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While the norm -- especially if you’re a woman -- is to feel negatively toward the body or to just ignore it completely, there are some truths about your body that it pays to remember:
Your body is what makes it possible for you to be here. It is your only ride in this life.
Your body was the first partner you ever had in this life, and is the only one that will be there for you each and every moment of your life.
Your body was given to you and you alone.
Your body is a creature of this planet, like all of the other plants and animals that exist here. It is designed to be part of this ecosystem, dependent on the sun, the air, the water, and the natural food sources that comprise this system.
Your body is designed to move every day, unlike most plants and some animals that are designed for remaining still most or all of the time. When it doesn’t move, its systems start to stumble and fail, because regular movement is part of what keeps all of them working the way they are supposed to.
Your body has never done anything to hurt you or disappoint you, though many people tell themselves otherwise. It just does the best for you that it can under the circumstances. If it is under attack from illness, neglect, injury or abuse, it is always trying to repair and strengthen itself as quickly as possible, whether or not you help. It’s amazing in that way, among others.
Your body is a remarkably complex organism, with many systems unbelievably intertwined, working in tightly choreographed ways you don’t even notice until something stops working as well as you’re accustomed to. Every breath you take, every sense you use, every move you make, every thought you have, every lesson you learn, every personal step forward you take – all of them are possible only because of this amazing creature that stands at your beck and call every second of your life. Look in an anatomy book sometime if you need a reminder of how crazy-amazing your body is. Then remember that the physical systems are just the “hardware.” How it all really works will likely never be fully mapped. Then there’s the whole mind-body connection. Don’t even try to figure that one out, but do take a moment to be amazed by it, each and every day.
Your body may not look like society tells you it should. If you lived in a different society or in a different time, the social message would be different. This shows you that the social message is too changeable to be a reliable source of information to use in evaluating the body. Your body is what it is, and it is a miracle, regardless of how it looks. If you don’t judge the other living creatures in your world (plants, animals) by their looks, how does it make sense to judge your body this way?
Your body’s quality of life is completely dependent on the choices you make. If you treat it poorly, it has nowhere else to go. It will keep doing its best to function for you regardless of how you treat it. What it can do for you, however, will be limited by its degree of health.
Your body constantly attempts to adjust to and correct for negative inputs but it can only do so much, and will reflect low quality self-care sooner or later. On the other hand, quality self-care is also reflected by the body. The better you treat it, the more it shows and the better you feel. This is how your body will teach you – if you let it – everything you need to know about maximizing your health.
Your body will change with age no matter how well you treat it, as will every other living thing in your life. It’s sad and sometimes frustrating, but not your body’s fault. Whatever its age, it just keeps doing its best for you given what it has to work with, day after day. It is like a loyal pet that way – it just keeps trying until the very end, no matter how tired, used up, or how sick it may be.
Your relationship with your body is the most long-lasting relationship you will have in this life. The state of that relationship is likely to have a larger effect on your quality of life than anything other than your spirituality (whatever form that may take for you). This is a relationship worth cultivating with attentive care for as long as you live, and you’ll live longer and much better if you do.
Copyright © 2011, Elizabeth Babcock, LCSW. All rights reserved.