04/07/2022
People usually come to my retreat because they want to lose weight. They want to stop suffering. They want to be happy. I talk to them about trusting themselves and about listening to their bodies. Once you do that, I say, everything — your relationship with food, yourself, your body — tends to fall into place.
But to get them to really pay attention to their bodies, I often have to remind them of the good fortune of having a body.
Whenever you hear yourself treating your body with contempt, stop immediately and feel the human body you are sitting in. Think about the fact that you can actually take a breath, and then another one. Think about what it would be like if you had emphysema or lung cancer and couldn’t take a long, cool draft of air. Would you really give up your ability to breathe freely for thinner thighs or less underarm jiggle?
Usually, we are so concerned with calories and whether we should or shouldn’t be eating this or that particular food that we don’t take time to taste it, to let ourselves really have it. Or else we are perennially multitasking: We are talking on the phone, checking our e-mail, putting on makeup, even driving, while eating at the same time. But the upshot of constantly doing everything is that you miss doing any one thing. You miss your life while you are in the midst of it. You miss the joy of having a body while you are well enough to appreciate it.
All we ever have is now. If you can’t look around now and see the abundance in your life, you won’t be able to notice it in five years either, no matter how thin you are. Happiness is not about changing your circumstances but changing the eyes through which you view your circumstances.
So the next time you’re tempted to start feuding with your thighs, take a moment to thank them for helping carry you from place to place and forming the lap that held your children. Remind yourself that they’re part of the body that allows you to be here to enjoy all life has to offer. You survived all the fad diets that had everything in them except what your body actually needed: a friend, someone to nurture and care for it, to feed it and treat it with kindness.
What can you do, right now, to show your body kindness?
This is an excerpt of "Do You Love Your Thighs?". Read the full article on my website: https://bit.ly/do-you-love-your-thighs