10/09/2025
Iāve found myself reflecting lately on the stories we carry about our bodies and the ways they ripple into our minds, shaping how we move through the world, how we see ourselves, and how we allow ourselves to be seen.
These stories donāt just stay in the mind, they live in the body tooā¦ showing up as tightness in the chest, tension in the shoulders, a belly that holds worry, a nervous system that never finds the rest it needs.
I cannot begin to tell you the multitude of ways I used to speak about myself and my body, and if I am truly honest those words were never gentle, never infused with care, never the kind of language I would offer to someone I loved.
They were sharp and dismissive, built from the belief that harshness would somehow shape me into someone better, as if constant criticism would carve me into my own worthiness. What it created instead was depletion, stress, and disconnection.
I lived for so long with the opposite of peace woven through me, my body holding what my mind could not resolve. Every unkind word became a notch on the nervous system, a reminder that these stories are not just thoughts but imprints that take root in the body and shape the way we live.
Over time those struggles became a doorway into deeper understanding. The most beautiful thing aging has revealed to me is that it carries one of lifeās great paradoxes. In youth the body is vibrant and strong, yet the mind is unsettled, caught in comparison, always reaching for perfection. As the years pass the body changes, lines appear, skin softens and tells its story, yet with those changes comes wisdom, a kinder voice that no longer obsesses over how the world sees us, but instead asks how we are willing to see ourselves.
No amount of force, no rigid plan, no shaming will ever lead to the love we are cravingā¦ and that love is our own love.
The beginning of change often comes with subtlenessā¦ a small act of self-kindness, noticing the words we use toward ourselves and choosing something more tender, placing a hand on the body and thanking it for carrying us through another day. That one act creates ripples. When the body is met with kindness, the mind feels it. When the mind is met with compassion, the body exhales.
This is where awareness becomes the anchor. Each time we breathe with ourselves instead of against ourselves, each time we let thoughts pass without tightening, each time we give space to the sensations of the body, we return to what meditation really is ā not escape or performance, but a doorway back into the steady presence of the soul.
Beneath every story and judgment there is the space in between, the resting place of the soul. A space where how you look, what title you carry, or whether you think youāve āmade itā does not matter in any way.
Your soul rests luminous and waiting, asking only that you turn inward long enough to remember who you really are.
