Hey Strong Moms! This is a personal post so please read with care.
Six years ago, after my fifth child was born, I was looking at myself in the mirror in the master bath of our rental. I was naked and staring at myself. Something I usually avoided. However, instead of criticizing and critiquing the shape in the mirror which was my MO. I was looking and seeing something entirely different.
I was seeing, not me but my body. I finally saw something that I hadn’t seen before. I was not my body and she was not me. It was so strange because I used to look in the mirror and think that I was looking at myself. I believed that she was me. I was wrong. How did I miss this?….
She wasn’t me. She was my vessel.
She wasn’t me. She was my vessel.
I stared at her and it felt like she was being seen by me for the first time. It was at that moment that I decided that she was exactly what she needed to be in that moment and every moment before and every moment to follow.
She was my home. I was journeying through time in this life because of her.
She was my first and constant relationship in life.
She was alive because of me and I was alive because of her.
We had shared every moment together.
There was not any pain or joy that we did not experience together.
I recently was talking on this topic in the comments of a mom FB group. One of the moms in that group wrote these words. With her permission I am sharing them with you:
“Our bodies are not fundamentally made so they can look or weigh a certain amount. We have bodies so we can learn and love and be loved.
So what has your body done? Have your arms lifted others’ burdens? Have they made meals? Have they created art ? Have they gardened?…Have they hugged?
Where have your legs taken you? Have you traveled?
What have you learned? What have your eyes seen? Who have you kissed? Who has heard your testimony? Do you sing? Do you write or read? What great hugs have you given and received?
What amazing music have you heard? What music have you made?
Your body has raised and cared for children…
What mountains have you climbed? What views have you seen?
What if when you look in the mirror you answered one of these questions and just paused to be grateful for your amazing body?”
Britt Hamson Kelly
There are so many messages out there about “getting your body back” after having a child. All the before and after photos of weight loss found on the magazine fronts at the grocery store, as if the after was more worthy then the before. Scales and pant sizes and tape measures, as if they could measure the infinite worth of her, my body. She is whole and complete.
From that moment on I stopped exercising in an effort to make her “better”. She already was. I stopped trying to lose weight and instead strove to support my body and listen to her. It has been a practice. But I cherish the partnership that I healed that day in the bathroom standing naked.
If you would like the free download to the Naked Mirror Exercise that I described in this article visit www.kerrienygard.com and fill out the form at the bottom of the page.
