Body image Pt. 2 – 57/100

Back in 2008, I had an experience that changed my life, changed my world, the way I see it, the way I stand in it.

But that experience alone was not enough to change my relationship with my body.

That experience alone was not enough to heal me and allow me to enjoy and love and embrace the physical vessel I was gifted.

What that experience did do, was change my relationship with myself, as a person, as a woman.

It opened my eyes to a deeper truth, that I am closer to God, to the universe than I’d ever been taught and told.

It spoke of freedom and hope and courage and trust, of infinite possibilities.

And I ate it all up. Not just that experience, but the what continued to flow since then, my evolution and growth and stepping into more of me.

I continued to hate my body while learning to love my heart and soul.

I continued to judge the image in the mirror while learning to release myself of guilt and shame of my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

I continued to wish for another body while learning to esteem, value, and prefer my heart, my soul, my being.

As time passed, my like and preference for myself overran all the past hurt and pain and self-loathing.

But not my body image.

No, that took longer, for some reason. Perhaps because it’s so damn real, so damn unavoidable – in my face, literally.

I still kept moving along in my inner journey. And over time, I began to find peace with myself, as a whole person – emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and, yes, physically.

Slowly, slowly, slowly, I began to see my heart and soul through my physicality. I began to see that I am so much more than a body. And simultaneously, that my heart and soul were pleased to be housed in such a space.

I began to see that my body was not the issue. That my desire for control created a prison in which I could play warden at at least one thing in my life – since nothing else seemed to go right. That my subscription to wanting and working for the “ideal” body was my way of covering up my thoughts of inadequacy, of hopelessness, of loneliness.

I saw all the ways I bullshitted myself, thinking that my body was the indicator that I was not good enough, when truthfully, I holistically did not think I was good enough. As a human. As an existence.

Once my heart and soul began to heal, and my inner workings found peace within, my vision changed, cause the mirror sure didn’t.

I saw and began to respect what I saw in the mirror… and that led me to live the way that I do now.

Til another post.