Happy Birthday to me! I had planned to send out a photo of me doing a yoga pose showing that sixty can be strong, flexible and hot-for-60. And then…
Over lunch, a student, who is a photographer, showed me a photo she wanted to post for my birthday. She thought it was beautiful, and really captured ME. When she showed me, I immediately zoomed in on my abs and said NO WAY! Please don’t post that. I said the words ugly, horrible, gross. About my body. My amazing, strong, flexible, healthy body. It was instant, the embarrassment and shame I felt.
Why? Not because my abs were all crunched up. But because in training yesterday, we were talking about Soma Psychology. The relationship between mind and body. Loving our body for what it can do, versus how it looks. Letting go of society’s rules of what is beautiful, and seeing our beauty in a body that IS. Stretch marks, cellulite, acne, wrinkles, pounds, all of it.
My student didn’t have to stretch far to help me make the connection. I wasn’t walking my talk. In fact, I think I saw tears in her eyes when she said, “Mama DD, you taught me to love my body just as it is.” Ugh.
Those moments when you know you have to turn a corner. The place you’re in is painful, and so is making the changes necessary to grow and expand to the next place.
“And the time came when the risk it took to remain tight in the bud, was more painful that the risk it took to blossom.” ~Anais Nin
For 42 Years I have been at the front of a room, or camera, in skin tight clothes. I have watched each wrinkle form, each pound add, each body part drop, and thankfully, those skin tight clothes help hold things in and up. Somewhere in my 40’s I embraced a body that was aging, and stopped trying to be 20. I worked on being a strong, flexible healthy woman in her 40’s. Then 50’s. And now 60’s.
You’ve undoubtedly heard me preach “love your body as it is”.
As I step into this new decade, I commit to walking my talk. Following in the footsteps of women like Sarah Nicole Landry On Instagram. Seriously. She is a Queen.
Please let me know how you are working to love your body as it is.
So this is 60. I think I just let myself exhale. Thank you for being here with me.
PS. I am asking for donations to Yoga Forward for my birthday. Please drop one if you can. Any amount goes a long way to help me continue my mission of taking yoga where it isn’t!
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