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

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 25: Nice Albatross, Pretty Albatross

How do you make nice with your albatross, the part of your body that drives you crazy? If you’ve followed the blog so far you intuit where this is headed--- How would you treat a friend who’s driving you nuts? Perhaps a friend you broke up with after a long ago fight… how do you heal those old wounds?

First, you clear the air. You talk. Sit down with your albatross and tell it how you feel. Share your anger, your frustration. Then imagine its response. Listen, and let it tell you how it feels. Touch that part of your body with your hands and gently ask your albatross what it needs from you to heal your relationship with it. Listen for the answer, and then give your albatross the comfort, the soothing words, even the apology it needs.

Years ago, a friend offered me a massage in her lovely backyard garden studio in Berkeley. She described her style of massage as “energy work”, which sounded like something my inner Midwesterner would chortle at, but I was willing to go along anyway.

A pool of afternoon light through the open door warmed the massage table and I settled like a kitten in the sun to enjoy the kneading of my tight neck and shoulders.

As usual, when she started to massage my thighs and hips (my albatross), even with a sheet draped over them, they tensed from my usual discomfort and self-consciousness. She encouraged me to relax as her soothing hands loosened my inner knots. As I felt my hips and thighs relaxing, I sent a half-hearted apology to them.

Me: I’m sorry I’m so hard on you. I’ve always wished you were smaller, and I just can’t seem to let it go.

To my surprise, my hips answered back…. We know.

My mind turned over this response, and tentatively reached out again: I don’t want to fight with you, but I don’t know what else to do.

My hips responded: We don’t want to war with you either. We want to help you. We’re here for you. We want you to step into life fully. We want to work with you and have fun with you. We love you.

A giant tear trailed down the bridge of my nose and dropped onto the sheet below my face. I had never cried during a massage before, and part of me couldn’t believe I was doing it now. My heart cracked. I’m so sorry. I want to work with you, too. I love you. Let’s work together from now on. We’re in this together.

Offer blessings to your albatross. Tell it you want to be friends. Perhaps even give it a different name, an affectionate moniker that reflects the relationship you want to have with it. Look for what’s beautiful about that part of your body, without comparing it to what you think it should look like. Look for the good in what it is.

Every part of your body deserves your love. Every part of your body loves you.

Give that part of your body some extra love and attention. Get out the body crayons, sparkly eyeliner pencils, or non-toxic markers, and draw a smiley face on it, or a beautiful flower, or a spiral, or some loving words. Wear something that makes that part of your body a little extra visible or playful. For me, wearing short skirts, even over pants, helps give my thighs and hips a sense of flirty fun. Write down five good things about that part of your body and repeat them to yourself whenever you catch yourself treating them like an albatross.

Here’s the cool part: if you can heal your relationship with your albatross, you can heal your relationship with any part of your body, anytime.

No only are you learning to be a better friend to yourself, but the practice of listening and forgiving helps you be a better friend to everyone in your life. Your albatross, instead of driving you and everyone else crazy and over the side of the boat, becomes the means to create connection and beauty in your life, inwardly and outwardly.

Next post: The TO DO list your body’s been waiting for all its life.