Building a strong relationship with your body is something that only you can do, and a good start is acknowledging what you’ve been taught about how you “should” treat it and separating those things from what you believe to be true for you. Take a good look at what you’ve learned from your family, media, pop culture, religion, and community. What might be in there that doesn’t ring true for you? 

We’re like these living nesting dolls of urgency, buried in container after container – each reinforcing the drive to go faster, squeezing our essence smaller and smaller until it seems like a tired old joke. 

Can you picture yourself like that or get a sense of it? Imagine what could happen if even just one of those nesting containers broke wide open?

Just like we’re not supposed to be happy all the time, we’re not supposed to feel good all the time. That’s not how we’re built. The hard and uncomfortable are as they are for a reason — maybe it’s so we can learn where we’ve faltered at resourcing ourselves, or maybe it’s so we can lean into our communities when we need help, or maybe it’s so we slow down and reflect on our own roles in contributing to our discomfort. Maybe it’s all of the above and then some. I don’t know. But I do know there’s a lot to learn in this space.

A good bit of this comes with affirming a trusting relationship with our bodies — not just mind→body, but also body→mind. This relationship is a two-way street. Our minds need to be receptive to listening to our bodies, and then make decisions that support what’s being heard.

Among all the personal development work I’ve been doing, one of the largest challenges I’ve adopted this year was to disengage from treating my appearance as a primary source of my identity. I have long-seeded body image issues, as do many of us, but this past year, I took on a mission that really tested those: I quit smoking.

How we treat our bodies is literally how we live. And living your life from a place of balance and centeredness makes everything more grand. It helps you show up with love instead of fear, helps you grow relationships, and ponder the world with the wonder of a child instead of the stress of an overworked adult. It helps you regain a sense of freedom, not just in your body, but in your life.