My Body: My Greatest Ally

I’ve written before of my struggles with exercise compulsion and orthorexia (disordered eating habits). I’ve written about how I hated my body and myself and how I expected getting “skinny” to fix all of that. I’ve written about how my self-worth has been and occasionally still gets confused with whether or not I exercised that day, and what I ate.

I feel sometimes that I’ve been struggling with my body on some level all my life. And it makes me indescribably weary.

But over time, as I’ve taken my steps down my healing journey and learned, read, wrote, talked, and transformed, I’ve come to see the body fat that I packed on after being molested in a whole new way. And subsequently, I also see my body in a whole new way.

With the help of my life coach, Summer Engman (www.summerengman.com) and Jessi Kneeland’s TED talk (look this up on YouTube, it’s excellent) and blog posts on body image, I came to a significant epiphany early this year: my body has always been my biggest ally.

The idea that my body was EVER my enemy was a lie – a story built on self-hatred and pain.

The truth is that my body was the only one there for me and did its best to protect me all these years. Jessi Kneeland and my life coach helped me see that my body, from day one of my experiencing, surviving, and overcoming trauma, never stopped trying to help and protect me; that’s why I gained weight.

By gaining weight, my body was protecting me with armor –armor designed to save me from unwanted touch and from being hurt further by the world. The weight insulated me from the conflict of dealing with my own sexuality as well, because I was nowhere near ready to confront that for at least 15 years after the molestation.

So by packing on pounds, my body was protecting me both physically and emotionally.

This knowledge about my body just floors me.

Some of my other blogposts discuss how the body, heart, mind, and spirit are symbiotically connected; what affects one, affects them all. Change or trauma to one results in change and trauma to them all.

Being molested wounded me emotionally, spiritually, mentally. These three systems couldn’t withstand the abuse without my body also responding in kind. My mind and heart said “protect me, save me” and my body jumped in to help in the only way it could, the only way it knew how.

The problem with this is that I couldn’t recognize this gift, this gesture of help from my body. I was too hurt, too disillusioned, to ill-equipped to deal with what happened to me on every level. My perception was that my body was wrong, not saving me; the messages of “thou shalt be skinny” from modern culture coupled with my own self-loathing and self-blame made me see my body as my betrayer, as something ugly, as something to be detested and beaten into submission.

My body was working WITH me all along: trying to help me, doing what I asked, addressing my survival issues. My body gained that fat because it’s what I needed emotionally and mentally at the time.

I needed to be enfolded. Cushioned. Armored. I felt like nobody would love me if they knew the whole story, so I had nobody to hold me except my own body. And that’s exactly what it did.

Magnificent.

Miraculous.

I was just in so much pain, I wasn’t able to see my body honestly until I could step out from beyond the lies, pain, and misperceptions caused by my trauma.

When Summer Engman and Jessi Kneeland helped me see the truth behind my body, my weight gain, my body’s desire to help protect me, I felt shaken internally. My entire view of myself shifted significantly. I felt a deep appreciation, profound compassion, even a reverent pride in my body that I never thought I could feel.

It filled me with warmth and such gentleness – it was if everything inside me softened after being held in tension and stiffness for decades.

One night after this revelation, I did a dedicated thank-you meditation for my body. I put my hands on each body part and thanked the fat covering me for giving me safety and protection when I felt unprotected and endangered.

I felt warm love and appreciation for my body fat, I felt that my body was my beloved ally for the first time in my life – instead of beholding it as my bitter enemy.

So it’s all been perfect, as usual. That’s how the universe works. We can’t always immediately see the perfection, but it’s there.

And I love my body for doing that - for standing up for me, for trying to protect me, for doing its best to address my needs.

It makes me love my body all the more and I stand in awe.

I feel so … more accepting, less judging. More celebrating, less condemning. I feel more relaxed about my body. I appreciate it, and I accept it. I love it. I begin to see it for the miracle it truly is.

I stand fascinated and amazed, awed, in a state of reverence.

I wish my soul could step outside my body for a moment and give it a big bear hug from the outside. I would kiss my own cheek and stroke my own hair. I would grab my own face, look into my own eyes, and smile so big.

Lovely, lovely, lovely.

I can finally see myself as a whole person, instead of an object that needs radical transformation, or a Frankenstein monster body that needs to be picked apart, piece by piece.

I finally can encounter myself as a full person, instead of seeing so much of myself as an enemy.

My body – my beloved ally all along.