November 22--Our Precious Bodies

The body is a sacred garment. It's your first and last garment; it is what you enter life in and what you depart life with, and it should be treated with honor. 
--Martha Graham

    It took me a long time to learn and embody (pun intended) this truth. Childhood trauma and a mother who was an excellent cook started an early pattern of abusing my body with food. Eventually I learned that enough exercise would work off all I ate, and I abused my body with exercise. (Yes, that is possible.) I've also done every diet "in the book." I lived on 500 calories a day for a long time. My body and I were in a constant battle the first three decades of my life. 

    Getting into addiction recovery was the first big step for me in learning to appreciate my body. My body was not the enemy. It was my "stinking thinking." The second leap in body honoring came with a regular yoga practice, wherein the emphasis is on all one CAN do, rather than what one cannot. 

    Luckily through all this, I have remained quite healthy, which must have been from some sort of "mind over body" instinct that worked for me. I have avoided all the advice and "shoulds" relative to diet. My husband is a great cook. We operate on two basic principles: 1) eat food that spoils (not processed with years of shelf-life), and 2) know your ingredients (if you have to have a chemistry degree to understand the contents label, don't eat it). We don't demonize any food group. This works for us. 

    I also have a (probably too strong) skepticism for western medicine. I only go to the doctor if I can see no other alternative, and I don't take any prescription medicines. Doctors are under the strong influences of insurance, legal and pharmaceutical companies, so the patient is the "lowest on the totem pole." Rather than work with our bodies natural ability to heal itself, folks have become dependent on doctors with limited knowledge to fix them. This is not a good individual or global consciousness. We need look no further than treatment of chronic pain and the use of opioids to see that. 

    Take a few moments, mentally roam around your body, and thank your heart, liver, lungs, brain, etc for all they do. Our bodies are a magnificent mystery--there is so much more to us than we know!

        Leta

Our bodies are one with 
the energy of the universe.