Loving-Kindness for the Body
In January, I participated in Suleika Jaouad’s 30-day New Year’s journaling project where she sent out a new writing prompt every morning. Some I pondered for a minute or so, while others inspired me to start writing right away. They all came with a gentle reminder from Suleika: “This project is not a challenge or dare. It’s a daily ritual to help nudge you, one millimeter at a time, toward the person you’re becoming.”
On day nineteen, an email titled “Corporeal Correspondence” arrived in my inbox with this prompt:
Write a letter from your body to your mind.
Let the body speak plainly—or strangely. Let it complain, confess, remember. Let it say what it has been carrying, what it knows, what it needs, what it’s tired of explaining.
As I listened for what this question stirred, I felt a surge of dread and resignation. My relationship with my body had been largely antagonistic for most of my life, so my habituated expectation was that a litany of complaints would assail me as soon as the door to unguarded truth was cracked open.
But what actually happened when I put pen to paper took me by complete surprise: a flood of gratitude immediately arose.
Thank you for no longer pushing me relentlessly. I love when you accept me as I am, and let me rest when I’m tired.
Thank you for paying attention to me, and for doing so many things that make us feel good.
Thank you for no longer being ashamed of me, or feeling constantly despondent about my imperfections.
I am relieved and overjoyed that you’ve shifted your focus to how we feel on the inside instead of how we look on the outside.
Thank you for not being afraid of me, constantly worrying about something going wrong or illnesses that might be arising.
Thank you for trusting in my ability to heal and stay healthy.
Thank you for not ignoring me, and for listening to and respecting the important truths I communicate.
Hearing these positive messages felt wonderful. They helped me acknowledge that many of the patterns I’ve always struggled with have finally begun to shift. While I know that I haven’t fully arrived at perfect self-love and self-care, my body was telling me that meaningful improvements had taken place, and they were very much noted and appreciated. This was both a cause for celebration and a compelling motivation to keep deepening my practice of loving-kindness toward my body.
By Nuchtchas
Suleika’s prompt arrived shortly after I read a post by Elizabeth Gilbert about a self-approval inventory that she does every Friday. Elizabeth says regularly answering the following “radically positive questions” about her own life in the spirit of self-acknowledgement, rather than self-criticism, has helped her build self-esteem and cultivate a more loving relationship with herself.
Elizabeth’s list of “self-approval inventory” questions:
What was the bravest thing I did this week?
What was the biggest challenge I survived this week?
What was the most creative thing I did this week?
What was the most generous thing I did this week?
What was the most sacred thing I did this week?
What was the most boundaried thing I did this week?
What was the most self-respecting thing I did this week?
What was an unhealthy thing that I did not do this week, that previous versions of myself might have done?
Where did I use my voice to tell a scary truth, to share my feelings, or to risk intimacy?
What was the most joyful thing I did this week?
As I’ve been pondering Elizabeth’s list of questions, they’ve become powerful prompts for me, boosting my self-awareness and crystallizing my personal growth goals. But question number five—What was the most sacred thing I did this week?—initially stumped me.
Suddenly, I remembered my letter of gratitude from my body, and my answer became obvious: the most sacred thing I’d done that week was to let my body speak. And then I realized the answer went even deeper: the most sacred thing I’d done was treating my body like it was sacred.
By Marilyn Matthews
Soon after answering both of these prompts, I picked up one of my favorite books—How to Train a Wild Elephant: And Other Adventures in Mindfulness—and opened it randomly for some inspiration. Staring back at me from the page was a practice called “Loving-Kindness for the Body.” Rather than just a random coincidence, this felt like a reaffirmation of the supreme importance of treating our bodies reverently.
The author—Jan Chozen Bays, who is both a meditation teacher and conventionally-trained physician—wrote the following:
Nothing can thrive under bombardment by negative energy—not children, pets, potted plants, nor our body. When our body’s appearance does not meet the standards of our Inner Perfectionist or Inner Critic, we may begin to feel subtly frustrated or angry toward it. This can also happen when a body part is in trouble, with injury or disease. We begin to fear or resent our body. This is not a healthy environment for our body, and can even create disease.
Loving-kindness is a palpable force, a healing force. People often find that when they send it to their body, they feel better physically. Mental tension creates physical tension, which restricts blood flow and constricts muscles…Loving-kindness puts all parts of us—body, mind, and heart—at ease.
Bays ends her description of this practice by saying, “Do loving-kindness practice for your body at least once a day, every day. It’s the best kind of alternative medicine.”
