Realization

This morning when I was getting ready to face the day I had a realization that kind of stopped me in my tracks. I've been challenged to do affirmations and to think positively about this fertility situation as I muddle through the process. I sat at the mirror prepping to do my morning "transformation to public self," and I thanked God for this body of mine, despite it's scars and imperfections. I don't know what I said, but it was something like, "Thank you for the body you have given me. It is a temple that carries my spirit, and the Holy Spirit, and has the power to hold life." 

I thought of my "yoga for fertility" classes, and I affirmed my connections to to the bigger universe and my relationships. I looked at my belly and I realized that my body strengths as well as my body quirks were all a written record of who I am today, and where I have gone before; what I have eaten, what I have believed and how I exercise (or not) is all an imprint of what kind of a steward I have been as I  take care of this physical thing called "self." 

I went back in my mind to the shame I have always felt as I looked at  my stomach. When I was a little girl, with two very lean older brothers, we spent full summers swimming and roughhousing in our backyard pool. Their physical differences from mine stood out daily to me like a scarlet letter. They had not one ounce of fat on them, and their ribs and pelvic bones protruded strongly as if trying to escape from inside of their skin. Meanwhile they affectionately giggled as I sat in a pool float, with a roll that became something like a smiley face at the area where my belly button was hidden somewhere unseen. I laughed with my brothers and even made that smiley face talk, but I always longed for my body to look more like theirs. Somehow, as much as I tried, my stomach always (in my mind) looked more like a bowl of jello than that lean hard look that I longed for, and that my brothers seemed to be given without a second thought. That was a major a source of sadness and lack of self worth, and I carried it from before elementary school... I think even to today (despite the fact that just this week I was referred to as "a rail" by someone at work). 

Back to today... as I look at how God has made me, at Chinese Medicine and how these meridians work (which I truly do not pretend to understand) along with all of this positive thinking stuff... I realized I've found something important today. The part of my body that was intended to be the source of life and joy has been a source of shame since as long as I can remember. As I write this, I'm reminded of a self portrait that I made many years ago, before I was married (and when marriage seemed like an impossibility) that showed myself planted (part human, part tree) next to water... Biblically, this sounds like a good thing and brings references to being planted next to living water. In the self portrait, though, I was in the sand.... seemingly unable to get anywhere near the water, and my stomach was crossed out as I felt cut off from even the thought of marriage, and children, and that life source seemed untouchable, turned off and blocked from all sense of power. 

So now, this makes me think....When I  finally got married at age 35 and I first began to think about the possibility of getting pregnant six years ago, I fearfully thought, "What would pregnancy do to my body? My sense of freedom? My independence?" There was a pride in me that did not want to change or get stretchmarks. I feared getting fat,  being the center of attention with a baby bump, and I dreaded the thought of strangers touching my stomach (shame) as if they were long lost friends.  All this because of what? Because I didn't want to lose the figure that I had  (even though I was filled with self loathing and never felt proud of it anyway)? 

So now...This is clearly a process, but today I feel like I've been told to love my body. It is a gift from God, and to dishonor what He has given me is to dishonor God's creation. My scars, my beauty and my imperfections are "my perfection." They are my personal history. Perhaps this is part of the mind transformation that needs to happen before I become a mom. I think I need to start working on an updated self portrait.