Let your body do its thing

Very few people I know have zero complaint about their bodies: appearance, weight, complexion, strength, etc. Most people, especially women, keep tabs about features of their temple that they would like to change, shrink, forget, eliminate:

The two extra kilograms around the waist (but... you had babies !).

The silvery hair (but... it is romantic to have stars stuck in your mane all day long !).

The misaligned teeth (but... who wants to have a smile that looks like a box of Chicklets !).

The thick or disheveled eyebrows (but... eyebrows are like the French accent circonflexe on the vowels of facial expression !).

The visible scars (but... they show you lived by using your body !).

The big breasts, big thighs, big curves, big everything (but... it is feminine and you are a woman !)

Any of the above sounds familiar ?

Yet, do we judge a flower for having wrinkled petals, a tree for being crooked, two mountains for not being symmetrical ? 

I burnt my right forearm in the oven last weekend by stirring sweet potatoes without removing the dish from the grill. The first layer of the epiderma immediately roasted and peeled off on a surface of about  9-10 millimeters. I didn't feel much pain, just cosmetic concern and fear that it might get infected (I had a similar burn once at the elbow and it took forever to heal, maybe because the skin kept being stretched with each extension of the joint).

I sent the wound good intentions to promote healing while doing what needs to be done to facilitate nature's job. Making sure it would stay clean, I watched and let my body do its thing. I thought that the cells had been solicited to repair the site of the burn. I see all humans as cells like that too, coming closer to a wounded soul, closing its gap, just like the cells will be doing. Forming a circle that becomes tighter and tighter to comfort the wounded center.

I am begging you. Let go of a specific outcome (like smooth skin on my pre-burn forearm), focus on being healthy and balanced, and let this miraculous design called your body do its thing. Let your whole body do it.

Breathing. Digesting. 

Sleeping. Growing.

Learning. Messing up.

Cycling. Dreaming.

Sneezing. Farting.

Loving. Shielding.

Itching. Scratching.

Absorbing. Creating.

Perceiving. Expelling (baby AND feces).

Memorizing. Understanding.

Laughing. Crying.

Sweating. Pulsing. 

Tensing. Dancing.

Lactating. Shedding.

Muting. Voicing.

Expanding. Menopausing. 

Vibrating. Aging.

Healing.  Recovering

Embracing. Grieving.

Yielding. Transcending.

Letting... go.

There is so much freedom and power into surrendering to the body's own wisdom and quasi magical processes. I would have liked to avoid being inattentive to the point of getting burn, but I decided to see that as an opportunity to perceive, observe life, and learn. And appreciate all of my body even more for being so patient, non-judgmental of my gaffes and instead, cleaning up after my messes ! In return, I make sure I give it all the ingredients it needs: healthy food, rest, exercise, admiration, gratitude and love. When you think about it, it is the longer partnership you'll ever have in your life. So better make it peaceful and harmonious.

I am learning to let my body do its thing. Even when my woman cycles are starting to go awry and don't even look like cycles anymore. And not fight the changes in my physiology, appearance, weight, sleep patterns, nutritional tastes or intolerances, strength (or lack off).

Letting your body do its thing is basically letting life go through you. 

Five days after the burn, there is a nice, clean, non-infected scab. Although not directly visible second by second, I know skin cells are regenerating underneath, while others, macrophages, digest debris and remodel the tissue like mini plastic surgeons, until the scab shrinks, detaches from healed underlying layer, and falls off. There was always a sense of promise coming with rebirth when as a kid I watched any such wounds heal.

If, when I look at the silhouette of a tree near mountains, I perceive the contours of a woman sensuously napping, and since we find nature just perfect, why can't we see the woman juxtaposed to the landscape also, in her own way, perfect ?

Your body has its own intelligence and it makes it powerful, blissful, beautiful. Let your body do its thing: from leaving your mama's womb, to its final rest, and everything in between.

 

(A book I discovered years ago and never read, but it inspired me to draw the woman I was ''seeing'' on its cover).