How Meditation Can Help you with Body Acceptance.
This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a small commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase using this link. Please see my disclosure for more details.
Oh What a Breakthrough I had this morning!
This article is an example of what can happen when you dedicate time for yourself to practice daily meditation. I have been talking about meditation in previous posts. After several years of saying that I want to start a daily meditation practice, I finally decided to make some changes and actually do it! I have added meditation time to my morning routine. I suggest you give it a try. Before now, I have only gone to meditation when I thought I needed to. You know, kinda like when you have been eating a ton of sweets at the holidays and you think to yourself, “maybe I should have a salad?”. Scheduling time for at least 30 minutes of meditation each morning has really been a game changer in my life. Click here if you need some help scheduling you time.
I have been fighting body image my whole life. Do we have something in common here?
I am currently listening to Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire by Jen Hatmaker. I love Audible. And I highly recommend this book! AMAZING! I am in the chapter about body image, full embodiment, loving and accepting my body as it is.
She quoted another author… Hillary L McBride in Mothers, Daughters, & Body Image “We should start referring to our body as she or her instead of it.” You know I am adding this one to my wish list!
So I did. I started talking to her woman to woman. And that immediately put me into a process.
Setting an Intention:
Throughout the years that I have been meditating, many times my teachers have suggested setting an intention for the meditation. I do not always do this, but today my intention was to learn how to love my body as it is, not what it should be according to some crazy standard that has been planted in my head for years and years and probably generations to generations.
After a few minutes of the breathing techniques that I have shared in “The Easiest Way to Start Meditating”, I remembered something from just a couple of days ago. I apologized to a man fully and honestly for something that I said about him. I knew that my words about him were mean and designed to “lift ME up” while bringing him down.
At that instant, 46 years of blaming my body and shaming my body for all of my problems flashed to the surface. I dropped to my knees and bowed down apologizing to her for how mean I have been to the one that has been traveling with me my entire life. She is truly my best friend and I (my mind/the words in my head) have acted horribly towards her. It is shocking she is still around. I am sure she tried to leave more than once. But I guess she listens to God and has more faith than I ever had.
I apologized for stopping us from experiencing so many things due to the fears in my head. I never learned to dive head first into a pool because I was afraid. I know my body would have loved the experience of that kind of freedom. I never climbed a tree so high that I could see the world from up there in fear that my body wasn’t strong enough and I would get hurt. As a teenager, I said no to pretty much everything because I was afraid of either being laughed at or getting into trouble. And I am sure that there are several of you reading this know all of the excitement and thrill that my body missed out on by being afraid of all of that. Wink wink. And so many other things that I haven’t remembered just yet.
While on the floor having these revelations I continued to learn how to talk to her. Then the Eurythmics song “Talk to me, like lovers do” came into my head. That is when I softened and started really understanding the tone that I should use when I talk about her, my body.
I have always been putting my body down in shame because she wasn’t “perfect”. I went to countless yoga or meditation classes when the facilitator would say “Notice what is going on in your body”, I always noticed everything that needed to be fixed. I always thought that I was doing this yoga and body awareness stuff better than anyone else because I knew all of the places that I needed to align. Oh how I was wrong!
Words to her now,
How can I help you?
You have been doing so much while I have done nothing but fight you and beat you down along the way.
You are the strongest woman I know.
I vow from this day forward to work with you from now on.
What do you need from me?
Together we are unstoppable!
I sat in meditation, cross legged hands in prayer vowing to listen to her.
Yes, I kept feeling the aches and pains and tightness and misalignment and all of those places that refuse to relax (and be perfect LOL) even though I keep yelling at them and complaining that I can’t control them.
Then I would remember my new vow. I allowed her to lead. It was magical divinity! I noticed her stretch in the complete opposite direction that I would have chosen! And a release happened. WOW! My hands that were in prayer at my chest stretched straight up above my head into yet another incredible stretch!
At that point, my alarm went off signaling it was time to come out of meditation. Wrap up, as it was time to go to work. My alarm is Lauren Dailgle’s beautiful song “You Say”. When I opened my eyes, I was looking up, hands still stretched above my head. I noticed that I was sitting right under the beautiful tree on my wall. My, no Our spine in alignment with its sparkly trunk. Our smile happened. We slowly stood up and began the most beautiful strong, powerful dance of our life! Celebrating every move that she makes. When we let go of fear of judgement, the two of us, as one, will blow our world away!
To wrap it up:
Starting a daily meditation practice can help so many areas of your life. Meditation can shed light on those issues that have been blocking you from fully loving yourself and your life as you are right now. When I sat down this morning I had no idea that today was going to be such an amazing breakthrough day. Please give it a try, you never know what personal blocks are keeping you from loving your life.
Where are you on your journey today today? Are there any steps that you would like further assistance with? Let me know in the comments. Please sign up for my email list so that you can join the journey finding joy and loving life everyday.