Welcome.
You can sit down.
Or lay down.
Or you can lean up against the wall like you're too cool for this.
Whatever body position you're in right now is the correct one.
Because it's the one available to you right now.
Novel concept.
I know.
Close your eyes,
Or don't.
Cyclops keeps his eyes open basically 24-7 and he's out there leading a team of mutants.
So no pressure either way.
Take a breath in.
And let it out slowly.
One more breath in through the nose,
Out through the mouth.
Like you're doing Kitty Pride's little exhale right before she face shifts through a wall to get away from a conversation she doesn't want to have.
Good.
You're doing great.
This is the whole meditation by the way.
Breathing,
And me being a little bit unhinged about a school full of super-powered teenagers.
Stick with me.
Here's the truth we're going to sit with today.
You have spent a lot of energy being at war with a body that has literally never left your side.
Not one.
Through every heartbreak.
Every bad haircut,
Every 2am spiral about that text you sent.
This body stayed.
It didn't even ask for hazard pay.
So today we're not doing the meditation where I tell you to love your body unconditionally.
Like you're just supposed to flip a switch.
That's not how this works.
And frankly,
If it were that easy,
You wouldn't be here listening to a meditation with the word mutant in the title.
Instead,
We're going to do something a little different.
We're going to imagine your body.
The way Charles Xavier looks at every mutant who walks through the doors of his school.
Not as a problem.
Not as something to be fixed,
But as a frequency.
A specific Unrepeatable.
Slightly chaotic frequency.
That the universe only knows how to make.
Once.
Take another breath.
Now.
Body scan time.
Woof woof woof woof woof woof woof.
I'm trying.
It's a great program.
This is the part where we do a slow walk down the halls of the mansion.
Professor X rolling by in the middle of the night doing wellness checks on every kid in the building.
Start at your feet.
Just notice them.
They've been carrying you around this entire time.
Without a single thank you card.
They're doing Nightcrawler level work.
Getting you from place to place,
No fanfare.
And somehow everyone still only compliments the flashy stuff.
Move up to your legs.
Whatever they look like right now.
They are doing an extremely metal job.
Of holding your entire skeleton upright against gravity.
A force of nature.
Undefeated since the beginning of time.
Your legs said,
Not today.
That's Colossus-level structural integrity.
And he's made of actual steel.
Your legs are just doing it in soft mode.
Your stomach.
Yes,
We're going there.
Whatever relationship you have with this part of you.
Just breathe into it.
Just breathe into it for a second without adding a caption.
No commentary track.
It's just tissue and organs and also.
.
.
Inconveniently.
The place where laughter physically lives in your body.
Which is deeply unfair.
Your hands.
Your Wolverine hands.
Not because I've got claws.
Because look what they've survived through and still work.
Still text your friends back.
Steel-hulled coffee mugs with 15 inspirational quotes on there that you don't even read anymore.
Healing factor is not just a metaphor.
It's basically your whole circulatory system every single day.
Your face.
Your whole entire,
Unrepeated-in-the-history-of-humanity face.
Ching!
Not a before photo.
Not a rough draft.
Just.
.
.
The face.
The one and only in the universe.
Here's the thing about X-Men that nobody tells you in the movies.
Every single mutant hated their power at first.
Rogue couldn't touch anyone without hurting them.
Beasts turn blue and furry.
And grieved his face in the mirror for a long,
Long time.
Nobody wakes up on day one of being different and throws a parade.
The parade comes later.
The parade comes after they stop asking.
Why do I look like this?
And start asking,
What can I do because I look like this?
Your body's not a costume you're wearing wrong.
It's not a rough draft waiting for a better version.
It is the mutation.
It is the frequency.
And it's yours to live in.
Today,
Exactly how it is.
Let's do a few truths,
Not affirmations.
I know affirmations can feel like lying to yourself in a nicer font.
Just Truths.
Your body has never once betrayed you on purpose.
Every single person you have ever admired.
Has at some point.
Stood in front of the mirror and felt exactly like this.
You are going to look back at photos of yourself from right now.
In 10 years.
And think you looked incredible.
And you're going to be furious that you didn't know it at the time.
It might have happened already.
So let's not do that a future you.
Let's give him something,
Now.
Before you open your eyes,
I want to leave you with a few questions.
Don't answer them right now.
Don't even ask them today necessarily.
Just let them sit in the room with you.
Like a nosy neighbor who means well.
If your body could say one sentence back to you after everything you've said about it over the years.
What would it say?
Who taught you first?
That this body was something to apologize for.
And do they even still believe that?
Or is it possible you're the only one still caring?
If you fully,
Completely stopped fighting your reflection tomorrow.
What would you actually do with all of that reclaimed energy?
Sit with that for a second.
Okay,
When you feel like it,
You can open your eyes.
You showed up today.
Good job.
That takes a lot more effort than people think.
It's important.
Now go be a mutant.
Go be extremely specifically yourself.
Professor X would have accepted you on day one.
No essay required.
Namaste all.
You
