Our bodies are so incredibly special. The heart beats, the liver regenerates, neurons fire at impossible to fathom speeds, cells renew themselves, the gut hosts a whole microwaved of life… and perhaps it’s time we loved our bodies in their magnificent perfections and imperfections. Because…
1. Your body remembers what the mind forgets. And it will recall unresolved trauma in illnesses.
2. If you measure yourself only by the external, you will measure others the same way too.
3. Body shaming is wrong. Especially when you do it to your own.
4. Food is medicine. Medicine doesn’t always taste good, but that doesn’t mean you don’t take it.
5. Trauma doesn’t happen to you. It happens inside you. This is tough, takes effort, but is, ultimately, fixable.
6. Weight gain, aging, graying, wrinkles, stretch marks, imperfections, breakouts body hair are normal. Normalize normal.
7. Water, water everywhere, drink enough of it, sit beside it once in a while, cleanse yourself with it, immerse yourself in it, cry when you must, in grief, or with laughter. Your body needs water.
8. Move your body. Dance, stretch, walk, clean, garden, take the stairs, get the zoomies… movement, not necessarily exercise, is the goal. Movement releases trauma.
9. Your brain controls your body. You can control your brain.
10. You are a divine soul driving an incredibly complex bit of biological equipment. Drive it gently, but firmly.
We got these bodies we own by sheer luck. We are, each of us, 13.4 billion years in the making and there will probably never ever again be a body like yours or mine in this vast universe. With these bodies we get to smell the rain, see stars in the sky, taste ice cream, hug our children, cuddle puppies, listen to music, dance in joy, feel the warmth of the sun and the kiss of the wind… yet we shame it, starve it, overfeed it, dislike it, compare it, punish it with all kinds of toxic self-harm… but perhaps, if we focused on the incredible experience of just having a body we could start to enjoy this miracle we have been given and the wondrous things our bodies do for us every single day. We would then understand that, “We are,” as Rumi said, “the universe in ecstatic motion.”
Sangeetha Shinde Tee is an author of four books, editor of 3 international magazines, an acclaimed healer, and a reluctant entrepreneur. Also an unconventional traveler, rebellious truth seeker, and inveterate animal rescuer, she is working on her fifth book – a collection of ghost stories from around the world. Find out more about her life, books, and work at www.sangeethashindetee.com
