I had a small but important realisation recently:
That however weird, fragile, and imperfect I think my body to be, it has literally carried me through all the tough and stressful situations in my life, as well as taken me to truly breath-taking places.
I’ve been thinking about it A LOT these past months.
I almost couldn’t understand how my body was functioning on so little sleep (I think it was just running on cortisol and adrenalin) for weeks after violence in Palestine became catastrophic, and I had never ever been so grateful to my body for just functioning.
I had never, in my almost 35 years of life, thought about my body in this way.
How sad is it?
I had never thanked my body for me being able to do all the things I’m so happy to have done (and yes, some that I’m not proud of).
Body image issues – especially for women, my God – are so real and so entrenched; radical self-love and radical self-acceptance are the work of our lifetimes, just like taking care of ourselves is (thank you, psychology, neuroscience, and other disciplines!).
It’s so clear that what so many of our bodies need are less harshness, shaming, and punishment — and less thinking that overindulge in things is how we “reward” the body; something I do myself 😑 — and more care and empowerment ❤️
Because to do what’s meaningful, we have to have a well-taken-care-of base for it ✊🏾
Justina
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