Your Body Is Beautiful

After Baby Belly (Photo credit: tanya_little)

Your Body Is Beautiful

I can't tell you this enough to make sure you believe it. It's up to you to do that. Set aside everything you've seen and look in amazement at your individual body.

The female body is absolutely amazing! Before we are even born ourselves, our bodies are made for creation and the welcoming of new things. Babies are only part of what our bodies are made for. Those who have not had children are no less amazing. There is a constant stream of new ideas and ways of being for us to incubate and give birth to. (Men do this too, but the creative and nurturing energy is primarily feminine. But that is a more spiritual discussion than I'm going for here.)

Our bodies change, usually in fits and starts. Growing up is change enough, but puberty for girls feels really unfair. (What? Bleeding every month? Oh, you gotta be kidding.) A girl's breasts seem to come in only two sizes: “Too noticeable” or “Not noticeable enough.” Sometimes the cycles ebb and flow like a gentle tide, and sometimes it's a tsunami. Eventually, the cycles stop, as they should. The changes continue. We have subtle or less subtle weight gains and/or losses throughout our entire lives. We have a healthy sex life with someone else, or not. We have a healthy sex life with ourself, or not.

Then, there is the body that has gone through childbirth. Some are scarred from a surgical birth. Some have a little stretching. Some vaginas have a straight scar from a cut. Some have a jagged scar from a tear (as strange as this may sound, these tend to actually heal better). The stomach may be striped with stretch marks. The muscles may be stretched apart. It's hard not to be jealous of the rare body that seems to fall right back together, but you can love the body you're in. It's a gift for a short time, and there is no reason to give it anything other than love.

To prove a point, I will tell you about my body. First, there is no reason to be sorry for what I've gone through because my body is amazing. My stomach is flabby and stretch marked. The muscles are separated so that the stomach can never be flat without being cut and sewn back together, and sit-ups can in fact do more damage (I didn't know that either, but it is fact for about 15% of women). My vaginal opening was cut, torn, and stitched. Then, when my youngest child was born, the spot that was cut tore open again. At the time, I couldn't handle the thought of stitches because I had just been through way too much. So years later, a small part of my perineum (the area from the vagina to the rectum) is still open. It can cause discomfort with excess pressure. I have, usually minor, stress incontinence. I could be surgically repaired (even laser resurface the stomach), but even if I had thousands of dollars would I really want to be “fixed” in that way?

I am not broken! I am still whole. I can still make love. My body is still beautiful. Yours is too!

Some days, we feel like the door mat, but let us be the bright welcome sign in the window of life.