Relationship with the Body

Imagine your most intimate partnership. What does it take to cultivate that relationship? Attention, listening, spending time, giving encouragement, working with special circumstances, commitment and of course love. Perhaps you are able to provide some, but not all of these qualities with varying degrees of finesse. Perhaps you have other requirements or special gifts that you add to the mix. Regardless, healthy relationships require a variety of actions in order to work and acquire trust in the other.

Now consider your relationship to your body, after all, this is the only "one" that you have for this entire lifetime. That is a guarantee. Your body has been with you, ever evolving throughout the years, and will be with you until the very end. This relationship should be a priority and may require an upgrade, if you are not already treating it with the same sacred energy you wold treat the love of your life.

I, myself, have been on a lifelong journey with regards to my own relationship to my body. In my childhood, I became prone to perfectionism, comparison and worry, which translated into a sense of being a slave driver or even a non-participant in the pleasures of being an earthly human. In my early twenties, I decided to "let myself go", and allow perceived imperfection and even absence of care to take the drivers' seat. What if I became the very thing I feared? Soon I decided to become "the thing" and love myself as is. I spent some time simply being imperfect and loving it. In my thirties, I started to speak lovingly about my body aloud, and lead others to do the same. Without effort, and much to my surprise, my body fell into place organically. In my forties, I became known for a level of aspirational health and that emanated from a balanced relationship with my body. I embodied freedom and discipline, two sides of the same coin... Give and receive, open and close... As I head towards my fifties (okay, I have a few years to adjust), there is a sense of surrender and letting go of all that I know. This body will not last forever, as no relationship really does. Everything is ebb and flow, and all that lives and grows must pass. So what will be the next lesson in my journey?

For now, I allow it to unfold. This year has been so humbling: my eyesight not quite the same. I had to buy those 1.5 magnifying glasses at the drug store! A few spots of skin that alarmed my dermatologist enough to get them tested. Perhaps less sun worshipping? Who knows where my choices will take me.

Yet, the pattern is indicative of change. Ever-evolving and dynamic as all relationships are. Today is not yesterday, said a wise man to me.

Commitment to my body. To caring for and loving my body. Through thick and thin. All in.