This Body of Mine

::Watch­ing::

Lately, I have been watch­ing Oprah’s Next Chap­ter. I am always inter­ested in learn­ing more about those who are suc­cess­ful, their suc­cess and how they man­age their lives is intrigu­ing to me. I often feel like they have unlocked a mys­tery to life that I have not. They found out how to open the doors that I have not. How­ever, the real­ity is they have chal­lenges unlock­ing cer­tain doors and they do strug­gle to over­come cer­tain walls in their lives. When I watched the inter­view she did with Chris Christie in it I espe­cially liked the way she and Chris Christie dis­cussed about their weight and body images. I can relate to their strug­gles. It is hard to know that you can suc­cess­fully man­age so many other areas of your life but strug­gle with your body, weight and how to man­age your health.

::My body::

Watch­ing them talk about body image and weight strug­gles made me think about how this year I have com­mit­ted to work to love my body. For bet­ter, for worse and for the extra stretch marks I carry. I have strug­gled with lov­ing my body for as long as I can remem­ber. Judg­ing, mea­sur­ing, belit­tling it when com­pared to oth­ers. Instead of rec­og­niz­ing that I have been given a beau­ti­ful body. Stretch marks, big hips and all. This body has done amaz­ing acts, it has taken me to the fire of life and through it. This body is mine.

::My Health::

And as part of lov­ing my body I am aware I have to be more con­scious of car­ing for it. It is a gift that I have been given from God one I have not fully embraced as I should. So I have been focus­ing on get­ting healthy, on what I put in my body, how I care for my body, and the sleep I get {or don’t get}, the way I move and many other things. Also, while I know my weight should not define me and for the first time it hasn’t, but I am pleased to have lost 17 pounds since Sep­tem­ber, this isn’t the baby weight from Baby Girl. I lost that weight fairly quickly after her, no this is the weight and the bag­gage I brought with me into my preg­nancy with her. After I had D-man I lost a good amount of the baby weight imme­di­ately after. How­ever, my weight crept back up dur­ing the months after. In deal­ing with post­par­tum depres­sion, other health con­cerns, fin­ish­ing my dis­ser­ta­tion, the spe­cial needs of my chil­dren, and the stresses of every day life I became focused on sur­vival but not true health. And as a result I didn’t care for my body, my health and my soul like I should have dur­ing that time, I did begin to work at it. I started on the path. The path I am now on, the one that kept me from hav­ing a hard preg­nancy with baby girl and hard recov­ery. And know­ing that my body is car­ry­ing a lit­tle less of that bag­gage I brought with me, the bag­gage I need to shed, reminds me on the right path.

::Hop­ing::

I’m hope­ful that in going through this I will break down my self-made walls and unlock doors. The ones I closed years ago. Maybe I can also learn to appre­ci­ate that I am a work in progress.

Tagged as: body image, body issue, caring for self, getting healthy, health, Life, me, motherhood