Sick Body, Good Body

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

Love Your Body Blog Part 3: Shift Yourself, Shift the World

For some of us, “using our power for good and not for evil,” to quote the kindly adult mentor of junior superheroes everywhere, is motivation enough to learn how to relate to our bodies in a healthier way. We recognize how we’ve been misusing our energy to hurt ourselves and are ready to channel that energy into supporting our dreams instead of tearing ourselves down. For others, we need to connect it to the big picture… it’s not enough to do something for ourselves, we have to feel like our efforts around loving our bodies are going to make the world a better place, and miring us in navel-gazing or self-indulgence. For you, I have four words: “Do it for Emily.”

Here you have a single six year old girl, with perfect confidence and joy in her body just as she is. How long do you think that’s going to last? Until her first injury, a broken wrist or sprained ankle? Until the first jealous middle school mean girl comment, “You’re fat.”? Until her first period, or when her hips grow and her breasts start showing? Until she starts to internalize the billboards and magazine covers and starts thinking she should look like an air-brushed model? You can see it coming, like a storm approaching over the horizon, with few places to huddle in safety, and no sense of when it might pass. Emily hears her friends talking about whatever the latest fad diet is. She tries it, but gains weight instead. In college, she joins her friends in criticizing their bodies at the gym and forgets she ever loved her body like a best friend. In a handful of years, a decade on the outside, she’s experiencing the same agony, the same disgust, the same frustration and alienation from her body that so many of us have suffered through.

Now imagine that same girl, same circumstances. Except that her mom, her teachers at school, her karate instructor, the sassy woman at the salon who cuts her hair, her teenage babysitter, even the women she sees walking down the street, clearly love their bodies, feel confident in whatever size they are, never compare themselves to other women, and encourage her to treat her body with the dignity, respect, and friendliness it deserves.

Do you see?

Every woman who transforms her own relationship with her body from one of struggle to one of ease makes it easier for Emily to love her body for her entire life. Each woman who does this inner work helps to shift the culture as a whole, from one where our bodies are battlegrounds, to one where our bodies are the source of inspiration and support for everything we want to create in life.

Your transformation matters. Your ability to shift how you feel about your body can change the world.

Think about it. When you criticize your body, who hears your critique? Your friends? Your daughter or niece? Your partner? How do they feel when they hear you say, “My body is so ugly.”? One student said her boyfriend responded, “Don’t talk that way about my girlfriend.” Another student’s boyfriend explained, “When you say that about your body, it makes me feel like there’s something wrong with me for loving you.” Even worse, children think that’s the way they should feel about their bodies as well. They can end up thinking (often not incorrectly, unfortunately), that being an adult means disliking your body. When we get into a group of friends, if one person starts to criticize her hips, another goes off about her thighs, and the next about her belly, and suddenly everyone feels like they have to prove they have the most disgusting body that ever walked on two feet. What’s the opposite of one-upmanship? One-down-woman-ship?

The good news is that the opposite happens as well. When you love your body, when how you treat your body reflects a sense of friendliness, when you say respectful and loving things about your body, the people around you respond to that as well. Your confidence and sense of being at home in your body can put others at ease, and turns you into a wonderful role model for the kids around you, as well as for the adults. Embodying friendliness towards your own body gives others permission to relate to their own with more respect and kindness.

New Rules for Body Image

I never thought I'd live to wish that I'd paid more attention in typing class. So many of us were told we didn't NEED to learn to type well, and now look at me. It takes me an hour to transcribe 10 minutes of audio recording. Well, I'm putting on my turtle mindset... he finished the race eventually, right? Just keep plugging along.

I'm transcribing the three hour Love Your Body Workshop that I hosted a couple weeks ago, and the benefit of the recording is collecting all the stories and voices of the women who participated, without having to rely on my faulty memory or scattered notes.

Some of the great new rules about body image we made up in the workshop:
Nourish Yourself.
Always Eat Lunch.
Celebrate All Types of Bodies
Get and Give Massage
Love Your Body, No Matter What It Looks Like

Got any other ideas?