Simply Blessed

Here’s a question from the weekly powerful question:

“How can I demonstrate my gratitude for a part of my body that I have judged as unattractive?”

Now before you even answer it, read this too:

“You may choose, of course, to work with the Question as you see fit. However, you might want to consider reflecting upon the Question without seeking a specific answer too quickly. If an answer is arrived at too soon, the answer is more likely to be based upon what you already know rather than what you might be able to discover over time.

Often times a Question itself can prepare you for something that is larger than you can now imagine or do. It can draw you more deeply into possibilities and the unknown rather than to an answer, particularly if the question is approached from the perspective of “what if” rather than “how.” You might, for example, ask yourself the Question at times when you are feeling emotions, such as fear, joy or sadness, and simply notice what you feel in your body or in your heart when you ask the Question. Then simply move on without attempting to come to an answer.

If you allow a question to maintain its creative tension, you might be surprised at what you discover!”

I love that on two levels, the powerful question and the asking to suspend a propensity to get in there and do something about it, adopt an easy fix, instead to be open to something beyond that first impulse.

If you watched the film What the Bleep Do We Know?!, you saw the main character write love notes on her body in the pivotal bathroom scene.  She wrote on the parts of her she previously saw as revolting.  Then she lay in the tub to soak these messages in.  I did that, too.  My kids, when they were younger, would exclaim to any body who’d listen: Mommy writes on her body. :)

There are parts of my body I’ve looked at and said yuk.  I’ve joked and said in my next life, I’ll come back with no cellulite.  But you know what — in this life all joking aside, I’m done with looking at myself physically, emotionally or otherwise and naming any part of me as bad, wrong, inadequate or not good enough.

These days, I walk a singular path and that’s the path of the heart.  This path only knows how to say yes.  Yes to life, yes to me, yes to love.  It doesn’t matter what word I write on my body or the sky for that matter, what matters most is a kiss of yes on my lips.  Yes to this precious physical vessel I have the privilege of inhabiting.  Yes to all of me.

A single put-down is a tiny insult to the framework of who we are.  Are you done with insults big and small to yourself?  I sure am.  I’m ready to embrace the many ways I now say yes to myself.