Find the Good in Your Body’s “Flaws”

We all have parts of our bodies that we love. Other parts, not so much. It’s easy to feel grateful for our best parts. But can you show gratitude for all of those things you wish you could change?

Here’s an exercise for you:  take a paper and pen, and write down everything you dislike about your body. Be brutally honest. Don’t censor yourself. Be petty, vain, and egotistical. Say you can’t stand the extra 20 pounds, or the baby weight, or the saddlebags, the wrinkles, the big nose, the broad hips, the cellulite. Get it all out on paper. If you hate that you hate your body, write that down, too.

Now, for everything on your list, for every thing you really, really, really can’t stand about your body, write down three reasons why that is a gift. Find the blessing behind your supposed curse.

I’ll go first. Here’s a sampling from my list:  I don’t like my belly pooch. Okay. Where is the gift in my belly?

My poochy belly reminds me of being pregnant, a gloriously radiant time. It reminds me of giving birth to my children. My poochy belly makes me feel proud to have a women’s, versus a girl’s, body. My belly is the seat of my power:  it’s carried 4 babies. My belly is the seat of my femininity, the source of great pleasure in my love making with my husband – my opportunity to connect with him in a deeply satisfying, deeply pleasurable way.

This exercise left me trembling with awe:  I felt as if the light bulbs all clicked on in my head at once, in a giant, “A-ha” moment. Finding the good in things I really, really disliked about my body opened my awareness, so I could see the gift in “the bad.” It silenced my need to judge something as “good” or “bad” in the first place.

But most significantly, it lessened my urge to control every aspect of my life. I could finally relax all of those rigid expectations. Because, after all, why did I have those expectations in the first place? I had them because I thought I needed them to feel okay about my body, and myself. Much of my anxiety or need to control my body stemmed from thinking that I wouldn’t be okay or feel pretty if I was flabby, or if I was overweight. And what I found was that, even with those things that weren’t my “ideal,” I was okay. I was more than okay.

Even when my body (or my life) unfolds in ways I don’t like, I’m still okay. I’m still more than okay, actually:  who’s to say that I’m not better off for having a poochy belly? Who’s to say that you’re not better off for being overweight, for having wrinkles, for having big breasts, for having small breasts, for being short, for being tall, for looking old, for losing your hair, for whatever?

Ponder on that thought for a moment. Or enact it. Better yet, live it.

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