Notes On a Body

“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.”

— Jim Rohn

Our bodies are our HOME.  We rarely have to think about all they do for us.  But we have LOTS of thoughts about how they could improve.  When was the last time you simply said, “Thank you.

It’s easy to take for granted all that happens within us every single day.

Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day. Your body produces roughly 300–400 billion new cells daily. You take between 17,000–30,000 breaths each day and if your lungs were laid flat, they would span roughly the size of a tennis court. If you stretched out all your veins and arteries, they would reach about 60,000 miles (100,000 km) enough to circle the Earth twice.  And within you, your body manages over 25 feet of intestine, an organized, highly efficient system working without pause.

The body isn’t a system you need to control. It’s a system you are being carried by.  Every day. Without ever having to ask.

And yet…when we do think about our bodies, it is often with criticism. Too fat. Too thin. Too much. Not enough. Not pretty enough. Not fast enough.  Not coordinated enough.

All the while, your body is quietly doing extraordinary things.

It produces its own pharmacy.  Naturally releasing chemicals like dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, and oxytocin that influence mood, connection, pain, and pleasure. And still, we add our own chemicals and toxins, asking the body, again and again, to adapt, to filter, to keep us safe.

Your skin, your largest organ, weighs between 8–10 pounds. It protects you, regulates your temperature, and connects you to the world through sensation.

And yet, we spend billions trying to perfect it. To change it. To fix it. Believing in unattainable perfection.

Here is a different perspective on the skin we try so hard to change:

“Like the natural hides of other living forms—shells, husks, rinds—the skin and its extensions function primarily as an outer garment, an exterior structure engineered for a lifetime of rough duty. That they also determine our ideas of beauty, gender, and race is ironic, since the cells we see—hair, nails, those on the skin’s surface—are all dead, their own skins already lost.” (Emphasis added)

— Alexander Tsiaras, The Architecture and Design of Man and Woman

Every cell on our visible exterior is already gone. The very surface we spend so much time shaping and judging.  Which raises the question, If that’s true…what are we actually seeing when we look at each other? Maybe it gives new meaning to the idea that the eyes are the windows to the soul.  The eyes being one of the few places where life is visibly present.

So today, maybe you pause. Maybe you offer your body something different.  A little attention. A little gratitude A little kindness. Because this body, this home, your home, is the only place you will live for the entirety of your life. It was never meant to be shamed or blamed. And how you speak to and about it, shapes not just your body, but your mind and your emotional world as well.

What if you were kinder to it? I love this poem for that very reason. A simple reminder to celebrate what has been carrying you since the day you arrived. .

a love note to my body

— Cleo Wade

first of all,

I want to say

thank you

for the heart you kept beating

even when it was broken

for every answer you gave me in my gut

for loving me back

even when

I didn’t know how to love you

for every time you recovered when I pushed you past our limits

for today,

for waking up.

So….today, celebrate yourself. Give your body a little love.  And maybe even a quiet “thank you.”  For being everything you needed, even when you were so incredibly hard on it.

Much Love,

Lisa

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Lisa Hamil is a founding member and host for The SOS Collective, an online international women’s recovery and support group.  However, this blog and any classes or coaching offered by Lisa Hamil LLC are separate from and not affiliated in any way with The SOS Collective.