Hello and welcome to this talk and meditation on body image.
I want to start by saying something that I think you already know.
Somewhere underneath everything,
Even if it's been very hard to hold on to,
The problem has never been your body.
I know that might be hard to hear or it might make you want to argue with me and that's completely fine.
You can argue with me and still stay with this because I'm not saying your experience of your body isn't real or that the discomfort that you feel when you look in the mirror isn't real.
What I'm saying is that the source of the pain is not what your body looks like.
It's what you've been taught to believe a body should look like.
And those are two entirely different things.
And the moment that you can feel the difference between those two things is the moment that you can begin to shift.
There's a particular kind of suffering that happens in the body,
But isn't about the body.
And it tends to follow a pattern that most people don't recognize because they're too close to it.
You wake up and before you've said a word to anyone,
Before the day has given you anything to respond to,
There's already a verdict running,
A judgement about how you look,
Or how much space you take up,
Or whether you are,
In some way that feels very specific,
Even though it's never quite named,
Too much or nothing.
Enough.
And that verdict feels like it's coming from you,
Like it's your own honest assessment.
But it isn't.
That verdict was handed to you.
You didn't write it.
You just inherited it and then spent years treating it like it was true.
And here's what actually is happening when that voice runs.
It's not your perception becoming more accurate.
It's your nervous system doing something it learned to do a long time ago.
In a culture,
In a family,
In a set of experiences that told you your body was a problem to be managed rather than a home you live in.
And it kept doing that thing because nothing came along to teach it something different.
Until now.
Here's what I want you to really sit with for a moment,
Because this is the part that tends to change something when it actually lands.
You have never,
Not once,
Looked at your body and seen it objectively.
Nobody has.
What you see when you look in the mirror is filtered through everything.
Every comment,
Every comparison,
Every image you've absorbed.
Every moment someone made you feel like your body was being evaluated.
And that filter is so constant,
So invisible,
So completely woven into the way you see that it feels like reality.
But perception is not reality.
Perception is a story the mind tells,
Shaped by everything that came before the moment of looking.
Which means,
The question is in how do I get a body that finally feels acceptable,
Because there is no such body.
The filter would follow you into it.
The question is,
Can I begin to see through the filter or at least see that it's there?
What we're going to do now is something very simple.
And I want you to let it be simple rather than turning it into an exercise you can do right or wrong because it isn't about doing anything right.
It's about returning the attention to the body as a sensation rather than appearance,
Which is a completely different way of inhabiting yourself.
And it takes practice.
But today can be the beginning of that practice.
Start by closing your eyes or softening your gaze downward.
Let your hands rest somewhere they can just be still.
Now,
Instead of thinking about what your body looks like,
I want you to feel what it feels like from the inside.
The temperature of the air on your skin.
The weight of your body making contact with whatever surface is beneath you.
The rise and fall of the chest with every breath.
Try to notice.
Try not to control.
This is the body as it actually is.
Not as an image,
Not as something to be evaluated.
But as a living,
Breathing,
Sensing thing that is doing an enormous amount right now just to keep you here.
Just to keep this moment possible.
Notice if the mind wants to move toward evaluation.
Toward what it looks like.
What it should look like.
What it used to look like.
Just notice that pull.
And then come back to sensation.
The warmth.
The way.
The breath.
If there's an area of the body you've been in conflict with.
A place you've avoided touching or looked at with something less than kindness.
I want you to bring your attention there now.
Not to fix anything,
Not to accept anything you're not ready to accept.
Just to notice what's actually there as sensation.
Before the story about it arrives.
Take one slow breath.
Exhale it for a bit longer.
And gently come back to the room.
Your body has been carrying you through every single moment of your life.
It has never once asked you to earn that.
That's where we'll start.
I encourage you to come back to this practice daily,
Weekly,
However many times as necessary.
Until you can learn to love the body that you live in.
Thank you so much for listening.
Namaste.
