This Is My Body

Do you inhabit your body? Or do you inhabit a concept about your body? A concept that was given to you years ago when you were a child, by the passing comment of an older kid, or a parent, a sibling, an aunt, a comment that for them meant nothing, but for you became a prophecy and a curse:

"Stop wiggling!"
"Fatty boy."
"You're too short to play basketball with us."
"You're even taller than the guys!"
"She used to be so cute, now she looks scrawny."
"See what you did, clumsy!"
"Looks more like a boy."
"Throws like a girl."
"Pudgy."
"Boney."
"Monkey."
"Eeeewe!"

And ever since then, when you walk into a roomful of people, or show up for an interview, or get seen, you are not whole, you are not warm.You are in exile, hovering outside your form in cold space, gray mind, entrapped in those words, caged in a concept about how you appear. You are prohibited from tasting the sacrament, the privilege of being on earth, golden and vibrant, dancing in the star-clustered galaxies of your marvelous flesh.

There is no time in the unconscious. A few words from childhood are being spoken now; and the way they made you feel so long ago, is a burn or a numbness you carry in every electron of this moment. Until you become conscious of them, and choose to let them go...

One of the most crucial inward events of your life, though it seems so insignificant to the world's standard of measurement, is the moment when you un-speak that little spell. Do it now. Breathe out a rolling wave of forgiveness, from the sky in your crown to the ground in the soles of your feet. Tumble back into your skin. Return to the Garden of your body. Inhabit every delicious liquid cell, every sparkling photon of your Radiance.

Can you say, "I am this body. I hug this body. I love this body just as it is"? Because if you cannot embrace your own flesh, who can you love?

Breathe yourself into your heart, like a spiral of majestic suns rolling into its center. Saturate your body with the love you are. Then breathe out light, through your arms and legs, through your forehead and tongue, your belly and fingertips, sex and toes. Fully dwell in the cosmos of your body. Be the gift.
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This exercise and these words grew out of a course I am giving in 'The Sacred Body,' so I thought I'd share them here. Thanks for listening.