A Letter To My Body

I am sorry.

I looked at you this morning and wept. I wept for all the years I’ve spent avoiding you, covering you, shaming your beauty. I am so very sorry.

I’m sorry for believing the lies they taught me about how you are not enough and too much all at the same time. I’m sorry for buying into the message that you are bad and dangerous instead of something to be celebrated and that what you feel is somehow wrong.

Fatally flawed.

The original cause of all suffering.  

I am beginning to see that you have served me well. You have been my constant companion, never, ever abandoning me. You are the way I feel and experience all of life. Your feet have carried me every place I’ve ever walked. Your womb carried the babies I love more than anything else. Your hands, your magnificent hands, have held and worked and relentlessly served me every single day of my life. Your eyes have seen beauty and fear and wonder. Your ears have heard all the sounds of life. Your mouth has tasted the sweet and savory. Your heart has never once stopped beating, your lungs work without my help to breathe and feed me oxygen. Every part of you is needed and so wonderful. 

How can I dismiss you? How can I live outside of you, unaware? The pressure to do so has been strong and I’ve succumbed to it. I have succumbed to the disembodiment I was taught made me acceptable. 

The pain you have held breaks my heart. Afraid to express it, I’ve let it hide deep in your bones, making you the carrier of it all instead of the conduit through which it flows and releases. I want to release it now, all of it so you can move without restraint. Feel without shame. 

Like a tree that bends and bows as the wind presses against it, I want to move when you need to move, feel when you need to feel.

I’ve been afraid that the feeling means I will break, but I’m learning to trust that like a tree, withstanding the wind causes the breaking. Feeling is the sway. I have held the wind at bay inside of me but I will no longer resist it.

I will no longer ask you to hold on to things you are meant to be moved by. I will no longer demand stoicism when what you want is freedom. I will allow you to move and I will trust you. 

I will love you.

Truly,

Me

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