My Body Is Sacred
Perhaps coming home to ourselves begins by coming home to the body in which we already live. 🌿💛
Yesterday, a phrase stayed with me throughout the day:
My body is sacred.
I found myself repeating it while brushing my teeth, moving around the house, and simply going about ordinary moments of the day.
At one point, I mentioned it to my daughter.
The phrase felt simple, yet the more I sat with it, the deeper it became.
What does it actually mean?
What makes a body sacred?
Like many of us, I have grown up surrounded by messages about health, weight, appearance, fitness and nutrition. Our bodies are constantly talked about, measured, improved, compared and judged.
Yet as I sat with the phrase, none of those conversations seemed to reach the heart of what I was contemplating.
Instead, I found myself wondering whether I have spent most of my life living with my body rather than truly living in it.
The question stayed with me.
My body has carried me through every chapter of my life.
Joy and grief.
Love and loss.
Stress and healing.
Learning and growth.
Motherhood.
Friendship.
Work.
Rest.
Every relationship I have ever had.
Every place I have ever lived.
Every experience I have ever known.
All of it has been experienced through this body.
And yet, how often do we pause long enough to appreciate that?
The phrase returned:
My body is sacred.
Not because it is perfect.
Not because it is young.
Not because it always does what I want it to do.
Not because it remains unchanged by age, illness, stress or time.
But because it is the place through which my life is experienced.
The more I reflected, the more I realised that my relationship with my body matters as much as how it looks.
I still care about my health.
I still care about feeling comfortable in my body.
I still notice the part of me that would like to lose weight, feel lighter, or look different.
Yet alongside that, I am learning to relate to my body with greater kindness, curiosity and respect.
Less criticism.
Less battle.
More relationship.
Do I listen to it?
Do I trust it?
Do I respect it?
Do I notice it?
Or do I spend much of my time trying to change it, improve it, criticise it or ignore it?
Our bodies are often treated as something separate from who we are.
A machine to maintain.
A problem to solve.
A vehicle carrying us through life.
Yet that no longer feels quite right to me.
My body is not separate from my experience.
It is where my experience happens.
It is through my body that I feel connection.
Through my body that I experience nature.
Through my body that I sense beauty.
Through my body that I embrace my children, cry through grief, laugh with friends and rest when I am tired.
I am not simply carried through life by my body.
I participate in life through it.
As I sat quietly in meditation this morning, I found myself inviting my body to remember.
Not a particular age.
Not a specific weight.
Not a version of myself from ten or twenty years ago.
But a feeling.
A feeling of vitality.
A feeling of ease.
A feeling of being more connected.
My body seemed to recognise something that my mind struggled to describe.
Not a memory exactly.
More a remembering.
A remembering of what it feels like to be at home within ourselves.
As I reflected further, I began to wonder whether many of us spend years living slightly outside ourselves.
Living mostly in our heads.
Thinking.
Planning.
Worrying.
Remembering.
Anticipating.
Meanwhile, the body quietly waits for our attention.
Not demanding.
Not complaining.
Simply waiting to be noticed.
Perhaps that is why the phrase touched me so deeply.
Because sacred things invite a different relationship.
We do not rush through a sacred place.
We enter it with attention.
We treat it with respect.
We care for it.
We return to it.
Perhaps our bodies deserve the same.
Not because they are perfect.
But because they are precious.
Not because they last forever.
But because they do not.
I am increasingly drawn to the possibility that caring for the body is not only a physical act.
It is also an act of presence.
An act of gratitude.
An act of relationship.
The phrase continues to stay with me.
My body is sacred.
Not as a slogan.
Not as an affirmation.
But as a remembering.
A remembering that life is not happening somewhere else.
It is happening here.
In this breath.
In this heartbeat.
In this living, changing body.
The more I sit with the phrase, the more I wonder whether sacredness is not something we find outside ourselves.
Perhaps it is something we learn to recognise within ourselves.
Within our breath.
Within our awareness.
Within our relationships.
Within this body that carries mind, emotion, memory, spirit and consciousness through the journey of being human.
Perhaps caring for what is sacred begins with paying attention.
And perhaps coming home to ourselves begins by coming home to the body in which we already live.
🌿💛
M.A.L.I. Neuro-Somatic Practice
Reflect. Reconnect. Grow.
