being in this body

on healing our relationship to our vessel

by Vincenzo Sguera

I’ve been feeling differently towards my body recently, as though I can feel its power more viscerally. I wake up, look at it and think: wow, I can’t believe this is mine. I used to yearn for a body like this and then when I finally got it, I resented it. I would punish and deprive it just to get it to look like what I thought it “should” look like, closer to what it was like before it became the vessel of the maiden. It eventually became too exhausting to hold onto such resistance towards myself, and my relationship to it fizzled towards something that resembled neutrality. Lately though, that neutrality—that mere tolerance for being inside of my body—shifted to something else. Something different. Something closer to, well, embodiment.

transitions

I tenderly recall what it was like to be a young girl, yearning to be in the body of a woman: how badly I wanted it, how glorious I thought it would feel. But my entrance into the physical thresholds of womanhood were more rocky than I expected. Less smooth, glamorous, playful, fun. More taxing, heavy, exhausting. Always thinking that I wasn’t portraying womanhood right. That my body was imperfect in all the ways I now see it as entirely perfect. I only saw what I wanted to change, what I wanted to control. I never saw its beauty, its glamour, its vitality—its life.

A friend recently asked me recently what I love most about my body. I had never considered this question consciously, but unconsciously the answer rolled off my tongue easily: I listed four features in an order that felt natural—that felt, once I had said them, completely obvious. Why had I never asked myself this before? I wondered. I immediately started seeing myself differently; I immediately started loving these features even more. Wanting to embody them and lean into them more intentionally. I immediately started seeing more beauty in my own vessel, by simply placing admiration on myself consciously. It occurred to me shortly thereafter, that I had only ever (for the most part) focused on what I didn’t like about my body. I quite literally placed my attention on what I felt resistance towards, which kept me from seeing what I did adore. The foundation for the relationship I had cultivated towards my body was one of unease, misalignment, and resentment. In essence: the exact opposite of how I would consciously choose to relate to my body. Moving from tension to ease—a journey to living in this vessel fully (one I am still on) has really been this process of learning to love what I thought I needed to change, learning to Just Be as I am, and not making anything about myself wrong.

you can’t hide from your shadow

It’s funny because this is more or less the same conclusion I came to as I became more aware of myself psychologically. As I would reflect on, and eventually accept, the parts of my persona that I initially resisted, I just fell in love with life more, and began to like myself much more, too.

I’ve realized this phenomenon of ‘facing your shadow’ translates quite seamlessly to our physical vessel. When you make the unconscious conscious, you are more free. Integrated. Alive. In the case of our vessel, when you hold your insecurities in front of your face and learn to accept, embrace, and love them as you would your favourite qualities about yourself, you can wear them with the same pride and ease you would carry what you adore about yourself. There really is no Right Body, no version of yourself that you need to become to begin living more fully in your vessel. You can just start now. You can be as you are, and begin here. This shift allows us to not wait for any transformation within us to begin living life as we one day hope to. It allows us to resource upon the life force we have access to right here, right now. And this is the ultimate curse-breaking-spell in healing our relationship to our vessel: to realize that there is no final state where we will feel more comfortable, confident, alive. And that now is as good a moment as any to begin meeting yourself where you are and living there fully, dwelling deeply in your body and loving it as it already is.

relinquishing control

I learned to relate to my body through a lens of control, of wanting to contort it into something that it was not. I tried to get it to resemble the bodies I saw around me that were signalled to me as more desirable. This strained my relationship to my body, making it near-impossible to just exist in it at ease. It made me acutely aware of all the ways my vessel did not fit into some expectation I plucked from my environment. It made me feel like a stranger in my own home, in conflict with my one companion for life.

This tension created this sense of constantly looking for my inner power externally—foolishly hoping that something other than myself would unlock deeper connection to my body. I would eventually learn that our power is right under our nose, waiting for us to become conscious of it and claim it as our own.

We learn to resist our bodies from messaging about what they should be like. Because if we were to look at ourselves in a vacuum, we would notice that we are perfect. We would notice the miracle it is to be a floating bubble of consciousness, graced with this fleshy vessel to take ourselves through the world. This vessel that lets us sit, think, touch, hear, taste, smell, play, roll around. We are granted this miracle machine, that takes care of itself, keeps us alive, breathing, thriving, all without demanding much from us at all. And what is the favour we repay it with? Often, none other than vicious, critical thoughts about all the ways its existence is wrong. It’s almost comical how disgraceful it is to treat our home this way, and yet, it is so common that we think it is entirely normal.

stewardship

When I started thinking about how I can serve my body instead of expecting it to serve me, everything changed. I realized this vessel isn’t here to simply decorate my spirit, but to take me through life in ways that are gracious, generous, tough, and miraculous, in ways that are not even visible to me, but allow me to be here. This shift helped me occupy my body with a sense of purpose, power, and aliveness instead of festering on all the ways it is imperfect, displeasing, and disappointing to me. Seeing our bodies as gifts we are entrusted with lets us fall in love with them and celebrate them for their glory instead of focusing on what we see as their “shortcomings.”

embodiment

But I’m sure all of this just read like words to you, as it did to me before I actually understood through experience the gift that it is to be in this body. Before I went through experiences with my body that allowed me to write these words instead of just read them from someone else’s perspective and say: yeah, I guess that makes sense, before turning back to the mirror and finding all of the ways my body should be different.

I wish I could point to a single moment where this shift happened, but like most changes to self, it wasn’t like that. It was a slow continuous process of awareness and integration. Small shifts in my ability to embody my vessel, to view it as a gift instead of a curse. A refined practice of noticing when the adversarial voice would come up and soothing it; noticing when I was creating tension when I could be choosing ease.

But this stuff is hard to embody—these words are hard to live out. They require an actual willingness to accept your body. To genuinely appreciate your body as it is, instead of how you would like it to be. Our physiological state is a deeply patterned one—retraining it isn’t just about thinking new thoughts, but creating a different experience at the sensory level. To not just think differently, but to actually believe differently.

tension doesn’t change outcomes

I was swimming in the ocean this past summer with my friends when we hopped into an area that had a reputation for having jellyfish. We pondered how knowing that there could be something nearby that might hurt us changed our ability to swim care-free and be where we were. My friend pointed out that, “Whether we swim scared or relaxed, the likelihood of the jellyfish stinging us is pretty much the same. We don’t change the outcome by holding onto tension.” The sentiment stuck with me, and feels resonant as I reflect on how my life has changed since I have begun to dwell more deeply in my vessel, without bracing myself for a potential injury from the world. All I was doing by holding onto that tension was constraining my ability to live, not necessarily changing any outcomes. Beyond that: I concluded that if I was having a good time living inside my vessel (by being at ease inside of it), I was content. And even if I did get stung by a metaphorical jellyfish, hurt by the world’s opinion somehow, I could always return to the knowledge that this vessel is a gift and it is my duty to care for, protect, and love it, and then just keep swimming! And after having actually gotten stung by a jellyfish in that spot in the ocean, I can confirm it healed just as any wound does, and swimming freely is absolutely worth the risk :).

living it

So far, this is a neat, logical take: surrender the tension in your body > live more deeply in your vessel > be more at ease > feel more alive. But then there is the practice of it; the embodiment of this knowledge. The living it rather than just knowing it. The getting out of your head and into your body.

This process, for me at least, has been one of embracing what is rather than trying to change anything. I always thought that when my body became more like X or Y, I would feel powerful, I would feel free. But there is no external threshold you pass through where you suddenly feel safe, comfortable, and happy with your body. This is not something anyone else can grant you: it is something you must grant yourself, by allowing those feelings to come through, now. By no longer resisting the way your body is, by no longer forcing it to be something it is not. By carrying it proudly, with intention. By truly loving it, without attachment to how it is received. And then the ease starts to rush in; and the affection for your body emerges clearly. Little did I know that this simple task of relaxing into my vessel was the source of all the power I assumed existed outside of myself.

Some people spend their entire lives at war with their bodies, trying to change them. Never celebrating the profoundness of their body’s gifts, possibilities and beauty. Learning to exist in this body in an easeful way, is a re-education on how to relate to your vessel. And let me tell you: graduating from inner-resentment to inner-ease is unmatched by any credential you could get from any external party in the world. Courting your own body and learning to co-exist with it internally is the ultimate rite of passage. It is quite literally the foundation of healing your relationship to self! And by healing your relationship to self, you live more freely, expressively and congruently. You become more yourself. And by becoming more yourself, you become more magnetic, and life begins to unfold more abundantly and organically.

but what about what i look like?

I can already hear the skeptical voices saying: but what about my appearance? I work out and eat well because I want to look a certain way… what about what I look like?

My experience is that when you truly arrive at this acceptance-of-self-epiphany in a fully embodied way—realizing that your body is your ultimate gift and it is your responsibility to care for it; none of those “good habits” change, in fact they become so obviously essential that they no longer become something you have to force or will yourself to do. They become something you want to do from a place of love and care. In other words: doing the “right things” for your body is no longer a punishment, instead those choices come from a place of ease. From a place of love. And isn’t that the dream? To be doing all the right things without torturing ourselves with self-criticism until we buckle under the pressure of wanting to change the way we are?

Of course, there are still times we don’t always want to do the alleged ‘right thing’, but through those moments, we gain greater attunement to our body. Maybe we are too tired, maybe we do need rest when we would usually push ourselves farther. And maybe that is okay! Maybe that is the right thing, in that moment. When you begin to view your relationship to your body as a symbiotic, 2-way line of communication, where it speaks and you listen, you can begin to peacefully, lovingly communicate and negotiate, and not force, dismiss or neglect its needs to fulfill your idea of what it should be doing. Everything softens. Doing the “hard things” like working out, eating well, sleeping, etc. become easier because they feel aligned. Because your body has a say in your decision-making: it gets to bid for what it genuinely wants. And you can choose to listen! The tension, forcing and strain it takes to get our bodies to do things that are good for us stems most often from a strained relationship to the vessel itself, where it wants to disobey us because it feels un-seen, un-acknowledged, and disrespected. When you change your orientation towards your body, all of that previously “hard” stuff begins to feel easy, natural, effortless.

motherhood musings

I was chatting with a friend recently about how we want to model our relationships to our bodies for our future daughters. We agreed that we wouldn’t want to pass on any complicated, spiteful, unaccepting attitudes towards our bodies. My friend claimed that she wouldn’t want to share a number on the scale with her daughter, because she knows her mom’s “number”, a data point that tortures her with the awareness of comparison. It struck me in that moment, though, that we were looking at the conversation from entirely wrong point of view. You can’t control the impact you have by deciding what you do and do not share a-la-carte. You cannot consciously augment the way your unconscious relationship to your body will be interpreted.

to model self-acceptance is to *actually* accept yourself

Even if neither of us ever mentioned a number on the scale, if we hated our bodies, our daughters would definitely know it—as would pretty much everyone else around us. Because you can’t hide your shadow; you can’t conceal the parts of yourself that are not integrated. As with personality traits we wish we did not possess, everyone else finds out about them, even though we think we are doing such a clever job concealing them from the world. We are not nearly as mysterious as we hope to be. Therefore, the only way to actually influence our future-daughters’ relationships to their bodies positively is to relate to our own bodies with the same love, affection and joy we wish for them. We can’t hate our bodies and hope to transmute loving, peaceful body-relationships down to our daughters. The only way to create that transmission is to actually heal our relationship to our bodies. Because they will imitate what we do and say, and what we do and say will inevitably reflect our true relationship to our bodies. There is no faking how you see yourself. We cannot perform 100% of the time. We need to mend the relationship holistically. And that is what our future daughters will notice—not the absence of our remarks about our weight, but the way we live in our bodies and our earnest willingness to accept them as they are.

As Mark Twain said: the only way out is through—or in this case: the only way to exist peacefully in your body is to accept it as it is, now. To not wait for some permission from the world that will never come or try to shift it into something we think will make us like it more. You can’t hate your body and give off the vibe that you love it; it just doesn’t work like that. Others can sense what it feels like to be around you, and they pick up on the reverence (or resentment) you feel towards your body.

And the ultimate way to appreciate the sacred gift that is your body is to be proud of it: to take care of it, love it, tend to it, carry it with the joy and affection it deserves. It does not matter how people perceive you if it is not fun for you to be in your body. And to begin having fun in your body, to harness its potential for pleasure, ease and aliveness—you need to start living fully inside of it, without trying to control it so much. Because dwelling deeply in your body is the gateway to true beauty. It is what allows you to be fully where you are; to glow, to be magnetic, to be yourself.

True beauty stems from a congruence between your inner and outer life. It comes from an ability to focus on where you are and who is in front of you, something you rob yourself of if you are always siphoning internal-energy towards how you look and what people think of you. True beauty is a deep well of abundance, and when you get there, you realize just how irrelevant what people think of your body is. But you can’t optimize your way there. You can’t will yourself into that awareness. You need to allow yourself to arrive there by genuinely accepting yourself, in this moment, without attachment to how you are perceived.

So, instead of continuing to look outside of yourself for more ways to become more beautiful: simply start here, now, inside of you. Focus on what you love about yourself and expand that awareness until it encapsulates your whole being, and then stew in that awareness of the miracle it is to be living in your vessel. At least, this is what I hope tell—or rather: show—my daughter one day :).

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