Body Beautiful

My lean, mean, Xena-warrior-princess fighting weight is 147 pounds. Suffice it to say, I was never a small girl. But it is at this weight that people started asking me what I had done to get so slim. At this weight there isn’t one single inch to pinch. However, if I took myself off to Hollywood I would be considered almost twenty-five pounds too heavy to get acting/singing/modeling work. Oh Lord what they would say about me now.

Now I know that’s just stupid. And I know it is stupid to care. But how can we not wonder why so many people have issues? Body image is strange. It is also subjective. I was once told that my issue was that I just wasn't my type. That changed a lot, lol.

It is sad that I had to get there, though. Body image issues are rooted in so many bizarre factors. They appear completely subjective and often turn up without reason or explanation. A perfectly normal person can look in the mirror and see something that is grossly different than what is truly reflected. It is easy to blame it on media, but there has to be something deeper. Something collective tied up in value. But given that we all know value is self-determined, what a strange pickle to sort through.

That leaves it up to the individual to reconcile the differences between reality and fantasy. It took me nearly thirty years to figure it out, and I can finally say that I have made some peace with it. Sure, there are still some days that I feel ‘fat’--especially now that I have added age to the mix. (And as you can read, food has become something of a challenge) There are still times that I find myself nit-picking in the mirror. But gratefully, I have had two experiences in my life that have led me to a point where I can catch that bad habit before I start getting down in the dumps about the oh-so-less-than-model-skinny shape of my body.

The first was a stint in college as an artist’s model. There is nothing quite like standing nude in front of a room full of people to serve up a heaping helping of get-over-it. There is also nothing quite so kind. I never ran across an artist who didn’t find all bodies interesting regardless of their size. I also learned here precisely how subjective perception can be, especially when it comes to the body. I cannot tell you how many pictures I saw of myself drawn as if I weighed three hundred pounds! And there were an equal number of pictures that showed me as a nearly anorexic, rail-thin waif. Neither of these perceptions are accurate, but that is how I was seen by others, and I can safely say that I have never—gratefully--looked at myself the same way since.

The other is teaching yoga. I watch bodies all day long, every shape, every size. And I have learned that regardless of how well you fit into the ‘perfect’ mold, your body is a beautiful machine. The things it can do are remarkable, and the visual impact of a body moving is sublime. No two bodies function alike. No two bodies move alike. No two bodies look alike. And that is a fantastic thing to behold. I believe you could fill a room with master yogis, ask them to demonstrate the exact same posture and come up with a room full of unique results. That variety is a product of each individual’s distinctive, physical construction and their emotional expression of their body’s abilities. Our bodies are so very much more than just the surface we present to the world.

I have learned that there is no one “beautiful” body type, because there is something beautiful in every body. Beauty is in what the body can do, how it moves, how it radiates in its space. Beauty is a person caring for the skin they are in and living in peace within it. We are all possessed of an inherent beauty that has nothing at all to do with our appearance and everything to do with who we are and how we treat ourselves.

Love your body for what it does and not what it looks like. Then you’ll find real beauty in the mirror every single day.