You were born with a body that will grow and change with you throughout your life. While you live, it lives with you, growing older adapting to your changes and phases of life. Your body is yours; it is your precious vessel for navigating this joyful, challenging journey of life. Every cell, every fingertip, every eyelash is part of you. Let the relationship you have with it be one of acceptance and joy rather than the frustrations and dissatisfactions that are learned and can so easily be internalised. We don’t think the same thoughts and dream the same dreams as everyone else – so why should we all look the same?
In a society that unforgivingly constructs ever-changing, damaging myths about ‘beauty’, know this for sure: your body wants and needs you to treat it with compassion, not contempt. It is beautiful in its existence and its nuances. Focus on how you can nourish it, hydrate it, cherish it, care for it, respond to it and listen to it. How much space you do or don’t occupy or how much your unique mass of bones, fat and muscle weighs is the least interesting element of you.
Your body will communicate with you and to you all your life; learn how to listen well and with kindness.
