Thank You, Body!

I have spent the last twenty-something years "dealing" with my weight.  Various forms of diets and programs, various states of being overweight, various states of being active (or inactive).  Throughout all of that the message was pretty much the same..."I don't like my body the way it is."

Yesterday during my coach training, we were talking about coaching clients around the subjects of health and aging.  Our trainer, Keith, was talking about resistance and how it leads to pain.  I can't remember exactly what he said, but all of a sudden it dawned on me...I have been resisting my body for most of my life.  Not just not accepting my body, but actively resisting it.

I have but one body in this lifetime.  And instead of thanking it for all the multitudes of things that it has allowed me to do and experience so far, I resist it.  I get angry with it.  I insult it.  I abuse it.  This amazing body of mine, that for three years allowed me to train first for several 100-mile bike rides and then for several triathlons, including a half-Ironman.  This body that after doing two or three workouts in a day would say to me "You want to do that again tomorrow?  Okay!  And again the day after that?  Okay!"  This powerful machine that is limber and strong and ever-regenerating.  This vessel that in a few months is going to allow me to create life inside of me.  While I have enormous respect for the human body in general and how astounding it is, rarely have I turned that inward to my own body.

Through this realization, a new door is open to me.  I now have the opportunity to really thank my body for everything it gives me, and to treat it with the respect that it has earned.  To keep present in my mind at all times what a gift my body is to me.  With as strong as I suspect the mind-body connection to be, this gratitude for my body may have power beyond my knowing!

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