week 37
When we fail to remember that “the body is not an apology”
I was hopeful again for a new chance at being pregnant, and it sticking. I was probably more than hopeful, I was pretty damn sure that this time it would stick. And then it didn’t, and the rage I felt was unreal.
I was angry at my family member who announced her pregnancy after barely trying, of course telling me at the worst possible moment for my mental state (unintentionally of course, she had no way of knowing, but the timing of finding out felt like a cruel joke from the universe). I was retroactively angry at another family member for talking about celebrating her young son’s birthday that weekend, and for seemingly having no troubles in the reproductive department (or any other life department, for that matter). I was angry at my body for not doing what I wanted it to do, and angry at how I looked in a picture taken from the night before, as I stood next to the six-foot-size-zero-three-kids-easily-reproductive-Aphrodite. I was angry at the injustice of it all, and not just angry— enraged.
A podcast episode came up in my feed. I have had enough instances where the perfect book came to me at the time I needed it most, that I thought maybe it was what I needed. It was “We Can Do Hard Things: Loving Your Body Changes Your Life,” with Sonya Renee Taylor. I had kept misreading the title with the emphasis on “body changes,” thinking it was about menopause or something. But I hit play.
Sonya Renee Taylor, author of The Body is Not an Apology has the kind of voice that is simultaneously so powerful and so loving that she could probably rally troops for war and soothe them to sleep in the same breath.
“You are lonely and frightened and fearful and exhausted right now believing you’re not enough.”
Yes, I am.
“Radical self-love to me, I always describe as it’s your inherent sense of enoughness. It is your inherent sense of divinity. It can’t be externally gained. It can’t be externally magnified. I say the same thing that decided that there should be daisies and butterflies and the river Nile and sunrises also decided that there should be a Sonya and that’s Devine. And if we can connect to that, if I can connect to the sense that the most stunning sunset I ever saw is made of the same material reality as my own being, how is that not miraculous? How is that not phenomenal?”
But we are living in a world with power structures everywhere, and the body is a politicized power structure in our society. I knew this, but I didn’t realize it in my bones as Sonya has. It is what makes me feel behind and stuck and left out and less than and pitied as I am in and with this body that has experienced a hard time doing what society tells me is my body’s main purpose as a woman. It is what makes me rage at those who have not had to feel like their bodies have betrayed them in this way. It is what makes me want to push people away, throw my phone out the window, scream at the top of my lungs, burn everything down. It is the giving in to power structures by letting them make me feel less than, and its purpose has been to distract me from the overwhelmingness of the pain and grief and sense of not having control over anything. But by clinging to this distraction, not only has my rage burned with the ability to consume my mind, further inflame by body, but as Sonya points out— it’s upholding a messed up hierarchical system that values certain bodies over other bodies.
I don’t know how to completely honor my body during this painful time, but I know that I must try this radical self-acceptance. I wrote in my journal:
I miss two days ago when I still felt hope. I feel so stupid now for hoping, but I also miss it. Hope and joy felt like home. Maybe it is my home, and I’m on this miserable trip away from home, and I just need to find my way back to it. Even when I can’t and I don’t know the direction, I can close my eyes and remember what home felt like. I can remember the joy of making things and feeling calm and just being in a state of flow. I can be sad and feel what I feel. I can let people hug me and not push them away. I can let my rage melt into letting myself feel what I actually feel, which is sadness and disappointment and confusion and grief. I can let myself lie with rage when it comes up, and let it pass through me, and then let it melt away. I can remember that my body is not an apology, and that it’s doing its job to try to protect me. I can honor it and love it and do what makes it feel good and give it lots of rest. I can love myself for trying to hard and also remember that I don’t have to try so hard. And also remember that maybe one year from now or one week from now or one moment from now, everything could look totally different. In any moment I can choose to ask myself: “what is the healthiest thing I can do for myself in this moment?” And then honor it. I love my body for telling me what it needs, for protecting me, for giving me clues about what is right for me. We’re on this journey together.