The Body Is Not A Problem: It Is A Presence To Live With
by Abi Beri
The body is not a problem to be solved. It is a presence to be lived with. I want you to hear those two halves equally. Both matter. The first half is what the culture has been getting wrong. The second half is what most of us have not yet been offered as an alternative. We have been taught, from quite young, that the body is a project. A renovation site. A thing to be optimised, biohacked, regulated, toned, calmed, healed, fixed. Even the language of somatic work - nervous system regulation, healing, working with trauma in the body - can subtly imply that the body is a malfunctioning machine that needs the right intervention to be made right. This long somatic talk questions that whole framing without contempt, and offers something older and quieter underneath. Not how do I solve my body. But how do I live with it. For the people who are tired of the optimisation cycle and ready, tentatively, to begin a different conversation with their own body.
