Settle in and get comfortable,
Close your eyes and let your attention turn inward,
Noticing your breath,
The gentle rise and fall of your chest,
And maybe you can notice the steadiness of your heartbeat,
This quiet miracle of just being alive.
And now I invite you to begin a conversation with your body.
So let this be a love letter from you to this incredible physical body that you get to live in.
Dear body,
I thought about you today.
I thought about you in a way I never have before and I suddenly realized how much I take you for granted.
I've lived my whole life inside you and somehow in all that time I forgot to say thank you.
Thank you for being my constant companion from the moment I arrived here in this life and we took our first breath.
You've carried me through every chapter of my life.
You've grown with me,
Expanded,
Got taller and stronger.
You've kept pace as I've changed,
Not just physically but I've changed emotionally,
Mentally and spiritually too as the years have gone by.
I remember now all those times that you healed me when I was unwell and how you fought off so many other illnesses,
Mended wounds and restored balance,
Often without me even noticing or appreciating how hard you were working.
You've always adapted to changing seasons,
Changing hormones and all my changing needs.
You've been with me through joy and heartbreak,
Carrying me through all my experiences of love and loss and everything in between.
We went through it all together.
You've held my grief and danced with my happiness.
You've weathered every storm with me.
I'm so grateful to you for giving me movement,
For letting me walk,
Run,
Dance and breathe and for allowing me to hug the people I love.
I see how you just quietly cope with too much heat and cold and sheer exhaustion.
I know that you ask for what you need,
Often quietly,
Sometimes loudly,
Asking through hunger,
Thirst,
Pain and fatigue,
Always trying to bring me back into balance.
And even when I didn't listen,
Even when I pushed you past your limits,
Even when I ignored your wisdom,
You just kept doing your best.
I want to say thank you for digesting everything I fed you.
Not just the food and drink,
Which often wasn't nourishing for you,
But also the emotions I've held inside and the experiences I've put you through.
Thank you for absorbing the damage I cause and still offering me healing.
I'm remembering now how often I've criticised you,
Ignored you,
Punished you and still you've just loved me and kept going.
You didn't deserve any of it and despite everything you still show up,
You still breathe for me and beat my heart and keep me alive.
And so please know that I'm sorry for all the negative things I've said about you,
The unkind comparisons.
I'm sorry for all the ways I've judged you and found fault with you and for every time I wished you were different.
Please forgive me for all the ways I didn't treat you with respect and with the reverence that you deserve.
Thank you for always doing your absolute best anyway.
I love you and I want you to know that from this moment on I promise to do better,
To think of you when I eat and drink and when I move and rest.
I want to be kinder to you,
To listen when you're asking for what you need,
To honour your rhythms,
To trust your signals and to love you with my choices.
I'm so sorry I haven't always seen you clearly or treated you like the absolute miracle that you are.
But I see you now,
I hear you and I'm filled with so much gratitude.
I realise that you're not separate from me,
You are me and I'm so thankful for this partnership of life with you.
I realise something else too,
That when I think loving thoughts about you,
When I speak to you with kindness,
With softness and with respect,
It makes it easier for you to heal because love is medicine for you.
And when I hold you in a loving vibration,
When I speak words of appreciation and reverence,
You can begin to repair even the deepest imbalances because love is not just an emotion,
It's energy that's received on a cellular level and it can create real change in the body.
And finally,
I understand that you are the home of my soul,
The sacred vessel that holds my spirit in this lifetime.
You give my soul a place to express,
To create,
To learn and to evolve.
You,
My incredible body,
Are the bridge between heaven and earth,
A living temple of breath and bone and energy and light.
And so I want to offer you this prayer.
I'm sorry.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.
I love you.
I'm sorry.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.
I love you.
I'm sorry.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.
I love you.
I'm sorry.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.
I love you.
With my love and gratitude always from me.
Now breathe in and breathe out.
Feel that love pouring through you,
Soaking into every cell of your body like water into dry ground and set the intention to carry this love forward into the way that you care for yourself and your body,
Into the way you live in your body from this moment on.
