I’m excited to share this from Bella Mia magazine, released in June. Enjoy this powerful issue with Christine Miskinis on the cover and interview inside. You’ll also find a “one year later” interview with Madeline Stuart about her unusual career as a model. Loads of other articles, too.
I hope you enjoy new and improved BellaMia magazine. With big changes, Bella Mia comes back to Issuu as a free publication. I totally recommend you get it, it’s gorgeous with sleek design and excellent articles. To get your own free copy delivered to your inbox each month, go to www.issuu.com/bellamiamag
This issue is all about Body Love. It seems to be that each issue moves everyone even more. It’s all about empowerment, which starts with loving ourselves where we are.
Body Love
By Claire Sierra
Originally published in Bella Mia magazine, June 2016
I have a body. I’m grateful—mostly. It’s pretty impossible to be here without one. And looking objectively, as bodies go, I’m fairly lucky. I’m healthy (mostly—a few issues here and there), agile and active. Asthma, which I struggled with in my 30s and 40s, has abated. And according to my doctor, I’m within normal weight my height (body mass index, etc.)
But I must admit I haven’t been feeling the Body Love lately. Last year we made a major move (I mean, a full-on life transition), and I put on a few pounds (ok, 10 or 15 to be not so exact). My yoga clothes still fit, but the rest is pretty snug.
I know this big shift has been stressful, my living space is not optimal, and so my eating has not been so great. So what? What’s a few extra pounds on an otherwise healthy woman? It doesn’t feel right: I don’t feel like me, happy in my body. And yet I know that hating my body is not the solution.
How do we love and appreciate where we are at when it’s not where we want to be? How do we accept ourselves and the choices we’ve made, when it’s resulted in situations we are not happy with?
That’s the dilemma—and the path.
For thousands of years women have been blamed and shamed for the ills of society because of our bodies. We’ve been labeled heathens and temptresses because of our potent sexuality and the allure of our bodies. So we did the only safe, sane thing: we distanced and disconnected from our messy bodies.
Eons ago we learned to hide, control, deny and minimize ourselves to make our messy physicality go away. So no surprise, most women have a mediocre if not poor relationship with their bodies. How ironic! It’s the most basic thing about you—it’s who you are.
While, of course, you are also mind, emotions, and spirit; you are intrinsically in and of your body. You cannot get away from it and still be here.
So we attempt to subdue our animal nature with methods to reduce, primp, and polish ourselves into acceptableness. Our feminine essence, the spark of radiance we intrinsically are—is within us. Yet all the focus is on the outer shell.
We’re missing an opportunity.
The true vitality and aliveness of our body is an incredible untapped source of feminine power. Our ability to create life, and many other things (bread, art, gardens) comes through our magnificent bodies. But if we are constantly in a state of denial and self-rejection, we deny that creative expression.
We must somehow come to love the body challenges that we have been blessed with. Regardless of the situation you find yourself in, it is a lesson, a teacher, and therefore a blessing.
What if you were to love yourself 100% completely just the way you are? Loving and accepting doesn’t mean being resigned to what is. It just means stopping hating your body—because when you do, you’re hating yourself. And that’s never going to be fruitful or empowering, is it?
So here’s a guided meditation and journalling practice to bring you into deeper relationship with your body. Take a minute to close your eyes, breath and get quiet. Tune into your body, that lovely luscious animal self within.
Breathe into ALL parts of yourself. Even the ones you’ve been unhappy about. Observe if there are places you avoid or ignore (the too-fat belly, tired eyes, or annoying knee that won’t cooperate.) Notice any shame, disappointment or anger you feel as you relax into to those off-limits places.
Send some love and appreciation for the ways they’ve protected or served you (even if you don’t know what that is.) Ask these parts what they are trying to teach you. When you get a sense of what that is, wonder about other ways you could provide that for yourself.
At first this can seem hard—you don’t consciously want the problem your body gives you. But ponder it a bit. There often are unconscious messages hidden in your tissue that are ready to be revealed and released. That can be very freeing.
For example, if extra weight provides you comfort or protection, is there another way you could give yourself that? If your asthma is a suffocating sadness from unprocessed loss, could you talk to that person, or let it go? Or if your knee keeps you from having to clean the house, could you just hire someone anyway, even without the pain? Let your mind be creative.
Be gentle with yourself. This can be hard to unearth without someone guiding you. End the siege against your body. Find tiny, simple ways to reclaim love and adoration for the amazing vehicle that carries your spirit around.
That’s the path to Body Love.
Claire Sierra, MA, LFT, is the author of The Magdalene Path – Awaken the Power of Your Feminine Soul ©. An Arts Therapist and True Purpose™ Master Coach, Claire has guided thousands of frustrated women into lives of deeper meaning, ease and new direction, for over 2 decades. She uses art to help women at midlife who feel lost & confused about their purpose, connect to their divine guidance for clarity & confidence about their true path.
To support greater re-connection she and her husband recently became proprietors of the Balch Hotel, a boutique destination retreat in the Columbia River Gorge, in Oregon. To learn more: BalchHotel.com. For free resources on your path, go to: MagdalenePath.com for sample chapters, meditations, audio interviews and more.
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