Healing Our Relationship With Our Bodies on a Deeper Level

A few months ago, a series of “events” helped me touch into healing my relationship with my body on a different level… at least a little. My hope is that by sharing these events, the therapeutic value they had for me can be passed onto you. AND… here is what I also know. The healing that came from all of these things, didn’t really come from the content. It came, luckily, in a way that I was able to embody. These “events” touched me on a heart, soul, and physical level. These are the levels we must work on. We will not transform our relationship with our bodies (or with anything else we are wanting to shift) through content, through more thinking or more criticism. The first of these “events,” was watching the movie, “The Substance” with Demi Moore.

I’m not even sure if I am recommending this movie, but the premise is Demi Moore’s character decides to take a substance which essentially allows her to live as a younger version of herself, but she must live as her older self every other week. The relationship between the younger and older self devolves quickly into “self-hatred.” The movie a really highlights the lengths we will go to stay young and resist the natural process of aging. The absurdity of our death-adverse, age-adverse culture is palpable, and the  deep self-hatred that often informs the relationship with our bodies often i.

Not a few weeks later, I went to see the movie “Come See Me in the Good Light“ about my friend, Andrea Gibson (they/them), who was diagnosed with incurable cancer. 

When they said how much they wish they could see themselves as an older human with wrinkles and gray hair, it felt deeply poignant. They also made the comment, “I don’t even care what my body looks like anymore, I just want a body.“

There was something so deeply touching about witnessing someone who is walking alongside death so closely and the longing for any body they could have.

And the third thing was the discovery of this amazing human, Alok Vaid-Menon. Among other brilliant insights, Alok highlights, the ultimate truth that we are all going to die. And there is something about the way that they speak about death, that highlights the absurdity of how much we do to stay young. 

“From deaths point of view, life is just a stand-up comedy,” they highlight in the video below. And all the absurd things we do to stay young, stay wrinkle- free, are just bits in our silly routine.

I am also aware that two of these three teachers are trans folks and I don’t think that’s an accident. Trans folks have to navigate the relationship with their bodies on a  mlevel that cis folks don’t and I’m deeply grateful for the wisdom Andrea and Alok share with the world. They are both beautiful examples of how trans wisdom makes the world so much better.

I do want to name a both/and here. Alongside the culture of staying forever, young, we simultaneously have a misguided story that “ if we are old, we cannot move, or sit on the floor, or go for hikes etc. This is a dance that we must navigate. On the one hand, we must practice self compassion for our changing bodies as we get older and have some grace about what they look like, what they’re able to do, our overall energy levels, etc. And on the other hand, I want to continue to help this avatar of my body feel as good as it possibly can so that I can continue to do the things that I love to do: play with my kids, hike in nature, go out dancing from time to time. 

We are simultaneously being invited to deconstruct and unlearn the patriarchal bullshit that our worth is in our looks and that we should resist aging at all costs AND holding a little bit of the “age ain’t nothin’ but a number” medicine.

Transformation will come through experiences that get to these deeper levels and it will come with the practice of self compassion. So here is my biggest invitation. Wherever you are on your journey, whether that is healing your relationship with your body, with an addiction, with another human, with yourself, or just navigating this tender time in the collective, trust yourself, trust self-compassion (and if you can’t get to that, try for neutrality), and trust that you are exactly where you need to be. Ask “in what direction would wisdom and love have me point my feet?”