We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us.
--Winston Churchill
I'm going with "dwelling" being each individual human body. We all have one. It is the place we live for a period of time on Earth.
Yesterday I met our grandson for the first time. In a mere nine months, two tiny cells expanded to create a perfect human body. If that's not a miracle, I don't know what is. And how does that happen? The mystery of it is profoundly overwhelming. Those two cells somehow know how to become brain, pancreas, toenails, all the different parts!
Each of us was once that perfect baby. Then we probably let the world tell us otherwise. We "became" too fat, thin, tall, short, noisy, quiet, smart, stupid, on and on. Certainly we all, at some point, behave in ways that are not in our best interest, but that doesn't negate our innate perfection. I would also add that our DNA, its full functioning, is not even remotely understood. We deserve to give our bodies and ourselves way more credit than we routinely do.
There is an excellent book that everyone with a body could benefit from reading: The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor. Another excellent practice is to smile at yourself in the mirror.
Happy to have a body,
Leta