Why I’m Dropping the Fight to Love My Body

This time of year invites reflection — or at least it does for me. I don’t find it to be of the resolution kind any more, but rather the quiet of looking back while looking forward and (perhaps most importantly) around.

I had a lovely conversation with a friend the other day about what yoga pose 2011 was for both of us. She chose Tadasana — it was a grounding and rooted year for her on the whole. After some thought, I chose a supported backbend. I had multiple opportunities to open myself and stay vulnerable, despite my oft-desire not to. But it wasn’t in a Kapotasana kind of way. Instead, it was in a Bridge-on-a-bolster kind of way: steadily open with the ability (or, more accurately, necessity) to stay awhile.

When the idea of my pose came to me, it popped out from seemingly nowhere. But, of course, that’s never the whole story. You see, I’m not quite as tabla rasa as I’d like to think.

Back Body

I’ve been reading Dancing the Flame of Life by Dona Holleman on my holiday break. In this book, she talks about a concept with which I was familiar but needed some clarification: the difference between our front and back bodies.

In Holleman’s estimation (and not just hers), the front body is where we do – greet people, guard against the world, move forward, etc. In contrast, the back body is where we are; it’s the being body where conscious thought is difficult but feeling is much freer.

Presence

So with this in mind, I’ve been settling into my back body. Holleman suggests doing this by first learning what it’s like to see from the back body. For example, she recommends the following: try looking at an object in front of you. You may notice that the object comes into sharp focus but everything around it is less precise. This is where most of us spend much of our days, especially those of us (like me!) who spend much of our day in front of the computer. This is the seeing of the front body.

The other part of this exercise is to look from your peripheral vision. To do this, the eyes have to soften and your field of vision becomes much wider, but nothing is in sharp focus. This is the seeing of the back body. You may even feel an energetic shift in the body as you move between the two options.

Seeing from the Back Body

As I’ve experimented with this exercise, I’ve brought it into my meditation. As I did, my 2012 word came to me. The word that rose up from deep inside was soften. 

I know what you’re probably thinking (because it’s exactly what I was thinking): What the h-e-double-hockey-sticks does soften mean?

Well, good news! This is another question I’ve been sitting with lately, and I have some ideas (shocker, I know). What’s coming up for me is softening in terms of staying really connected to my intuition, my inner voice. I’ve lived much of my life from a hard, aggressive, go-getting angle. So this year it’s my intention to listen to and (here’s the important part) follow my gut more often.

What’s Soften Got to Do with It?

Interestingly, I believe that soften is also where I am on my body image journey. I’ve often applied that same can-do attitude to making peace with my body. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. It’s just that, for me, can-do pretty quickly turns into must-do and then didn’t-do-so-must-do-over-with-1000%-nonstop-effort. To be honest, it felt like a fight more often than not.

And really, that’s not too body positive, is it?

So this year, I’m dropping the fight (which, in retrospect, didn’t make much sense to begin with but was a valuable part of my journey all the same). My strategy isn’t 27 bullet points long. It doesn’t involve a minute-by-minute accounting of my day or any specific strategies. Well, except for one: to keep my back body strong and my front body soft and to stay curious about everything in between.

What are your intentions for the new year?

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