I have put the fifteen pounds back on that I lost when I hit my personal rock bottom, six years ago. At that time, my mental dis-ease - my depression and anxiety - hit me like a ton of bricks. I cried copious tears as I experienced a Spiritual bankruptcy during which I was short of breath, highly distracted and felt like a caged animal trying to crawl out of my own skin. I couldn't eat for weeks on end. My body shrank and the fat that I had carried around, like a Scarlet Letter, throughout my 20's melted away. I came to look pinched and thin. However, I discovered myself receiving way too much attention from the opposite of sex, once more. And, let me tell you, the admiration only added to my confusion; not to my ease!
So, it's funny because, although I am back to the curves that I layered around me as a fearful nineteen-year-old, I'm discovering that, today, I enjoy the soft suppleness of my fat and how it drapes itself over and around my most feminine of body parts. I like that my body holds all of this energy and life force that I may give to another someday, or that I just may need if the shit hits the fan. It's as though my body is daring the world, "I'm ready. Bring it!" Whatever "it" is.
Perhaps, it's been all of the time that I have spent within the great mother ocean this summer, especially over the course of the past two weeks when I've dove like a dolphin, flipped like a Mermaid and chased after a frisbee disc on the break of the shoreline, that's helped to balance out my athleticism along with my natural curves. I've always enjoy a physical vibrancy that includes being strong and healthy AND, now in my mid-30s, I have come to also appreciate my softness and vulnerability.
More recently, I've been discovering myself billowing in like a pillow when I sense the invisible, emotional blows from another projected in my direction. That past me deflected all of her anger into the world with her defenses and gut reactions. She chose to see her pain and suffering reflected in the injustice found all around her. She wasn't "wrong" in her actions or feelings by any means, for one fact is that the way we Americans live - with our beak down of community, our rise of isolation, and our focus on a material value system - is fucked up! Our anger, anxiety, depression and other dis-eases are simple by-products - our body's natural responses to the avoidance, distraction and disconnection that we are encouraged and aided to reside within.
So, today's me honors that I have a choice - that I can choose how I respond in every moment. And, I'm discovering that I quite enjoy softening into time and space around me, versus trying to force an outcome or result. This begins with how I view and perceive my body. More and more, I'm just letting me bee me - which means lots of play, not working-out; lots of creativity in the kitchen and no dieting; and focusing on my Spiritual growth and fulfillment, not on the size of my clothes or the numbers on a scale.
I can just bee me and let you just bee, too.
