved you and mistreated you. I overfed you and then blamed you for existing. I invested time, energy, and money in developing my brain (which you tolerated for years without complaint) and then resented you when you rebelled with pain. My humblest apologies don’t nearly begin to touch the depth of what I put you through. I would never treat anyone else the way I’ve treated you. I am so sorry.

Don’t you find it annoying when someone apologizes but doesn’t add the oh-so-important corollary: “…and I’ll make sure it never happens again.”? So… from now on I promise to do my very best to treat you with the love and respect you deserve. I might make mistakes, I might not love you perfectly at every moment, but know that I’ve resolved that nothing will stand in the way of me loving you ever again. No one’s opinion, no bad mirrors, no ugly photos: I won’t let anything convince me that you aren’t worth loving just the way you are.

You have been a best friend to me all this time, unconditionally supporting everything I love to do and create. I want to do the same for you. I want to listen to you and nurture you, see the beauty in you and support all the changes and adventures you have yet to experience. I want to be your best friend.

Teach me how to love you. Teach me how to listen. Remind me that your beauty is incomparable and inherent in what you are, a magnificent human body. Here are just a few things to remind us both of what I love about you:

You are strong, flexible, amazingly responsive and adventurous.

Your hands reflect back to me my mother, my grandmother, and beyond even that… through you I see a long line of women’s hands that have raised families, learned, loved, and shaped the world.

You are tall, yet steady. Solid, yet graceful. You are soft, but firm.

You are easily delighted: by rain on your face, by the softness of an animal’s fur, by the rustle of leaves, by the sparkle of sunlight.

You are quiet and secretly wild. Other times you are loud and secretly in awe.

I love you. Thank you for being you. Thank you for loving me despite everything. I’m here for you. We’re in this together. May I learn how to love you better every day.

Yours truly, Kimber

Love Your Body Blog Part 49

You Have the Perfect Body

2011-06-03T15:29:00.001-07:00

Have you ever seen a perfectly straight, infinitely long line? Me neither. How about a perfectly mathematically round sphere? Nope, never seen one. Perfectly straight lines and perfectly round spheres exist only in one place: your mind. Nature doesn’t make mathematically perfect objects, and yet who could say that a tree isn’t perfect?

Idealized perfection exists only in our minds. You will never be mathematically perfect. Your body will never be mathematically perfect. Even the people we think are perfect aren’t perfect. After seeing an airbrushed photo of herself, Cindy Crawford once said, “I wish I looked like Cindy Crawford.”

Who wants to look at a mathematically perfect tree? Have you ever seen those radio towers disguised with xmas tree needles to look like trees? They are weirdly symmetrical and unnatural looking. We love the imperfection in nature; the uneven crags and knolls are what draw us to a gorgeous landscape.

Yet often we expect our bodies to be perfect: for women, cellulite-free, hairless, toned but not muscley, tanned, free of pimples, scars, veins, and of course wrinkles. Perfection in humans is entirely limited to the class of human beings who live their flat lives on billboards and in magazines. All their imperfections have been wiped clean by technology’s magical brush. Whose body is perfect? No one’s. No one’s real body is perfect.

Our idealized definition of perfect is a soul-crushing steam-roller that flattens many girls (and some boys as well) starting at age ten or younger. We learn our bodies can never measure up and we go to wild extremes to reach for a perfection that, like a desert mirage, lures us on until we find ourselves face down in the sand and dying of thirst. For years I tried to shape my body into an unattainable perfection that left me hating myself and hating life and isolated from the people who loved me most.

It’s time to redefine “perfect” and throw out our habit of holding up outer perfection as a desirable goal. We don’t have to go too far to find a new meaning… in yoga, perfect is purna. Purna means not abstract perfection, but wholeness, completeness, fullness; perfect as a real experience of life… everything is perfect by being fully itself. Purna/perfect is natural, vibrant, asymmetrical, and dynamic. It changes, but is always perfect nonetheless. Perfect is no longer about comparing ourselves to something outside of us, but is our own experience, our own lives, our own bodies. You are already yourself, you are already perfect. There is nothing to attain.

Perfect is a way to see yourself. It’s not something we buy from a cosmetics company or a plastic surgeon. You are incomparable. To be perfect you need only to step fully into being yourself, and no one else. No one can show you your perfection… it’s like asking the fish to see the water or inside its own bones. Perfect is simply who you are.

Even the parts of ourselves we most dislike are perfect. Years ago after I'd lamented the stretch marks on my thighs, my partner responded, “I love your stretch marks. I love your thighs. Your stretch marks tell me you are a living, breathing woman who’s had many life experiences, all of which I value because they make you who you are: the person I love.”

To practice redefining perfect for yourself, walk down the sidewalk and observe the trees (even the stunted ones) and flowers (even the wilted ones) and say, “This is perfect. That is perfect. This thing is perfectly itself, perfectly alive, perfect in its experience.” See how things are perfect in their imperfection. Then look in the mirror and say to your flaws and your assymetries: “You are perfect. You are perfectly yourself.” Start to open your eyes to how you are perfect in your own imperfection.

Love Your Body Blog Part 48

Love Your Slow Sex: Love Your Body Blog Part 47

2011-05-25T14:16:00.000-07:00

Today I digress to talk more about sex. Sex and loving your body go hand-in-hand, and I didn’t get any complaints from my last venture onto this limb, quite the opposite, in fact! You might remember that several weeks ago I gave away a free One Taste women’s sexuality retreat to a blog-reader. This week I’m sharing with you a new book written by the facilitator of the retreat, Nicole Daedone, called Slow Sex: the Art and Craft of the Female Orgasm.

Has it ever happened that you never noticed something in the world, let’s say delivery trucks with attached lift equipment, until one backs into your car, squashing your hood, and then suddenly you start seeing them everywhere?

Not to say this has ever happened to me, except for last Thursday afternoon. Since then, it’s as if delivery trucks were invented and populated the planet overnight. They are everywhere.

When the folks at One Taste first contacted me, I had never heard of them in the 17 years I’ve lived in the Bay Area. Then overnight, friends and acquaintances at parties start telling me, “Oh yeah, I’ve heard of them, they have a center in SF, don’t they… [fill in the blank],” and later they email me articles from the New York Times and Salon. Suddenly I’m feeling like the kid who was in the bathroom while the teacher did a headstand on her desk. Where have I been? And what is this whole celebration of the female orgasm about?

In the book’s intro, Daedone compares slow sex to the taste of a ripe, juicy heirloom tomato.

That certainly grabbed my attention. As the granddaughter of a man who considered a plate of his home-grown sliced tomatoes a dessert equal to my grandmother’s blackberry cobbler, when you start talking tomatoes, I know you’re serious. What else really needs to be said?

A lot apparently.

Apparently we’re pretty repressed (no surprise there), don’t know what to ask for, or how to ask for it (somewhat surprising), and don’t feel entitled to acknowledge our desires (disturbing and definitely worth looking into). Slow Sex offers men a way to listen and tap into female desire, and shows women how to unearth their desire and release it in a way that reinvigorates their whole lives.

From the gossip I’d heard about One Taste, I expected Slow Sex to be an indictment of monogamy and a clarion call for a return to the glories of 70’s style swinging.

If that’s the book you’re looking for, save your money. Daedone describes her orgasmic meditation and slow sex techniques mostly as they apply to primary heterosexual relationships, with the exception of a few nods to singles and lesbian and gay couples. Conventional and yet not.

Though I’m at the disadvantage of not having read widely in the field of sex manuals (with the notable exception of The Joy of Sex shared up and down the dorm hallway in college), the upshot of Slow Sex is this: women’s orgasms matter, and they are not what you think. They are not fancy, not high-volume, not fever-pitched. They don’t require an advanced degree in biomechanical engineering.

A woman can orgasm for 15 minutes or for the rest of her life.

Any woman. You. The secret is what Daedone calls Orgasmic Meditation or OMing (cute, huh?). You may never again Om at the beginning of yoga class without an inner smile. OMing and Om-ing are essentially unrelated, except that they both invoke a meditative state of concentration. In the chapter “How to Om”, Daedone takes you and your partner through all the steps to OM, building communication, trust, and access to an inexhaustible source of energy along the way. Honestly, it sounds pretty fun.

To tell you the truth, I haven’t tried OM yet, but I’m intrigued.

A technique that combines meditation, orgasm, relationship, and increased joy for life? I’m listening.

What especially delights me about Slow Sex is its emphasis on how to listen to your body, feel the sensations, and grow in your sensitivity and awareness. As in yoga, desire is not a problem, but a path to explore honestly, with love and devotion. In these ways, Slow Sex is simply an extension of yoga practice into intimate relationships and reveals an ocean worth diving into.

As I turned the last page last night, I wondered who should read this book.

Which of my friends and students would find this book helpful, even life-changing? Here are some questions you can ask yourself: Do you want to experience orgasm, possibly for the first time, or in a different way than you ever imagined? Do you want to improve your communication during sex with your partner, and possibly in the rest of your relationship as well? Do you want to access your desire more deeply, and learn to channel it into your life? Do you sense that OM might take you further on your journey of learning to love your body? Maybe OM is for you.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

To find out more about One Taste go to http://www.onetaste.us/ . To view Slow Sex on Amazon, click here. (And no, silly, of course I don’t get kickbacks.)

The Second Arrow: Love Your Body Blog Part 46

2011-05-23T15:46:00.000-07:00

What do you see when you look in the mirror? What story do you tell yourself about your body?

If you’re like many people, when you see your reflection in the mirror, you think, “Ugh. When will I get rid of these fat rolls/cellulite mountains/burgeoning stretch marks?!” Then you silently (or not so silently) vow that tomorrow you are starting a new diet/new exercise program/new strategy for excising that part of your body forever. Then later, when you’re driving, or washing the dishes, or talking to a friend on the phone, you’re still giving yourself a hard time about it-- sometimes for hours or weeks.

“There are two arrows,” Buddha told his students. “The first arrow is pain, injury, loss. You can’t avoid it. What you can avoid is the second arrow; the one you shoot at yourself about why you got shot by the first arrow to begin with.”

When I share this story with my yoga students, they often look at me with surprise. “I don’t have to shoot the second arrow? I don’t have to tell and re-tell the story about how there is something wrong with me? Or him? Or the world?” Nope. That’s the suffering we create for ourselves. You don’t have to tell the story that makes you or the world bad.

Here’s an example: my partner comes home late from work. I’m mad, because I had dinner ready 45 minutes ago, and she didn’t even call to tell me she was running late. Her being late is the first arrow. The second arrow is the story I tell myself:

What a complete, inconsiderate, insensitive, self-centered jerk! I can’t believe I married her. What’s wrong with me that I always end up with people who walk all over me?

Then I shoot a few kerosene-soaked second arrows at her, too. Add a little PMS to this flammable mix of arrows, and we can end up in an epic, hours-long fight involving slamming doors, threats of divorce, and multiple emptied tissue boxes.

Instead, what if I didn’t shoot the second arrow?

People are late sometimes and forget to call, despite their best efforts. What if I thought to myself, “I’m bummed she got home late. Maybe she’s bummed too. I know she loves me and would never do this on purpose.”? First arrow but no second arrow. Pain but no suffering. Disappointment but no argument.

When you look into the mirror what’s the first arrow? Your body. Your aging, changing, un-airbrushed body. Your body is what it is. It’s not bad, it’s not necessarily even painful. It’s just a body.

But looking in the mirror, I might instantly compare my lips to Angelina Jolie or my thighs to some 20 year old model’s that I saw on a radio station billboard. Squinting at the reflection I remind myself that my lips are nothing like Angelina’s and even when I was 20, my body did not look like an airbrushed model’s. The longer I look, the crappier I feel. Comparing myself negatively to someone else is a second arrow inandof itself. Then I get out the big artillery: the story I tell myself about why I don’t look “better.” It starts with, “What’s wrong with me that I don’t look younger/thinner/more gorgeous?” And moves to, “I need to work out more and do a master cleanse, that will get me started.” Soon my inner anorexic feels her powers return and she helpfully suggests, “Stop eating.” Uh-oh.

How do we stop shooting the second arrow?

First, notice when you start comparing. Your body stands alone. Your body is good and worthy. Heck, it’s carried you around your whole life, and for its thanks you compare it to Hollywood actresses, or your friend, or yourself ten years ago? Get real and give it a break. Second, notice when an encounter with the mirror (or scale---a different sort of mirror) sets your inner critic on a raucous meth-binge of self-hatred. Or sends you over a speed bump of dieting wistfulness.

Notice your usual second arrows.

Get to know them, let them become like old friends. When the one with the story about how you should eat and look like Kate Moss/your svelte aunt/your tiny friend comes up, just say, “Hey, it’s you again. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your opinion. You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t serve you refreshments and ask you to stay awhile, but I’ve really got better things to do.”

When you notice yourself repeating a really sticky story (like shooting yourself over and over with the same second arrow), observe how it feels in your body and in your heart. Offer it your breath, and a sense of spaciousness and tenderness. These stories can be powerful and persistent. But really, they’re just stories.

You have the ability to tell different stories.

Nowadays, instead of shooting second arrows at myself, when I see my reflection in the mirror, I tell myself:

This is a good body. Thanks for everything you do, body. I’m working hard to learn to love you and to keep loving you no matter what. We’re in this together.

Instead of being mad at my body, I feel a sense of friendliness and trust. Where I once had to duck to avoid the second arrows, now my body soaks up gratitude and affection.

The next time you find yourself in the mirror, notice your second arrows, get to know them, and offer your reflection healing, instead of hurt.

(Thanks to yoga instructor and author Judith Lasater, who first told me a version of the second arrow story.)

Body Snark: Love Your Body Blog Part 45

2011-05-20T15:41:00.000-07:00

Are you snarky about bodies?

You know what I mean: Have you ever elbowed a friend who’s gained some weight and thought (or said!), “Hey, leave some for me!” Do you look at super-skinny models and comment under your breath, “Ouch. Someone give that girl a sandwich.” Honestly, even saying to someone, “You look great, have you lost weight?” is unintentionally snarky. Think about it: you’re implying you thought all along they should lose a few pounds… and well, they didn’t look so hot before. Plus, I’ve had enough friends go through cancer that I make a point of not mentioning someone’s missing pounds. Seriously, once you overhear someone’s reply, “Oh yeah, I got my diagnosis last month and the chemo’s really killed my appetite,” you’ll never mention weight loss again.

In fact, I still get triggered if someone asks me I’ve lost weight.

My mind spins off, “Did I look fat before? Why are they keeping track of my weight? Everybody’s looking at me. Maybe everybody thinks I’m fat. Why do I look skinnier? Maybe I’m not eating enough. Maybe I’m becoming anorexic again. Now I’m hungry.” My thoughts zoom away on their own wild roller coaster. Most days I have the peace of mind to step off before the ride gets too scary, but not always.

Yet I’m guilty of overt snark myself.

Just the other day while walking in San Francisco, I saw a gym ad on the side of the bus with the skinniest woman I’d seen in a long time. My first thought was, “Ew. When did they start using famine victims to advertise gym memberships?”

This is a complicated sentiment for me.

At first, I was pleased with myself. Not so long ago, this recovering anorexic still wanted to be that super-skinny model. I take my mean comment as proof that my inner anorexic is off-duty, and that I no longer equate skinniness with health and desirability. I also feel justified in acknowledging that holding up super-skinny women as what all women should (want to) look like is a mean-spirited practical joke for most of us.

However, labeling all super-skinny women as famine victims is just as unfair as labeling all fat people gluttons. Several of my thin friends have trouble keeping weight on, not because they are starving themselves, but because of their metabolism and body type. They don’t need my labels or my snarkiness. Or anyone else’s. Thin, fat, or anything in between, no body enjoys insensitive criticism.

Many of my fat friends don’t mind being called “fat”: in fact, in some circles, identifying as fat is empowering, like reclaiming the word queer (although you should ask people what term they prefer). But they don’t appreciate ignorant comments from random strangers like, “Why don’t you join a gym?” (They probably already do), or “Lay off the burgers and fries,” or “Keep eating those salads and you’ll lose those pounds” (Maybe this burger is the only thing I’ve eaten today, or maybe I just like salad, I’m not trying to lose weight). One blogger, Dances With Fat, calls going out a “Public Display of Fatness,” during which a fat person can be subjected to all kinds of unhelpful and insulting advice from folks who can’t just mind their own beeswax.

When will we finally admit that you can’t tell anything about someone just by looking at their body?

You don’t know if they are happy or sad, active or lazy, if they love their body or hate it, if they wish they had a different body or enjoy their body and their life just the way they are. Actually, it’s none of our business.

At the first Love Your Body workshop last spring, one of the students suggested a new rule about bodies: “No commenting on bodies without joy, love, and praise for life.” In other words, no snark.

Can you see what’s genuinely beautiful in your friend who’s gained weight? Can you praise your fat friend’s radiance and glow? Can you be joyful about your skinny friend’s body, and the bodies of all shapes and sizes of those you love? Every body you see houses a person’s dreams, hopes, wisdom, joy, and sorrow. Look for what’s good in them, what’s right and lovely. No one needs our snarkiness… is that really what we want to put out there into the world? But lots of people need our love and acceptance. Including ourselves.

What the Heck is Intuitive Eating, Anyway?

2011-05-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

Today I’m excited to share with you an interview with the amazing Golda Poretsky. Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a wellness company that provides individual and group counseling from a Health At Every Size perspective. Via her blog, podcast, and counseling programs, she helps women and men throughout the country get off the dieting roller coaster, give their bodies what they really crave, and love their bodies and themselves. Golda's programs and activism work have been featured on CBS's The Early Show, ABC's Nightline, NBC's LX New York and Time Out New York. She is also author of Stop Dieting Now: 25 Reasons To Stop, 25 Ways To Heal, available in softcover, Kindle, and Nook.

SPECIAL OFFER: As a special gift for lucky readers, Golda is gifting a free Food Mood Transformation Session to the first 5 Finding Fullness readers who sign up. This is your chance to talk to Golda about any struggles you’re having with food and body image, and get some real solutions for moving forward. To sign up for your free session, go to http://www.bodylovewellness.com/findingfullness/.

1. Briefly, Golda, what is intuitive eating?

Intuitive eating is a practice of listening to your body's food desires and feelings of hunger and fullness, and making food choices based on those indicators.

2. How has eating intuitively affected your own life?

Oh, gosh. It's affected my life in so many ways. But I think the hugest impact of intuitive eating is emotional. I was a lifelong dieter until I found intuitive eating. I was always on a diet, and when I wasn't, I was stressing about whether I should or not. But now, I don't spend my days stressing about food, what I'm going to eat, what I can eat, what I can't eat. I don't count points or calories or carbs or fat grams. I just eat good food that I like, and I pay attention to my hunger and fullness. It's a really peaceful place to be.

3. What are the first steps someone who wants to learn to eat intuitively can take?

Truthfully, the best place to start is uncovering your "food rules." Most of us have rules that we've carried with us from past diets, and often they conflict. We see ourselves as "being good" when we stick to our rules and "being bad" when we don't. So it's important to get a lot of clarity on what our beliefs are around food and begin to let go of them, so that we can hear our inner wisdom.

4. How can intuitive eating help someone who sometimes over- or under-eats?

Because bingeing and restricting really aren't about the food, using intuitive eating tools can allow someone who binges or restricts to begin to get clarity on her/his emotional reality. That's really a key component of intuitive eating -- it gives you the space to acknowledge your emotional hunger as well as your physical hunger.

5. Why is intuitive eating better than dieting?

Dieting is incredibly detrimental. We're sold a lie that diets and weight loss are healthy and good for us, and that lie couldn't be further from the truth. In my book, Stop Dieting Now, I give 25 reasons to stop dieting, so it's hard to pick just one. But the main reason why intuitive eating is better than dieting is that diets impose a set of rules on the dieter that has nothing to do with that dieter. Your diet doesn't care if you're having a long, stressful day or an easy day at home. Your diet doesn't care if it's the summer in Southern Florida or the winter in Alaska. No matter what, you have to make choices based on that diet, not on what you want or need. Intuitive eating allows you to learn to listen to your body and trust that your body will direct you toward the nutrition you need.

6. What further resources would you recommend for someone who would like to step onto the path of intuitive eating?

I would highly recommend Linda Bacon's book: Health At Every Size, The Surprising Truth About Your Weight. It's a great way to learn the principles of intuitive eating while also learning why it's a good idea. There are lots of books on intuitive eating that may be more familiar to your readers, but I wouldn't recommend them because they talk about intuitive eating as a weight loss tool, which it isn't. Some people lose weight from intuitive eating and some don't, and I find that those who don't lose weight think they're doing it wrong. In other words, it becomes another diet that they feel they've failed at, which defeats the whole purpose!

I think it's also important to get help with this process. When you've suffered from disordered eating for years, usually reading a few books and blogs isn't going to do the trick. There are real issues to be worked through, and it's important to get support.

7. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us, Golda! I hope lots of readers take advantage of your resources and experience. Blessings!

Love Your Body Blog Part 44

Diet is “Die” with a “T”: Love Your Body Blog Part 43

2011-05-13T12:40:00.000-07:00

You know what my body really hates? Diets. My best friend/body thinks diets stink, and doesn’t understand why I would ever force myself to suddenly and drastically change what I eat. Plus, she reminds me, I’ve tried diets before and they never, ever work, so there.

Why does my body hate dieting? Let’s ask her:

Hey Body, what’s the big deal? Why does the word “diet” get your panties all tied up in a knot?

1. Oh hon, where do I start? First off, when you listen to a diet, you’re not listening to ME. You’re ignoring my needs in favor of listening to somebody you’ve never met, who doesn’t care about your body, and who is probably just trying to get you to buy their book or pay an arm and a leg for their “guaranteed” system. The only thing that’s guaranteed is you’ll feel too humiliated to ask for a refund!

2. When you go on a diet, you’re treating me like I’m a dress size or a number on the scale. I am so much more than that, and you know it.

3. You only feel good if I’ve lost weight, and you’re pissed at me if you don’t.

4. When you go on a diet, you throw down the gauntlet. You declare war on me. I have no choice but to protect myself with cravings, hunger, and fatigue. I hate feeling like we’re not on the same side. I need you to love me and take care of me, respect me and adore me, not call me names and starve me. I want to support you too. Can’t we just all get along?

5. I like the size I’m at right now. I feel comfortable and healthy here. When you go on a diet, you’re trying to turn me into something I’m not; a tiny size zero. Can we just be realistic here? I am not meant to be a size zero. Not now, not ever. Not for diet pills, or liposuction, or gastric bypass surgery. I will never voluntarily be a size zero or anything close to it, and if you insist otherwise, we will have a problem.

My best friend/body sounds like she means business, doesn’t she? Trust me, you do not want to mess with her. When she’s taken care of, she’s all sweet pussycat, cuddle and purr, but if you threaten her, the claws come out!

Okay, Body, so how is dieting different from what we’re doing now, which is not eating sugar? (…I’ve given up most forms of sugar for almost two years now.) Couldn’t you say we’re on a sugar-free diet?

Eww! No way. I feel like we’re on a sugar-free fi-es-ta! But seriously, first of all, there’s no calorie restriction. You don’t leave me feeling hungry all the time.

Secondly, we agreed together that not eating sugar was a good idea. You were feeling tired a lot and started to notice that sugar made you crabby and crash out. We both feel way better without it, with lots more energy to have fun and get stuff done.

Thirdly, it’s NO BIG DEAL. If you feed me a little bit of sugar, there’s no failure, we just deal with it and move on. There’s no punishment and no anger.

Fourth, it’s not tied to my appearance or weight. The decision to eat less sugar was based on how you feel, not on what I look like. That’s the kind of change I can get behind.

Finally, you gave up sugar out of love for me, not out of unhappiness or disgust. Giving up sugar feels like devotion instead of deprivation. We’re increasing our level of love, trust, and understanding instead of undermining it. It’s as different as cats and… peanut butter.

Well, Body, say someone wants to change their eating habits to feel healthier, how would you recommend they go about it?

1. Change one small thing at a time, like eating more vegetables or less processed food, incorporating it over the course of a month or longer, until it becomes a habit. Only add another change once you and your body feel confident with the first.

2. Get your body’s buy in. Ask your body if it feels good about this change, and listen to your body’s answer. Give it veto power. If your body says it won’t work, it won’t, believe me!

3. Do it out of love for your body, not out of wanting to change your body or thinking there’s something wrong with your body. I speak for all bodies when I say, love the one you’re with!

What wisdom (or humor) does your body have to share about dieting? Let your body do the talking!

Love Your Body Blog Part 42: Eat Like a Goddess

2011-05-10T17:31:00.000-07:00

Years ago I asked my yoga students, “How would you treat yourself differently if you believed you were divine?” After class one student told me with a laugh, “If I believed I was divine, I wouldn’t eat standing up over the counter.” I agreed; if I believed I was divine, I wouldn’t eat behind the wheel of my car.

Can you imagine Aphrodite slurping down a veggie sandwich leaning over the kitchen counter (it would totally mess up her hair, and her toga… do you know how much the dry cleaning bills are for those things?), or Athena chowing down on a carnitas asada burrito behind the wheel of her convertible PT Cruiser? Seriously, the burrito is less believable than the car.

How would a goddess eat? Definitely sitting down. Preferably with servants waving palm fronds, serving peeled grapes… sorry, got a little carried away. How about with a single flower in the center of the table, a lovely glass of water with lemon, a freshly prepared dish in front of her with a seasonal variety of colors, textures, and flavors? As she settles into her chair she takes a moment to enjoy the beauty of the food in front of her. As her eyes take in the rich hues, she imagines the farms the vegetables came from, the sun shining on them, the rain moistening their roots, the nimble bees who pollinated each flower, and the hands that tended and picked them. She opens her hands around the plate and offers a blessing, “May all those who offer me this meal be blessed. May this food nourish me. May my energy and life honor all beings.”

Then each bite she takes in she sighs and lingers over, enjoying every aspect and sensation of eating. Yum.

At the end of her meal, perhaps in the company of other smiling goddesses (and gods), she leans back in her seat, feeling full and sated.

Why don’t we eat like goddesses? We’re busy. We’re tired. We have little ones to feed and laundry to do. We don’t feel entitled to really sit down and enjoy a meal.

But really, could you eat like a goddess once a day? How about once a week? Plan a goddess lunch with a friend, or make yourself a goddess meal. When you’re planning a meal or going out to eat, ask yourself, “What does my inner goddess want to eat?”

My inner goddess loves:

Eating outside, at a café patio, or in my own garden

A carafe of water at the table

Sweet red peppers (probably because they’re seasonal and pricey!)

Figs and berries

Leafy salads with Goddess dressing (c’mon, what did you expect?)

Finger foods like spring rolls

Curried vegetables, daal and rice

Asparagus, avocado, and artichokes

Sauteed greens

Flowers, yes even in the food

A sweet blessing

Anything prepared with love and creativity

My inner goddess also likes to eat slowly and in the company of good friends (even if they’re flowers). Listen to your inner goddess and let her teach you how to eat with great mindfulness and enjoyment. To nourish her, ask her what she needs, what she loves, and feed it to her. Slowly and with great love.

What does your inner goddess love?

Love Your Body Blog Part 41: Food Rules!

2011-05-06T17:24:00.000-07:00

I love Michael Pollan. His book, The Botany of Desire, forever changed the way I think about apples (Johnny Appleseed as a hard-cider swilling Dionysus), and marijuana (did you know your body naturally produces some of the same active chemicals found in weed?). His latest Food Rules rocked my world, too: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” Simple, elegant, pithy. As a former anorexic with a disturbing past tendency to punish myself around food, I would add the following corollary: “Not too little food, either!” Not too much and not too little is the secret to balance in everything. (I’ll discuss this more in terms of intuitive eating in a later post.)

Twinkies and Slim Jims do not count as “food”, according to Pollan; too many ingredients (he recommends eating things with less than five ingredients), half of which your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food… polysorbate 60, sodium nitrate, hydrolyzed soy protein.

I love the idea of my great-grandmother picking up items at the local Safeway and reading the ingredients with one eyebrow cocked up, lips pursed.

Maltodextrin? Emulsifier: E-471? In her flour-dusted apron, she'd politely place the Pringles can back on the shelf and wonder to herself when she’d stopped understanding English. Wandering down the baking aisle, after a brief mystified glance at the Betty Crocker section (What?! Cake in a box? She’d shake the box and think aloud, “Strange. It doesn’t sound like cake.”), she’d load up her cart with two 20 lb bags of flour ($2 off two with your Safeway club card!), a can of baking powder, and be on her way. Biscuits, pie, and the farm. What else does a family need?

Whole foods provide a nutritional punch processed foods lose—ahem—in the process. Vegetables and fruits normally require you to interact with them: peel them, often cook them, and sit down to eat and enjoy them. Processed foods are designed to be eaten anywhere, on the run, in the car, while pumping your gas. Of course, yesterday while waiting for a red light, I saw a twenty-something hipster stride by in the crosswalk eating a salad out of a plastic container with a fork. Maybe we’ll figure out how to cook and walk too. Sigh.

What does all of this have to do with loving your body? Your body evolved over millions of years eating whole foods. Modern processed foods have only been around for several decades. Whole foods are your body’s home base, its basic fuel source. Many of us have trained ourselves to survive on processed foods, and our minds and bodies may come to crave these foods almost exclusively. This is why the farmers market is a great way to bring more whole foods into your diet. In the outside air, away from the aisles of canned meat and sugar cereals, your body can experience what humans have experienced for thousands of years, since the first farmers grew a surplus to sell to their neighbors: a community brought together to feed their bodies from the abundance of the earth. Amid the stands of brightly colored seasonal produce, notice what the predominant color is: in almost every season, it’s green. Invite your eyes to take in the saturated green of the chard leaves, the silvery green of the dinosaur kale, and the feathery green of freshly pulled carrot tops.

If you’re a regular at the farmers market, just listen to what your body wants, let it choose what’s for dinner. If you’re new to the market, go and buy just one thing your body feels drawn to. Ask the person standing next to you how to best prepare it. Who knows, in Berkeley you might be standing next to Alice Waters or Jessica Prentice! Or Michael Pollan himself.

Love Your Body Blog Part 40: My body loves SPAM with a side of Twinkies. Not!

2011-05-04T21:57:00.000-07:00

What does your body love to eat? Your first reaction might be similar to my son’s: vanilla ice cream whipped cream sundaes and bacon sandwiches. (Not in the same bowl… separately.) Does your body love to eat like a middle-schooler? Really?

Have you ever asked your body what it likes to eat? When I ask my body, images of fresh veggies float through my imagination: warm curries, sautéed greens, asparagus roasted in olive oil, diced avocados. Then big mangoes wander by, followed by juicy peaches, tangy raspberries, and sweet blood oranges.

One of my body’s favorite treats, that it only gets to enjoy a couple times a year, is eating sun-warmed strawberries out of the field.

Nothing compares to the sweet juiciness of a perfectly ripe strawberry plucked right from its squat foliage, and popped into your mouth on the spot. At least nothing I’ve ever encountered.

Sometimes it’s hard to hear what your body wants because your mind gets into Cookie Monster mode: “I want chocolate now. Donuts now. Chocolate donuts. Now.”

Then the mind spends a lot of time strategizing about how to get its emotional fix, the oh-so-brief stress relief that a heavy dose of sugar and fat provides to the brain. But when I ask my body---my best friend---what it wants, it almost never says chocolate donuts.

In fact, it took me years to realize that my body hated donuts, and sugar in almost all its forms.

Every time I ate sugar, I would turn irritable and crabby, and need to go home to take a nap. For years I thought I hated birthday parties… halfway through the party I would think, “Party games are stupid. Birthdays are stupid. Look at all these wasteful decorations and don’t even get me started about the paper plates. Don’t my friends have anything better to do than pollute the earth with more trash?” I turned into a raving party-pooper bitch. Finally I realized if I skipped the cake or ate only one bite, I liked birthdays just fine: I could blow my party horn and enjoy stumbling through the three-legged race along with everyone else.

Your body may not react to sugar the way mine does; I certainly hope not. But how does your body respond to different foods? Do you pay attention to its reactions?

What foods help your body feel full and sated? What foods make it irritated and upset?

Check in with your body and ask it how it likes different foods. How does a vanilla milkshake feel? How does a colorful salad feel? How does a beautifully presented, lovingly prepared meal feel? How does it feel to eat fast food behind the wheel of your car?

Psychiatrist and intuition specialist Judith Orloff recommends going to the farmers market, closing your eyes, and asking your body what it needs, what it wants, what it craves. Go around to the different stands, take in the sights and smells of fresh vegetables and fruits, and invite your body to respond with a “No, thanks,” a “Yes, please,” and the occasional, “Oh yeah, baby, I need some of that!” You’re not shopping for what you think you should eat, but learning to listen to your body’s voice. Slowly you’ll develop an ear for your body’s own preferences and wisdom.

Different foods have different effects on your body. Notice what foods make you feel:

Satisfied

Depleted

Energized

Fatigued, mentally or physically

Clear-headed

Fuzzy

Easeful, content

Bloated or uncomfortable

Happy

Irritable

Keeping a food journal in which you write briefly about how you feel before and after meals can help you tune in carefully to what your body loves and what it complains about.

Even knowing what our body enjoys most, we sometimes eat things that disagree with it. When I do this, the tendency is to give myself a hard time… “I knew better, what was I thinking? Now I’ve ruined my day with this stomachache. Again.” Unsurprisingly this tactic is as helpful and soothing as banging my head against a concrete piling. Instead of knocking myself around, I’ve learned to apologize to my body: “Oh poor body. I’m so sorry about ignoring what you needed. I’ll remember for next time that you really hate it when I don’t stop eating when I’m full. My bad. I’ll listen more carefully from now on. We’re in this together.”

Would you purposefully give your best friend a stomachache? Never. Feed your best friend body what nourishes it, feeds it, and honors it. Learn to listen to your body’s intuition and you’ll find your body returns love and radiance to you a thousand-fold.

Love Your Body Blog Part 39: Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Who’s the Fairest of Them All?

2011-04-29T16:23:00.000-07:00

Growing up in the Midwest, the notion was firmly inculcated into me that saying anything nice about yourself (i.e. I’m beautiful, I’m a good person, I have a great smile) demonstrated a conceitedness that would incontrovertibly result in the sky opening up and God striking you down with his mighty lighting sword. Complimenting yourself, or even accepting a compliment, was therefore something to be avoided at all costs. You just didn’t do it. If you accidentally said something that smelled ever so slightly of hell-borne vanity, people would back away from you, shaking their heads and looking fearfully toward the heavens. It took me years to get out of this habit.

When women tell me they feel it’s self-indulgent and vain to devote time and energy to loving their bodies, I know what they mean.

In our culture it’s fine to openly criticize and make fun of yourself.

We’ll even pay to watch it; many a stand-up comedian has made their living off this goldmine of self-deprecation. And even movie stars, who are often famous because of their looks, are rarely quoted enjoying their bodies or appearance. Instead we’re treated to their latest commercial remedies for aging and their frustrations about their own bodies and self-image.

Remember the Queen in Snow White? She loved her body, right?

Well, she loved herself as long as she believed she was The Most Beautiful Woman in the World. And she was willing to poison her step-daughter, fling evil spells, and transform into a fire-spewing dragon to defend the title. Truly loving your body isn’t about seeing your body as better than anyone else’s. Or as worse. Loving your body is about seeing beauty in all bodies, as well as in your own.

By loving your own body, you help others see the good in their own bodies through the reflection of love and acceptance in your eyes.

Who do you know who loves their body? How are they in the world? Do they seem selfish and self-indulgent, or do they seem connected and loving? Loving your body isn’t about outer appearances, or falling in love with your own image in the reflecting pool like the Narcissus of ancient mythology. When you love your own body, you love it beyond its outer form of skin and face and dimples on your thighs; you love the life that moves through it, the support it gives you, and the wisdom and experience it shares with you. Loving your body means you see yourself and your body as worthy of love, and helps you see others as worthy of love as well.

You fill yourself with love and treat yourself as your best friend, and that love spills over into the rest of your life, offering more friendliness and love to all those your life touches.

Loving your body doesn’t make you selfish, in fact, it makes you more self-less. Taking good care of yourself, getting in your yoga practice or movement, eating well, sleeping enough, all of these things help you take care of the people who matter to you and even leave you with some energy left over to help them feel special and loved. When you are feeling depleted and unloved, it’s incredibly difficult to show affection and care for anyone else. Forgiveness and compassion arise easily when we’re feeling content and easeful with ourselves. When you feel loved, it’s natural to love the world.

Think about it, who would you rather hang out with: your friend who constantly makes mean jokes about her body and is unhappy and short-tempered, or your friend who seems comfortable and happy in her body and her life, and who accepts and loves you just the way you are? Which friend would you rather be?

Loving your body makes you a better friend and a better person. There’s only one way to find out if it works. Try it and see.

Love Your Body Blog Part 38: The Myth of the Unlovable Body

2011-04-28T17:43:00.000-07:00

Do you believe that some bodies aren’t worthy of love? You know those headless photographs that the media uses to illustrate stories about the obesity scare? Maybe you have a body like that, or fear having a body like that. Maybe you wonder, if I love my body the way it is, doesn’t that mean I’m settling for bad health, unattractiveness, and low standards? If I love my body the way it is, I’ll never have the body I want.

Loving my body the way it is right now doesn’t mean it won’t change. My body has changed tremendously over the years… gotten stronger and more flexible from my yoga practice, more fluid and expressive through dancing. And I’ve gotten much better about reading its signals and figuring out what it needs to be happy. Also it’s gotten older. And although I don’t weigh myself (just yesterday at the doctor’s office as the nurse had me step on the scale, I told her “I don’t want to look and I don’t want to know”), I know my weight vacillates based on the season and whether I’ve been playing outside much.

Loving your body doesn’t mean giving up on yourself. It means giving up the war on yourself. You learn to listen to your body, and respond to its needs for food and exercise appropriately. Calling a truce with your body means slowly unraveling negative habits around food, such as overeating, undereating, eating unmindfully, and poor nourishment. Loving your body means discovering the types of exercise your body loves, and offering it those activities in doses it enjoys without overdoing. For some of us changing our relationship to our body in this way will mean we lose weight, while for others it might mean we gain weight. Either way, we can enjoy the discovery process of finding out what our body needs to feel healthy and happy, learning what food and exercise and what quantity of both help it thrive.

Loving my body the way it is has helped me want the body I love. Just like I wouldn’t feed my beloved dog garbage and poison, or let my eleven year old eat only Cheetos and Sour Patch Kids (much as he’s sure they comprise two of the four basic food groups along with pizza and ice cream), I show my body I love it by offering it delicious food and fun exercise. What’s amazing is that when you treat something carefully and give it your affectionate attention, you start to care about it, and see that it deserves your love. The more you love it, the more you want to love it, the more lovable it is.

As I’ve treated my body with love, my body has become beautiful to me. As a result I feel more beautiful and comfortable in my body, and other people see and respond to that confidence. Over the weekend I met some people at a party who looking at me couldn’t believe that I hadn’t always loved my body. As if I’d make it up! The truth is, not only did I not love my body, but I literally hated it to the extent of wishing I was dead. Ouch. It’s painful to say that now, but it shows the extreme one can start from and still make it all the way over to the other side of acceptance and love.

If I’m “obese”, is it okay for me to love my body too? (I won’t argue here with the term obese, but just know I think the whole BMI thing is a terrible plane crash no one ever found the black box for.) One thing we know, but have forgotten in the midst of our culture’s thinness obsession, is that weight is actually not a reliable indicator of health. A thin person can be terribly malnourished with arteries that would make a veteran cardiologist wince. A fat person can have beautifully clear arteries, excellent blood pressure, and healthy exercise and eating patterns. You don’t know by looking at someone’s appearance whether or not they are healthy. You have to look beyond the surface. Where have I heard that before?

The upshot is people can be healthy and be overweight. Take the 400 lb sumo wrestler who recently completed the LA marathon. I’m sorry, but for all my yoga practice and organic vegetables, that guy is in better shape than I am. He trains hard as a sumo wrestler. His exercise routine would kill me.

But Kimber, you say, what about people who are fat AND unhealthy? And I say, why focus on fat at all? Unhealthy bodies need love too, be they fat or thin. Do we tell cancer patients, “Your body is bad, unhealthy, and it’s your fault. You should punish your bad body for being sick.”? Nope. We tell them to treat their body with kindness and encourage them to take care of their body in every way possible to restore its health and vitality. Even dying and irreversibly broken bodies need love. But you don’t need me to tell you this. You know this already.

All bodies are worthy of love. No one’s body is unlovable or undeserving. No matter how fat, no matter how unhealthy. No matter how unattractive you might feel. Everyone’s body can be treated like the best friend it is. Even yours. Even mine.

Love Your Body Blog Part 37: Worship at Your Body’s Altar

2011-04-25T14:03:00.000-07:00

Are you serious about wanting to learn to love your body? Are you committed to the process of becoming your own best friend? If the answer is “Oh yeah!” or even “Yeah, sorta, I think so,” I have a project to inspire your journey: make a Love Your Body altar.

What is an altar? It’s a sacred space in your home where you can honor and remind yourself of your inner path, and reconnect to what is truly important to you in life. When I was in Nepal last summer, we stayed in the homes of our Nepali friends. In every house we visited they had a “god room,” a separate room often designated solely for a family altar to the chosen deity, where prayers and offerings are made, and incense lit every day. Your home altar, on a window sill, a mantle, a shelf, or even in a cigar box, can be a lovely miniature version of a “god room,” honoring your ability to see the goddess (or god) in yourself.

Find a spot that won’t be disturbed too much by roommates or wandering kitties; if you have outdoor space, you could even set it up on a small table in the garden. Gather items that inspire you to love your body, or remind you of those people or things who support your growing friendship with yourself.

Making my own Love Your Body altar was a moving experience of collecting objects and inspiration from all over my house and inviting them to meet each other and be the guests of honor at a quiet party. In my yoga room, there’s a basic altar on a side table that I enjoy and play with the elements of sometimes, so all I had to do was clear it and rearrange and add items with the intention of honoring my body’s journey.

Here are the basic elements:

1. A scarf and candle holder in one of my favorite colors, indigo-violet, set the stage and create a visual center. I love indigo-violet… it’s the color I see when I close my eyes and invoke loving myself and the world. I think of it as the color I am inside.

2. Three photographs… one of my Buddhist teacher, Pema Chodron, who has taught me so much about lovingkindness, compassion, and fearlessness… one of a sculpture that reminds me of how my partner’s love has healed my relationship with my body…. And the last is me, in Baby Dancer pose, in front of the roots of a giant sequoia in Yosemite around the time I was first figuring out how to love my body.

3. Flowers from my garden, that remind me of my body’s connection to the earth and natural beauty.

4. A stone from the creek by Full Belly Farm, whose organic vegetables and marvelous farmer/friends have nourished my body and soul for many years.

5. A heart shaped mirror that was a gift from Anusara Yoga founder John Friend, and a sculpture of a woman doing yoga that was a gift from my teacher Katchie. Both remind me what an important role yoga and my teachers have had in learning to love my body.

6. A ceramic goddess incense burner with wide hips that I made years ago. She holds a “galaxy stone” in her lap… the whole universe within her embrace.

7. A Kwan Yin statue (she’s the goddess of compassion), and next to her (you can’t see it in the photo) a tiny statue of Saraswati, the goddess of wisdom. Learning to love my body has required a tremendous amount of both compassion and wisdom; they inspire me to look for these qualities both in the world and in myself to support my path.

8. A swirled purple and green hunger goddess I made from my son’s art clay. She represents the feeling of insatiable hunger that plagued me for many years. I made her at the height of my frustration over my hunger, and have been offering her gifts ever since, even as her demands gradually diminished. She holds a love charm, a goddess charm, a pendant from my mother of a Navaho mother holding her baby, and an Ohm charm and Buddha charm gifted to me by dear students. My hunger still likes to be honored.

9. Hanging against the scarf is the flying purple goddess who usually hangs in my bathroom. Her big hips and tiny breasts remind me to see my body as beautiful just the way it is.

10. Finally, two inspirational wisdom cards from Louise Hays. One says: “I fill myself with love, and I send that love out into the world. How others treat me is their path; how I react is mine.” The other: “I am in the process of becoming my own best friend—the person I am most joyous to be with.”

Take your time getting together your own objects and inspiration. You don’t have to do it all in one sitting. Let it grow and change over time. Once you have your altar set up, step back and admire it. What now?

Honor your altar by practicing yoga in front of it, meditating on it, or saying a prayer before it. You could bow to it and make offerings of fruit or chocolate. My hunger goddess loves offerings of chocolate. You could sing to it, say a mantra or dance before it, or invite friends over to share with them the significance of the objects and your journey.

Let your Love Your Body altar inspire and support you on your journey of becoming your own best friend.

Love Your Body Blog Part 36: Shopping for a new body. Are you selling?

2011-04-22T16:43:00.000-07:00

Today I’m headed down the rabbit hole. Are you coming?

Imagine…You wake up one morning and stretch, bemoaning the little aches that seem to have taken up residence overnight.

As you brush your teeth and frown into the mirror, you think, “I’m sick of this body. I’ll stop by the store today and get a new one.”

You drive up to the Body Store, and look in the front windows. Oooh. That one’s nice. And that one might be fun. You hurry through the doors.

Once inside you think, “Well, I definitely want thinner. And maybe stronger, too.” So you go to the size zero aisle and start to peruse the bodies there. “Maybe it is possible to be too thin,” you wonder to yourself. You’re not sure some of those bodies could support your busy life. You go up a few sizes, and take a couple of bodies into the dressing room to try on. They’re okay, but not quite what you were thinking.

You look through the store, trying on some bodies you never imagined possible. You like the arms on this one, and the thighs on this other one. This one has a nice belly, but you’re not so crazy about its proportions. This other one is hot, but it says right on the label that to maintain it you have to give up your job, renounce every type of food you like, and, weirdly, sacrifice the entirety of your self-esteem. Plus it says in big black letters, “Not guaranteed beyond warranty date.” You check the warranty date. Your eyes widen. It’s today. You put it back on the rack.

By the end, you’ve got two bodies that you kind of like, that you’re thinking about taking home with you. But you can only choose one. And you realize that if you take home one of these new bodies, you’ll have to leave yours there, at the store, for someone else to take home if they want. You’ll give up the little scar on your arm from the time you and your brother tried to invent a recipe for balloon cookies. And never again will you appreciate the hands that remind you of your mom.

You’ll give up your dad’s eyes, your grandma’s feet, and the strong shoulders that Uncle Tim says were inherited from the guys who painted the roof of the Sistine Chapel.

While you’re trying to decide which body to choose, there’s a knock at the dressing room door. “Hey, are you done in there?” you hear a woman’s voice through the door.

“Yeah, just a couple more minutes.”

“’Cause if you’re going to take one of those other bodies, can you hand me yours? I’d be happy to take it if you don’t want it.”

What?! As you wandered around the store, someone who came in looking for a body was eyeing yours the whole time? She was stalking you, waiting for you to leave your body unattended. Suddenly you’re feeling very proprietary.

The disembodied voice of your admirer floats over the divider.

“I’ll be here, just let me know.”

Her voice sounds nice, you think. Maybe she’d take good care of your body. Does she know that your body cramps up in cold water, but loves warm water like a tropical fish? What about your right knee that gets achy if you miss your weekly yoga class? Does she know that it’s allergic to penicillin, but loves echinacea? What about that cool hula-hooping trick you learned last summer? She couldn’t possibly treat this body the way it deserves. She couldn’t appreciate it the way you do, love it the way….

You place the other bodies back on their hangers, and open the door. You look at the woman standing there. Her body is fine, a great body, and you wonder for a moment why she would dream of trading it in for yours.

“I’ve made my decision. I choose this body. My body. The one I was born with.”

She looks a little disappointed, and then shrugs and wanders away into the aisles. You silently wish her good luck, that she finds the body of her dreams.

You wander back out into the sunlight, happy to have chosen this body above all other bodies as your own. You’re pretty attached to it, after all.

Choose your body. So many of us live our lives as if our body is an unfair burden that’s been foisted on us by a god with a demented sense of humor.

What if instead, you said yes to your body? Yes, Body, I choose you! Choose this body with all its beauty, all its flaws, all its memories, and all its wisdom. Choose to live your life in this body. As if you’d been to the body store and walked out without buying a thing, tell yourself:

I could have chosen any body to live in, but I choose this one, this amazing, glorious body that is mine.

Why not?

Love Your Body Blog Part 34: Dear Body, I’ll love you if you lose 20 lbs, if you promise not to get old, if you never get sick…

2011-04-19T16:34:00.000-07:00

Imagine a friend saying to you… “I only hang out with you because you’re thin.” Or, “I like you okay now, but when you get old and flabby, I’m outta here.” As soon as you collected your jaw bone off the floor, you’d probably find a reason to go pick your teeth, check your spam, or do anything more rewarding than wasting another minute in their general vicinity.

Yet how many of us have some kind of conditional relationship with our bodies? Sure, I’m happy with my body as long as it behaves itself… as long as it doesn’t freak out and start packing on extra pounds. Or wrinkles. As long as it keeps up its end of the deal and stays healthy and in shape, we’re buds. But the minute it starts to show signs of decay, illness, or age, we start talking to our body like someone in the Sopranos… “Hey, I thought we had a deal. You better shape up or things could get ugly around here. I’m just sayin’.”

Maybe we’re happy with our bodies, maybe we could even learn to love our bodies… if they stay just the way they are, right now.

Nothing is certain but death and taxes… and I would offer a Buddhist addendum: change is certain. Your body will change, guaranteed. No amount of time spent at the gym, or under the plastic surgeon’s knife, or under cover of 400 SPF sunscreen and your favorite safari hat will alter nature’s inevitable course. Your body will change over time. You will get diseases you’ve never heard of, you will grow fat and thin and fat again, or the other way around, you will have pain in places you didn’t know existed, and you will find wrinkles that (gasp!) have their own wrinkles.

Over the years, my body has changed for the better, and for the worse. Thanks to years of chaturangas and handstands on my yoga mat, my arms and shoulders are stronger than ever. Yet my knees crackle and pop when I bend them. No pain, just cereal elf sounds. My sister, the family doctor, says this condition is called “crepitus” which sounds uncomfortably like “decrepit-us,” a place I admit I’m headed, but I hadn’t planned on reaching anytime soon.

Loving my body isn’t taking a mental picture of myself as I am right now (or was in some pre-snake Edenic past) and loving that body, frozen in time, for the rest of my life. Truly loving your body envisions a relationship that allows for change, even change we wouldn’t choose for ourselves.

If your body is your best friend, can you support and love it throughout aging, sickness, disability, weight gain and loss, through all of life’s ups and downs?

Maybe this feels impossible. Yet you probably already model this type of enduring friendship with your own friends. When your friend gets sick or injured, do you call her up and nag her about what a drag she’s become, how she’s getting fat and old, how it’s all her fault? Or do you make her soup, arrange with friends to bring her meals, and read out loud to her as she falls asleep? You already know how to treat your friends… treat your body the same way.

When your body gets ill, or imbalanced, love it. Offer it nourishing meals, rest, and whatever else it needs to heal. Love your body unconditionally, no matter what it looks like, no matter how it feels. Your body deserves your unconditional love.

Why? Because you’re going to be with your body your entire life. Instead of spending your energy warring with your body and thinking up more elaborate ways to torture it, spend your energy becoming its best friend, showering it with love and understanding, and it will pay you back a thousand-fold in insight, well-being, and sheer power.

Look for what’s good in your body, for what’s good in the changes your body goes through. Appreciate how your body is now and be open to how it will be later. I once heard a beautiful teaching from Thich Nhat Han. In front of his students, he held a delicately painted china teacup, obviously painstakingly decorated by the hands of a talented artist. He said (and I paraphrase), “Can you drink from this cup, wash it, take care of it, admire it, all the while knowing that someday it will become shards and dust, perhaps even in the very next moment? Allow your understanding of its impermanence to help you let it go even as you enjoy it and recognize its preciousness.”

The precious, fragile cup is your body, your life. See its beauty, embraces its changes, and know someday you’ll let it go. Live from this place of knowing.