Body talks at Bodhi

A few months ago I was holding circle with the lovely people at Bodhi Yoga Studios for a Body Image and Disordered Eating Talk that brought me to these words.

I have years scribbled down on paper, computer, and book…but it has been for many more since I have written poem. Something that morning of, drew me to these words and in essence what I wanted to convey to the the beautiful who would be listening.

These are my words and because they went somewhere to those who heard them, in your honour I post for you. Perhaps they may strike a chord in someone else, or maybe not. But sometimes when you set something free, you never know what you will receive back in turn. A little space, peace, whatever…a reminder.

“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they are never weakness” – Brene Brown

 

Need a humble reminder of this before pressing publish. Truth, a lot of you know bits of my of past, not all, some parts are still for me, but otherwise I am an open book. And with that strength there has to be light and giving. Because when you let your light shine, you give permission for others to do the same.

I’m grateful for the integration of a healthy life and so I need reminder to others that it all is possible as I sit here now on the other end being a practitioner in Nutrition.

Truth: Being in front of a camera makes me nervous. Seeing an image I may not like still wracks my brain. I am no different than you. Perhaps I have just learned to make friends with some aspects of it, an ally not enemy. My teacher and my student.

SO for those of you out there, this one is for you…

 

 

I have been institutionalized, certified and glamourized all in one breath

 

I have been tied up and down by the cloth that not only was made, but so by me.

 

Pain, guilt, shame, control, expectations poured on me and by me, as the fat I wear on my saddlebags.

 

I cut them away.

 

Grab. Claw.

 

I feel the soft parts and hold on to them, for dear life.

 

Evidence of the bad

 

Not the hard parts, the edges that poke through the corners.

 

Look at me but let me go

 

I was chosen to be big and yet I shrink and disappear.

 

Sand slipping through the fingers.

 

And so with the pain

 

I am not my thoughts yet I so become them

 

And hers, and his, and ours

 

The story

 

The sad, sick, hollow story

 

Juice sucked dry, no marrow, just shell.

 

And story

 

No food, water or life.

 

I break.

 

I shatter.

 

The repair needed so huge a life sized glue gun couldn’t buy.

 

I catch a breeze, I ride it in. Me and my thousand little pieces

 

I feel the wind on my back, no

 

Really fucking feel it

 

Soft, strong cool

 

I become it

 

Soft

 

Strong

 

Cool

 

You can be all those things at once

 

I gather seeds as I catapult forward

 

Effortless effort. Yes that’s a thing not just a book

 

I ride

 

I sweat, I worship to the moment, it is my life line.

 

I am light enough the moment holds me

 

I become the light

 

grounded, in food, weight, bone and strength, sweat, screams, and TRUTH

 

Not arid waste.

 

Truth

 

Not blames

 

Truth.

 

Not the scars on my body and in my brain

 

Or the story that now the world knows me as.

 

I am not in recovery, or not recovered.

 

a distinction to wear that keeps me hooked in a life not meant for me

 

I am me.

 

I am huge, I am a giant and so shall my voice now be.