Much of what I write about here is how to breathe new life into broken relationships or how to sustain the relationships we couldn’t do without. The situations may differ, but the approach is generally the same: the survival of a relationship of any kind—whether longstanding, broken, or seemingly irreparable—is dependent on words of kindness, a significant investment of time, and an unwavering commitment to keep showing up.
This belief is rooted deeply in the way I was raised and in the way I’ve chosen to see the world. It’s how successful relationships endure, it’s how fractured relationships heal and it’s how new relationships begin. My longest relationship hasn’t always been a healthy one. It’s been one that I’ve manipulated, taken advantage of, and taken for granted far more times than I care to remember. It hasn’t always been stitched together with the best of intentions either. Truthfully, it’s more of a relationship that’s been stitched together with I’m sorrys, I’ll do betters, and let’s start on Mondays.
If I was describing a relationship with any one person, you might say I don’t belong in this relationship—or any relationship at all for that matter. And you would be right. But you know how there are those relationships that you can’t walk away from no matter how hard you try? This is one of those relationships. The longest, hardest, most complicated relationship I’ve had is the one with my body. And before you sigh at the thought of another self-love, 90-day transformation, here’s the secret, I’m not as skinny as I want to be post, this is not that.
This post will offer no resolution for you and no revelation from me. Rather this will only be—this can only be—a collection of thoughts that I’m forever returning to square one about. When I open up about my relationship with my body, most people assume that it means I’m unhappy with the way that I look. I wish it were the simple. The truth is there are far many more abusive and downright hostile things that we do our bodies besides starving it and then rewarding a weight deficit with a sleeve of Girl Scout cookies.
I’ve written about this before. I’ve told you about my struggle to honor my body and hear what it’s trying to tell me and I’ve told you about how I’m hoping that one day, I can learn to celebrate it because it can do far too many remarkable things to wish parts of it away. But I have. I have wished parts of it away. I’ve demanded it to do more with less. Less sleep. Less calories. Less respect.
So this isn’t a post about eight glasses a water a day or eight hours of sleep at night. It’s not about Whole30 or gluten free or intuitive eating. These are words I’ve needed to write for a very long time. It’s an apology. Or a thank you. Or maybe it’s a love letter. I have a feeling that it might be all of those things.
In moments when I have been afraid to show up open-hearted, my body has been all in, bringing brutal honesty and transparency to the table. It’s shown up for me again and again as my most honest friend, and truthfully I’ve been a little resentful of the honesty, mistaking it for weakness. But more than that, I’m jealous that I have so much fear being open and honest about what I need and my body is unapologetic and unafraid.
I haven’t fixed this yet. I suspect I will always struggle here. Here’s what I know: treadmill miles won’t fix it. Kale chips won’t fix it. Books. Intuitive eating. Eight hours of sleep. Meditation. Yoga. These things are not the path to freedom. I know because I’ve tried them all.
This is perhaps the most pivotal thing that I’ve come to realize: one of my most favorite lines in the Bible says that I was fearfully and wonderfully made. That I was thought out and stitched together by the hand of God. Somehow I don’t think that when God was thinking through how to design my body, that he was guided by words like skinny and hair goals. Instead I think he was thinking through how the body he was designing would have to be the same body that could stay standing when we found out my dad wouldn’t survive his accident. It would have to be the body that would carry me on stage in front of hundreds of people to speak at my dad’s funeral a few days later. It would have to be the same body that walked me across the stage at my college graduation after a tremendously difficult senior year. It would have to be the same body that survived too-many-to-count tequila shots and lived on McDonalds French fries and peanut M&Ms for more years that I’d like to admit. More recently, it would have to be the body that held me in one piece when my marriage unexpectedly crumbled and I was convinced that picking up whatever was left of my life was too much.
The body that God designed for me remained constant and steadfast through days without eating and through nights when I was sure morning would never come. My body has allowed me to feel the weight of the world. It’s allowed me to understand pain and suffering and sickness. And because it has made room for those things, it’s made space for joy and new yeses.
When I’ve tried to eat better because I know that I’m supposed to, I don’t. When I’ve tried to rest more and do less because I know that I’m supposed to, I don’t. When I’ve tried to drink more water and less coffee because I know I’m supposed to, I don’t. But when I remember these things, when I remember to value the things that my body has walked through with me, I’m much more inclined to treat it better. When I remember how my body has shown up for me when I haven’t deserved it or how it’s carried me through hard things, I’m more inclined to treat it with more kindness and less judgment.
My body has been my most honest friend. Your body has been your most honest friend. Of all the people who know and love you best, no one will ever be more protective over your well-being than your own body. It is fiercely protective over you. It has been designed to take care of you—to shut down when the world spins too fast and to show up when it counts.
These are the thoughts that are helping me to make the move from control to connection. If you too have tried too desperately to shrink yourself into a box that leaves little room for balance, then I’d ask you to take a deeper look into what your body has done to protect you from a much-too-busy world, to push you through to the other side of pain, and to allow you to pursue the here-and-now and the joy that comes from showing up for your life open-minded and open-hearted. They say you’d be kinder to people if you knew their story, and I think the same might be true for your body—you’d be kinder if you remembered its story.