CELEBRATING THE BODY

     Perhaps moreso in our culture than some others, body image issues begin to plague us at an early age. We feel sure that we are too one thing or another. We are too fat or too thin, too short or too tall. We do not fit some picture we have in our mind's eye of what we are supposed to look like. Maybe we have a couple of features that we tolerate, or like about ourselves, but they shrink in comparison to the features that we do not like. For some of us, all we ever see about ourselves physically is what we don't like.
     And all the while, our blood pumps, our lungs breathe, and our muscles move and propell us. Why do we not more enthusiastically celebrate the functioning and wonder of our bodies? Miraculous and divine physical sensations occur in each moment that we live. We hear things, that alone is miraculous... we hear birds and wind and rain and conversation and music! And we feel things, textures on our skin, hot and cold, emotions and danger. We sweat and digest and chew and cry and dream. We lift and carry and cook and are sexual. We are vibrant and graceful. We are awkward and fragile. We sleep and wake. Our hair grows and our fingernails and toenails.
     We abuse our bodies with poor food choices, lack of exercise and all kinds of negative thinking, and for the most part, they carry on gallantly in spite of us. When it is too much, they cry out and hurt and get sick and we have no compassion at all. We feel irritated and victimized, done to.
     What about celebrating our bodies instead? How about gratitude and compassion and love for ourselves, for all of us; for our round bellies and robust thighs, our uneven shoulders and lack of muscle tone, or excess of muscle tone... whatever the case may be. It's insanity to resist my own skin. Today, I am willing to gratefully accept my body and all of its wonderful quirks and imperfections, to send it kind and loving thoughts and be its friend.

I will consider the miracle of my body today and be glad for it.