I am Grateful For My Body with The Yoga Bar

I am grateful for my body in a season that often feels awkward, fearful, and ends with a New Year where we tell ourselves we need to change.

This is not an act of self-love, but one of bodily rejection.

We are told that we are inadequate, that our bodies need to fit into an ideal standard, and even then, you still aren’t working hard enough. We are told to feel shame for our bodies instead of embracing their insane ability to carry us through the world.

This season, I refuse.

I refuse to give into culture telling me I can’t accept and love my body, that I can’t enjoy the holiday food with my friends and family. I refuse to restrict so that inevitably the binge follows suit. I refuse to feel anything but gratitude for my privilege to live in a capable body, to eat wonderful food with family, to be surrounded by love, when many don’t have that gift.

I am grateful for all my body has taught me and everywhere it has taken me. I am grateful for the resilience my body has endured. For the times when I have starved it, restricted it, shamed it, compared it, felt disgusted by it. My body still endured. It pulled me through. My body conquered 8 hours a day in the pool and 14 hour days in the kitchen. It has walked me around the country and the world. My body soaks in every ounce of energy an ocean or lake can give and feels the connection of another humans touch. My body has the ability to cry tears when I’m sad, and just as quickly, cry tears of joy. It shows me what true love looks like, by letting me feel it to my bones.

I’m grateful for my body, for it’s ability to tell me when to slow down, even when my mind has to catch up with it. I’m grateful for it’s strength and honesty. I’m grateful when people recognize the similarities in my eyes and my smile in that of my family, because we are connected on a cellular level. I’m grateful for these hands that revel in the kneading of dough and the feel of a warm cup of coffee on a cold day.

My body has the ability to move to the beat of the music (how crazy is that?!), and find freedom in both a friend’s embrace and the cool air on a mountaintop. My body holds space during moments of sadness and creates boundaries when it deems a situation unsafe.

My body is my own, and it’s the only one I’ll get. My body is beautiful just as every other human’s is beautiful, but that outside beauty has nothing to do with my worth.

Sometimes I love my body, sometimes I still shame it, but from the beautiful words of Jes Baker, when we can begin to find not just body love, but body LIBERATION, “we are free from everything around us. Free from our old self-hatred, free from obsessing and trying to meet someone else’s body love standards. We are free from our own reactions to all the above and we are able to use our bodies to feel liberated and live the best life we can.”