Only LOVE
Only love, only love...
Recently a friend was shocked when I shared that I struggled with body dysmorphia and body image for most of my life. I think a lot of times we see people further down the path of their journey and think they have always been a certain way. Many of my students and clients see who I have become and make assumptions that I just came this way…not everybody has been apprised of the obstacles and suffering that it took to get here.
I'm in a different place now full of deep reverence and gratitude for my body, but it has taken me over 40 years, of accumulative work to embody love for my whole self.
I now prioritize self-care. I’ve spent countless hours practicing loving kindness and trying to rescript the way that I talk to and treat myself. This is such a reductive way of explaining but I want you to keep reading so let's just say I have been on a journey of self-love once I stepped on the path of yoga. Funny thing is, I didn’t even know that love was a possibility or aim because I came to yoga to change my body, not my heart and mind…but guess what? They are all linked together.
I have never been cynical about love in fact I love, love. My yoga study required me to unpack things like codependency and look at how I was loving myself. It altered the course of my life. I realized I couldn’t offer love to others until I healed and could wholeheartedly offer love to myself.
Along with studying yoga, I have small but meaningful practices that I have started to accumulate. Like, I have a playlist that is all love songs, but I have dedicated them to ME! Yes, my middle school adolescent self loves a good mix tape! So why not indulge her?
A song by Ben Howard “Only Love” was one of my most powerful additions. I have heard this song for years and have been drawn to it. It is simple and passionate. I’m guessing originally it was meant to be sung to a lover but one day I heard it differently. I heard it as a ballad to my body.
Darling, you’re with me, always around me
Only love, only love
Darling, I feel you under my body
Only love, only love
Give me shelter, or show me heart
Come on love, come on love
Watch me fall apart, watch me fall apart
And I’ll be yours to keep
Wind in the shadow, whale song in the deep
Wind in the shadow, whale song in the deep…
Darling, I feel you under my body
Darling, you’re with me, forever and always
Give me shelter or show me heart
And watch me fall apart, watch me fall apart
Only love…
I heard the lyrics differently because I am different. I inhabit the world in a new way…and things like this, dedicating a love song to my body, helps mark my ascent from disregarding my body as an obstacle and opponent to now a cherished part of my human experience.
Small things…that I do little by little, again and again, are beginning to add up and have changed my self-concept (deeper work than just self-esteem) …like now when I talk about my body I use “she and her” to address her. I ask her what she needs. I am more compassionate and patient with her, now that I have given her a meaningful identity.
Last summer I was traveling solo for the first time and ended up with COVID while I was in Amsterdam. I was entirely alone in that moment. No contacts. No one to who I could reach out to. Just me in a foreign country, declining. I turned inwards and asked “her” what she needed. I began coaching her lovingly and cheering her on. I let her be sick, but I knew she was doing her best to fend off the virus and I was in her corner with encouragement and praise for what an amazing job she was doing to keep me safe. I had no doubt she could handle this…and she did. Beautifully.
“I’m so proud of you. You’ve got this. Look at how you are working so hard and finding a way to keep me safe. You are so strong. What do you need, love? How can I support you? Rest? Ok. Water? Ok. You need to cry because you’re scared? Ok. We can do this. It’s ok. It’s ok. It’s alright. Look at you handling fighting and winning!”
This was SO HARD to do at first, but I am no longer interested in denying my magical body that houses my spirit.
If you were to write a script of what your inner conversation is…what would it sound like? Would it be compassionate and loving or would it be harmful? Of course, you are loving and kind to others, but what if it is not as impactful because your inner landscape is treacherous and unkind?
The first Yama (moral observances) in yoga philosophy is Ahimsa which is non-violence. Yoga had been my medicine, because it invited me to turn my gaze inwards first before offering it outwards.
You see I spent most of my life needing my body to be something other than she was. I told her she should be thinner, lighter, taller, shorter, less freckled, less dimply, less wrinkly, more tan, blonder, longer fingers, longer arms, slender toes, whiter teeth…the list goes on and on. More of this and less of that.
I used to think running her into the ground was going to make me feel powerful. It just left me exhausted. My self-concept was that I was not valuable and that made me use movement to punish my body for eating or resting. That was a way of life for a very long time…bless yoga for its lovingly relentless power to unveil the neurosis that drives behavior. But it took practice-little by little, again and again over a long period of time to do the deep excavation and transform the way that I inhabit the world.
Here are some truths that I subscribe to now:
I have incredible endurance.
I am strong.
I am kind.
I am quirky.
I am adaptable.
I am resilient.
I am versatile.
I am sturdy.
I am wild.
I can regulate my nervous system.
I can flourish regardless of my age.
I am magic…I have grown 4 human beings inside of me (how F*cking cool is that!)
I am built to endure hardship but also to affirm life and beauty and grow wise.
Right now, is sacred.
My body is a precious gift.
I may have stretch marks, I may have cellulite, I may have parts of me that sag that didn’t always, but I have chosen to find reverence and adoration as often as I can for my body (her).
I have also found that I cannot quiet the demons of self-doubt, self-hatred, and body shaming that still exist inside of me, but they do not run the show anymore. They surface. They show up. I acknowledge them and I see them. I cower to them and sometimes give in to them temporarily, but they are no longer the ring leaders.
My precious body(she) has held my sorrows. She has held my celebrations. She has held my grief, fear, pain, heartache, and my heartbreak. She has generously held the things that I did not have the skills or tools to integrate or understand when I was younger. She has been a warehouse; she has been a fun house and now…she is a sacred space to land.
Being a woman has its own uphill battle built into our societal and cultural norms. But on this day of love, on this Valentine’s day, I want to invite you into a loving relationship with yourself that includes your body. I want to encourage you to find love in places that you find impossible to love and know that is where the deepest love that you can ever experience resides.
Your body is the only entity that has shown up for you every single day of your entire human life. May we get to a place where we can come to her (him), see her (him), treat her (him) with ONLY LOVE.
