Loving Our Bodies

I ate too much for lunch. Very little actually feels like too much on a day like today - it's hot and all I seem to manage is laying on the floor, the couch, the bed trying to seek some cool comfort. The fans help, but the hot little dog body that wants to be close is not working for me. I'm sorry, Chibo, but you need to lay over there, maybe even FAR over there.


At any rate, while my body protested my ingestion of any solid food after the hour of 8am when temperatures topped 90, I had a feeling about my body. It's always telling me exactly what it wants. Like people are always telling us exactly who they are. Am I listening? No, because instead of just guzzling the whole pitcher of iced tea like my instincts and any sane person would have advised me, I ate lunch. No, lunch and dinner are not options at this time. A little easily digested fruit in the afternoon might work, but thin liquids are all that is appropriate for consumption in the daylight hours of hellish summer. Solid meals of salad and fresh veggies are to be reserved for sunset and beyond.


Thought I was done with hot flashes? I don't think so. There has to be some medical reason behind my inability to tolerate this weather. I guess Phoenix in the summer is out unless I get some serious AC. Maybe I could live at the mall?


At any rate, thinking about how I'm not listening to my body and wondering how I could turn back time to undo the introduction of stones into my stomach, I also started thinking about weight and weight loss. I've still got to do my "5 Reasons My Trainer is Going to Throw Back In My Face to Keep Me Buying Sessions I Can't Afford" homework for tomorrow, but I'm pretty firmly not interested in continuing along those lines. I'm more interested in pursuing yoga, taiji, qigong and fun forms of cardio like biking, hiking, boating and blading.


But even more than that, I'm just not that dissatisfied with my body. I think it takes a certain level of discontent to maintain motivation for change and I just don't have it. Sure, I'd like to get into clothes more easily, I'd like to move more quickly and be slimmer, but I also think pretty highly of myself as I am. When I look at myself in the mirror, naked or clothed, I see a pretty sexy body. Having lost some pounds in the last year, I recognize that I'm feeling better now, but I also know that losing those pounds didn't actually make shopping and finding hot clothes any easier or increase my self-esteem that much.


Beyond my love of my own body, I also look around and love the bodies of others. I don't know what I would do if my mom, listening to my advise to cut the sugar and start walking, lost her ample figure? What would I do if my lover became harder or otherwise different than the body I love? I don't want to limit anyone from changing, becoming healthier or stronger, but I also recognize that I love the softness in people's bodies as I love the softness in their souls. I have a photographer friend who loves to photograph nudes, but often their feet and especially when the feet are dirty. He describes himself as 'not particularly squeamish' and I think loving people's hair and jiggle are like that. I'm not squeamish about other people's bodies or my own.

Retreat

I'm writing this from the comfort of my bedroom at Still Meadow Retreat Center. I'm here for two days doing a qigong intensive. We call them "retreats" and I want to riff a little on what that means. Writing it makes me think re-treat as in a second treat and that is often what qigong retreat is...if you like qigong. I've done 8 retreats in the last 4 years and the retreats usually focus on forms or skills I'm learning in a regular weekly qigong course, so it's like a concentrated dose or a second dose, hence retreat.

Let's go to Webster's and see what he says about retreat:
1: an act or process of withdrawing especially from what is difficult, dangerous, or disagreeable
2: the process of receding from a position or state attained
3: a place of privacy or safety : REFUGE
4: a period of group withdrawal for prayer, meditation, study, or instruction under a director
(Military definitions excluded because I just don't want to go there - I'm tired of military analogies.)

So the meaning of retreat for us is clearly group withdrawal for meditation, study and instruction, but I like the rest of these definitions too. As much as I kick and scream about taking time out of my busy schedule to go on retreat, I also am so happy to leave behind the stresses of everyday life. Here someone cooks for me, cleans up the dishes and no one cares if I wear the same dirty sweatpants all weekend. It feels very nourishing and nurturing in that way. This also relates to the idea of refuge - the retreat center is pretty quiet and while my classmates aren't always on their best behavior, people are usually pretty introspective and supportive. The one I almost left out, but really want to meditate on in the next session is "the process of receding from a position or state attained," with the example of the retreat of glaciers. I was thinking, no, we're here to grow, but then I realized that sometimes growth means backing down a path to the last fork and going up the other way. Being on the path doesn't always mean traveling in a straight line and in fact, may never mean that.

That's my meditation for today - what fork in the road do I need to revisit?

Practically, though, I find it ironic that I'm typing on my computer, hooked up the Internet, with my cell phone plugged in beside me, while on retreat. There is something not very retreated about that. And the woman I'm sharing my house with just drove back into town to work at the clinic for a couple hours. I guess it's a matter of state of mind. Mental retreat. Okay, time for another session.