Your Body is Good
Yes, you there. The one who has compared endless pieces of herself to those of others; foot size, nose structure, how symmetrical her face is, how her body looks in oversized shirts that are all over your FYP, how long her nails are, or how thick her hair is.
The one who:
wished she didn’t breathe so loudly going up the stairs at school so she holds her breath until stars glitter behind her
eye lids.goes to the restroom after eating a large meal until all the shame isn't sitting heavy in her belly anymore.
practices how to say her name on the first day of class and, when it comes out weird, thinks about it for weeks.
has made herself smaller when a room doesn’t have enough space to hold her.
You, who have begged and borrowed to make your body look or do how or what you want it to. So yes, you!
Can I tell you something? It is 100% completely true and I believe to the depth of my bones about my own body and yours as well.
Your body is good. It. Is. Good. It is good!
For this moment, can you not come at me with a “but...” we’ll talk about that another time.
Beautiful friend, your body is good. Can you say it aloud? “My body is good.” Say it again.
I am sorry you have been led to believe otherwise. When your mom looks at herself in the mirror and criticizes features that look eerily similar to those staring back in your own mirror. Dear one I am deeply sorry if no one told you that your body is good. It grieves me to consider the words that have been spoken over your body.
But lemme tell you something: your body is good!! It was made so intricately and with such intention. It is the final flourish of a potter’s hand and your miraculously created body is lovingly given the name “very good” by the potter.
And friend, we get to choose. We can listen to the lies of worldly beauty standards, people in our lives and our own critical minds that our bodies are not good or the truth that it is inherently good because we were put together in our creator's image. Imagine a world where we believe our bodies are good and the words of others cannot penetrate the truth of our creators' words. Imagine waking up and looking in the mirror and seeing something good and not trying to make what is in the mirror good by our own strength. Imagine looking at other people’s bodies and speaking life over them, “your body is good.” When we change how we see our physical bodies, a lot of other stuff can change too. And it can be as simple as truly believing that our bodies are, in fact, very good.
(Words inspired by Jess Connolly’s book Breaking Free from Body Shame.)
