Embody Your Body

At our Journaling Circle yesterday, we journaled and discussed beauty, who was the beholder of it, and who truly owns it. This, of course, led to deeper discussions about embodiment and how we women are raised to not embody and own ourselves fully.

We grow up with a very narrow definition of what we are allowed to look like – what the standard and norm should be in terms of our race, our size, our features, body type…the list is endless. And when we don’t meet these unrealistic and dehumanizing norms, we are shamed and made to feel inferior as if there is something wrong with us and that it’s our job to fix ourselves. So we feel unsafe occupying space in our bodies and move away from ourselves, not embodying our own bodies and letting others own the idea of us.

Why are women so judgmental of other women? Why do we shame each other? Feel small when others are shining their light? It’s because we have learned to not feel at home in our own bodies, to own ourselves fully, to embody ourselves, to feel unsafe and fear judgment. And when we feel this way, detached from our bodies, we look to occupy other women’s bodies because we are looking for a home somewhere else.

There is no wrong way to live in your body. You don’t owe your physical self to anyone else but yourself. You have an inherent right to occupy and take up space in your body and to feel safe in it. You have inherent worth, no matter what your physical self looks like. Always remember that.

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Photo by Monika Kozub on Unsplash